Leading “us” to better health: Exercise instructors’ engagement in identity leadership behaviours promotes perceptions of effort, positive affect, mental well-being, and physical health.

Physical activity and exercise are essential to individuals’ psychological and physical health. However, inactivity remains a worldwide problem. In response, researchers have begun applying identity leadership to physical activity and exercise domains to consider how the development of shared group identities can encourage greater activity levels. The present research advances our theoretical and applied understanding of this approach by examining how perceptions of an exercise instructor engaging in identity leadership are associated with individuals’ perceptions of mobilization of effort, mental well-being, and overall physical health. In Study 1, regression analyses indicated that after controlling for group identification, identity leadership accounted for a significant amount of variance in mobilization of effort, mental well-being, and physical health. Further, all mediation models indicated significant indirect effects between identity entrepreneurship on perceptions of mental well-being and physical health through group identification and mobilization of effort. In Study 2, we manipulated the four principles of identity leadership within an exercise setting using an experimental vignette methodology. We found that observing an exercise leader in a photo slideshow vignette engaging (vs. not) in identity leadership, produced greater perceptions of group identification, mobilization of effort, positive affect, intention to return to class, and lower negative affect both in participants who met (MVPA-M) and did not meet (MVPA-NM), current moderate—to—vigorous physical activity guidelines. Together, our two studies extend the current literature by recognizing the potential of group exercise instructors’ engagement in identity leadership to positively influence perceptions of mental well-being and physical health of individuals.