**Acknowledgements**

From a conceptual perspective, the results confirm what scholars have long pointed out the importance of sociocultural factors in the decision to be leader [8]. Our study therefore provides insights regarding the informal factors that may strengthen leadership in the current complex environments. This study emphasizes that one of the most important approaches to understanding leadership is self-leadership [12] from a sociocultural perspective. Before a person can lead others, they must be able to lead and navigate by themselves, to attain desired behaviors [94]. A more recent approach found similarity between self-leadership and authentic leadership [95], reflecting the notion whereby an individual is "the master of his or her own domain" ([96]: 293). Therefore, for leadership to flourish, it is important to consider

Practical implications can be drawn for education and business, regarding the informal factors to be studied and promoted in order to have more developed societies. Schools and organizations prepare new generations of leaders through strategies to encourage and promote rational thinking leaders, responsibility, social capital, acceptance and tolerance for diversity or complex situations. It is also important to understand how power can be exercised and leadership endorsed in various contexts. One recent approach, in line with these ideas, is mindfulness in leadership [97]. This approach suggests that leaders who navigate multiple demands develop and display certain personal and social qualities, such as tolerance [98] and creativity [99, 100]. The intention of the current work was to expand the leadership development concepts and ideas that make groups and organizations more psychologically safe [43]. Leadership is a complex and dynamic process [101], and therefore, this study should be interpreted in light of its key limitations. This analysis was conducted at country level; future research should integrate multilevel analysis [102] that includes individual, relational and collective levels [103, 104]. An individual self-concept might focus on traits that distinguish someone from others in the sociocultural environment. Relational or interpersonal self-identities are based on relationships between the individual and important others. Finally, collective self-concepts are those in which an individual defines the self in terms of membership of important groups or organizations [5]. This future research can take lessons from the sociocultural approach, specifically the cultural-cognitive dimension [27]. This dimension explains that internal interpretive processes are shaped by external (environmental) or cultural frameworks and that individual behavior depends on the interpretation of their contexts and the consensus within the group of reference [105]. Future research therefore needs to examine this topic in a longitudinal study that includes more periods of time or to use qualitative methods that may yield novel or unanticipated findings [106]. Future studies may provide more knowledge by exploring the effect of the context on leadership, incorporating the role of informal institutions, and not only trying to identify attributes that may (or may not) be universally endorsed or effective in different environments. Although leadership literature has considered national cultural contexts (defined by geography or cultural traits), few authors address topics related to micro cultures or individual identity obtained through a way of seeing the world and the context in which it was developed. Finally, due to the close relationship between leadership and entrepreneurship, to expand this study toward the analysis of the influence of leadership styles on entrepreneurial activity could contribute to the current

the context in which a person develops.

52 Leadership

debates on the leadership research [107, 108].

David Urbano acknowledges the financial support from projects ECO2017-87885-P (Spanish Ministry of Economy & Competitiveness) and 2017-SGR-1056 (Economy & Knowledge Department—Catalan Government). Also, Claudia Felix acknowledges support from Tecnológico de Monterrey.
