Leadership Development

Introduction

In 2008, Advances in Developing Human Resources (ADHR) featured a special issue on the emerging practices in leadership development (LD) with the goal to “provide leadership development scholars and practitioners with new ideas for research and leadership development practice” (Ardichvili & Manderscheid, 2008, p. 619). An important topic in 2008, the field of LD continues to evolve at an unforeseen pace. LD “is now central to HRD [human resource development] theory, research, and practice” (Madsen, 2012, p.134) and “is arguably one of the most important activities undertaken by HRD professionals” (Callahan, Whitener, & Sandlin, 2007, p. 146).

According to a report from Bersin by Deloitte (2014) based on research in 300 organizations in the United States, training budgets have steadily increased from a significant decline in 2008 and 2009. Moreover, the study discovered that LD made up 35% of total learning and development budgets. Loew and O’Leonard (2012) reported that LD is an annual business of 14 billion dollars in the United States alone.

Leaders are central to fostering the development of healthy work cultures. According to Schein (2010), “culture is ultimately created, embedded, evolved, and ultimately manipulated by leaders” (p. 3). Stogdill stated in 1974 that “there are almost as many definitions (of leadership) as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept” (p. 259). A simple search on Google yields millions of definitions (and our recent search on Amazon turned up over 20,000 books on the topic of leadership). For the purpose of this article, we use Yukl’s (2009) definition, who argued that leadership is “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (p. 2).

A number of scholars suggested that, in an attempt to define LD, it is important to distinguish between the terms leader development and leadership development (LD) (Ardichvili & Manderscheid, 2008; Day, 2000; Day, Fleenor, Atwater, Sturm, & McKee, 2014). Day argued that leader development aims at building human capital, while LD aims at building social capital. Day et al. (2014) posited that “leader development focuses on developing individual leaders whereas leadership development focuses on a process of development that inherently involves multiple individuals (e.g., leaders and followers or among peers in a self-managed work team)” (p. 64). Day, Harrison, and Halpin (2009) further pointed out that the design of individual leader development programs needs to take into account the fact that such development is always part of a larger process of adult development. This position corresponds to Kegan’s view of leader development as a progression through stages of moral growth and individuation (Kegan, 1982; Kegan & Lahey, 2009). The implication is that LD efforts need to take into consideration individuals’ progression though stages of cognitive and moral development, and also their place in the larger context of organizational and societal influences, including culture, power and politics, and continuous learning processes. Reviewing a variety of perspectives on LD, Mabey (2013) pointed out that while the majority of LD academic writing and practical activity is driven by the functionalist assumptions with “primary concern for good design and enhanced corporate performance” (p. 359), interpretive, dialogic, and critical perspectives and discourses on LD provide alternative views of the meaning of this phenomenon.

Since 2007, ADHR published four issues related to leadership and LD. Stanley (2009) led an issue on leadership from the perspectives of African American women, Mumford and Gibson (2011) edited an issue on leadership and creativity, Madsen (2012) developed an issue titled Women and Leadership in Higher Education, and Edwards and Turnbull (2013) edited an issue called A Cultural Approach to Leadership Development. Furthermore, a significant number of individual articles on LD-related research were published in other HRD journals, leading management journals, and in specialized publications like Leadership Quarterly and the Journal of Leadership and Organization Studies (e.g., Clarke, 2013; Ligon, Hunter, & Mumford, 2008; Mabey, 2013; Pless & Maak, 2011). These special issues and individual articles made important contributions to our understanding of various aspects of LD processes, but none of these publications had a goal of providing an overview of a wide range of emerging or current practices in LD. It must be noted that a literature review-based article by Day et al. (2014), published in the Leadership Quarterly, provided a comprehensive overview of research on LD, conducted over the last 25 years. However, the goal of the article was not to discover new, emerging trends and approaches; rather, it focused on understanding how research on LD has evolved in terms of its methodology and areas of focus (e.g., focus on skills, personality, social development, 360 feedback, and self-development).

