Action learning is being used increasingly as a primary method for building leadership skills and improving leadership behavior. This article discusses the emergence of action learning as a methodology for developing leaders and how action learning is effective in developing and sustaining leadership skills and behavior. A comparison of the effectiveness of action learning to other methodologies currently used to develop leadership competencies is presented. Furthermore, the article illustrates how action learning can be tailored to develop specific leadership competencies identified by individual action learning team members while, at the same time, developing other leadership skills needed in contemporary organizations. Four case examples illustrate how action learning built leadership competencies at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Boeing, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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