Therefore, in light of the emergence of new trends and approaches and recent significant changes in many of the established practices, we believe it is important to re-visit topics related to LD practice and theory in a special issue of ADHR, a specialized HRD journal, catering not only to scholars but, most importantly, to HRD scholar-practitioners. To achieve this goal, this special issue includes contributions made by academics and scholar-practitioners and covers a range of topics, with articles falling broadly in two categories: contributions discussing emerging leadership models and frameworks that are providing theoretical basis for current and future LD practices; and articles documenting and discussing new trends and practices in LD. Accordingly, this introductory article provides a brief overview of new theoretical frameworks, informing LD practice, and then discusses emerging LD practices and implications for HRD.

Emerging Models and Frameworks, Informing LD Practice

Despite the fact that there is a wide range of validated theories and frameworks that can be used as a foundation for LD programs, numerous academic and practitioner articles and reports, published in recent years, suggest that most LD programs fail to achieve their goals (Gurjian, Halbeisen, & Lane, 2014; Kaiser & Curphy, 2013). Sinar, Wellins, Ray, Abel, and Neal (2015) found that only 15% of human resource professionals rated their future leadership bench strength as satisfactory. Different scholars offer different explanations of this perceived failure of LD efforts. Gurjian et al. (2014) pointed out the lack of attention to specific contextual factors when developing LD programs, a gap between teaching and reflection and real work applications, underestimation of entrenched mind-sets, and failure to measure results. Likewise, Kaiser and Curphy (2013) listed the lack of evaluation and measurement of LD outcomes beyond Kirkpatrick’s first level as one of the main problems; in addition, their list included persistent confusion about the definition of leadership, over-reliance on competency models, focus on individuals and individual development as opposed to focus on team leadership, and the lack of acknowledgment of the central role of power relationships. Petrie (2014) focused on the excessive faith in competency models as foundation for developing leadership programs, and Ruderman, Clerkin, and Connolly (2014) pointed out the lack of focus on collective (as opposed to individual) leadership. Kellerman (2012) pointed to the importance of looking at leadership as embedded in a context. However, although recent leadership theory has included more attention to context as well as an increased focus on a more dyadic leadership model, Kellerman concluded, “while I argue for a leadership model that is more holistic and inclusive (leaders, followers, and context), the model that persists and prevails remains resolutely leader-centric” (p.11).

With this in mind, there is a need to “move away from isolated methods and toward an interconnected process of personal and organizational discovery and learning” (Hanson, 2013, p. 106). In this context, Petrie’s (2014) idea about the new paradigm for LD as a collective process appears as an important challenge to address currently. There is little doubt that being a leader in an organization has become more challenging due to the pace of change and the complexity of the challenges faced by leaders (Petrie, 2014). Moreover, Petrie suggested that there is now a greater level of interconnectedness globally, and this level of connectedness has presented additional challenges for leaders. In a report from Bersin by Deloitte (as cited by Hollon, 2011), findings suggest that organizations will have to move from top down leadership models to more inclusive participatory global leadership styles. In addition to complexity and global presence, leaders further need to adapt to technology and virtual leadership (Hollon, 2011).

Furthermore, Petrie (2014) suggested that there needs to be a greater focus on innovation in LD methods. Sinar et al. (2015) further emphasized that one size does not fit all in LD. Sinar et al. also found that leaders across their study said that in-role assignments are most effective for developing leadership skills. In addition, Sinar et al. suggested that there is a great need for leadership professionals to develop initiatives that match the timing of the target. This essentially means that leadership skills need to be developed at different rates depending on the leaders’ level in the organization.

Another significant trend noted by Petrie (2014), Ziskin (2015), and Baker (2014) is a greater focus on collective rather than individual leadership. Ziskin emphasized that organizations should not only develop individual leadership capacity but also need to focus on the leadership capacity of the organization as a whole. At the same time, as pointed out by Kellerman (2012) and Petrie (2014), the majority of LD programs are focused mostly on individual development while ignoring the collective and organizational-level development. Baker (2014) and Petrie (2014) both believed that LD is falling behind the societal trends, which, among other things, include the transition from leadership based on the power and role of iconic individuals to leadership residing in networks of people.

Another key trend in LD is transferring ownership of LD and responsibility for development to the individual. Using from Kegan’s (1982) theory of adult development as the foundation for his argument, Petrie (2014) noted that people learn and develop best when they are in charge of their own development. Ziskin (2015), however, looked at LD from a coaching perspective. Ziskin suggested that coaching has moved “from fixing the broken leader” to helping leaders “build muscle memory” which will help them address key decisions and situations.

Several articles in this special issue contribute to our further understanding of the evolving trends in LD theory and practice by discussing emerging theoretical frameworks that share common focus on issues beyond the individual development and increased attention to contextual factors and larger systemic and environmental influences. Thus, one of the fast growing trends is the need for global LD, which, as suggested by Barrett and Beeson (2002), is one of five critical forces that will shape leadership competencies in the future. Although it can be argued that global LD is more a context than a theory, a theoretical framework is the structure that can hold or support a theory of a research study (Swanson & Chermack, 2013). To that end, Denise Cumberland, Ann Herd, Meera Alagaraja, and Sharon Kerrick, in this issue, explore the emerging construct of global LD, suggesting that there is a lack of attention to assessing what global leadership competencies are and how these competencies are developed. Through a cross disciplinary examination of articles on global LD together with organizing and categorizing current global leadership assessments, the authors present a framework for a systematic method for identifying instruments that measure global competencies. The authors argue that global LD needs to incorporate aspects such as personality traits and competencies as well as behavioral skills.

Another increasingly pressing concern is the adaptation of the LD approaches and models to the needs of new generations of leaders that, in recent years, have been taking over the leadership roles, replacing the members of the baby boom generation. By 2020, 46% of U.S. workers will be Millennials (Lynch, 2008), which is a generation of professionals with a much different approach to work and career compared with not only baby boomers but also Generation X. Alexander and Sysko (2013) suggested that Millennials bring a different work ethic embedded in narcissism and cavalier attitude to work, counterbalanced by their loyalty to individual managers as opposed to organizations and commitment to idealistic corporate visions and values. Furthermore, they are ready to work hard although with expectations of immediate reward and recognition. In this issue, Katherine Yeager and Jamie Callahan explore LD among Millennials through identifying how leadership experiences shape leader identity development. The authors present a model that considers the dynamic, interactive process of leader identity development and identifies the importance of relationships as part of this process.

A growing trend in the digital era is e-leadership and virtual leadership. DasGupta’s (2011) review of the literature on e-leadership highlighted more than 20 different theoretical contributions to the discussion of this topic in the past 10 years. Gurr (2004) argued that although e-leadership is a relatively recently emerged concept with continuing conceptual ambiguity, there are significant differences between leading traditional organizations and those that have technology-mediated environments. These environments appear to require leaders to cope with paradoxes and dilemmas, and with the associated behavioral complexity. Kerfoot (2010) defined virtual leadership as leading an organization that is other than physical; in other words, it is the management of distributed work teams whose members predominantly communicate and coordinate their work through the electronic media. Virtual leaders are boundary managers who inspire people from a distance to develop self-management capabilities.

Schmidt (2014) suggested that some of the challenges with virtual leadership are the social process, the impact of information processing, and the indirect effects of leadership on the team. In this issue, Rama K. Hart presents a study that focuses on the role of mentoring relationships in virtual teams, exploring how these relationships emerge and flourish, and what is their impact on LD. Among important conclusions of her study is that supportive leader behavior contributes to informal developmental relationships and, thus, to the effectiveness of virtual team functioning. At the same time, these supportive behaviors are becoming increasingly feasible due to the emergence of new digital communication technologies.

In response to calls for more team-oriented LD, the models of shared leadership have become a growing area of theoretical development and a trend in LD practice. Pearce and Conger (2002) suggested that shared leadership takes place when leadership is broadly distributed among individuals in the organization, which is in stark contrast to traditional views and practices where leadership is centralized in the hands of a handful of individuals. In this issue, Robert Barnett and Nancy Weidenfeller address questions such as what shared leadership is and with whom is leadership shared, and further, how is leadership shared. They review recent empirical findings to summarize what is known today about shared leadership in teams. The authors demonstrate that there is significant empirical evidence of relationship between shared leadership and positive organizational outcomes. Furthermore, utilizing the results of their research in business organizations, the authors discuss mechanisms and processes that lead to the emergence of shared leadership, especially in small groups and work teams, and contrast the shared leadership models with earlier models of team development and performance.

LD Approaches: Current and Emerging Practices

In the previous section, we discussed a number of emerging theoretical frameworks that provide basis for LD programs. In this section, we switch our attention to several practices and methods and show how these practices, most of which have been part of the LD toolkit for some time, are changing and evolving in response to new demands of the workplace and the larger environment.

Thus, action learning is one of the learning and development methods that has been practiced in business, non-profit, and educational organizations for more than 50 years. However, in recent years it has also become one of the fastest growing parts of many LD programs (O’Neill & Marsick, 2009). Mary Volz-Peacock, Bea Carson, and Michael Marquardt, in this issue, explain why action learning is a powerful method to develop leadership skills in a variety of settings and with all levels of organizational leaders. The authors show that the specific model of action learning, proposed by them and utilized in practice, is grounded in theories from adult learning, educational and organizational psychology, and organizational science domains. The authors discuss specific examples of application of action learning in LD in major corporate organizations and argue that action learning is not only a successful development tool but also highly cost effective alternative to other approaches. Of special note are case studies, discussed by the authors, showing how action learning is used to develop reflection, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

As in the case of action learning, the use of experience-based learning activities and programs has a long history both in industry and in educational settings. However, the emergence of experience-based LD is a relatively recent phenomenon. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, Sarah Hezlett, in this issue, provides an important and current overview of this vast topic. She identifies the key concepts and reviews empirical findings on experience driven LD. Through an action-oriented framework, the author highlights the gaps in knowledge about the main factors that need to be taken into account when experience-based leadership programs are designed, conducted, and evaluated. An especially important discussion in this article focuses on types of support that leaders, participating in experiential programs, find the most useful. The article concludes with important suggestions for future exploration of the topic and aspects of experiential LD.

In the previous section, we talked about the growing role of virtual leadership, enabled and necessitated by the ubiquitous nature of digital technologies. However, the benefits of the use of digital technologies come with often unexpected and hard to predict side effects. Among these problems are the information overload and stress, brought about by uninterrupted access to enormous stores of data and constantly generated new information, available 24/7 through multiple digital channels. In these conditions, lack of attention and inability to concentrate on important issues (as opposed to reacting to short-term information stimuli) have become serious barriers to creativity, innovation, and effective leadership (Hansen & Haas, 2001). In this issue, William Brendel and Carmela Bennett explore this aspect of LD in their study of application of mindfulness and related somatic processes. The authors describe a developmental approach that allows individuals to embody leadership, enabling deeper and thus more sustainable change. The authors have developed a developmental sequence for LD, based on their analysis of the complementary aspects of mindfulness and somatic theory and practices.

As suggested earlier, the environment in which leaders operate today is characterized by complexity, accelerating change, competition, and innovation (Dooley, 2004). Among the topics included in this special issue, Steven Manderscheid and Nancy Harrower look at how this impacts leadership transition, defined as a period of transition from one leadership role to another, from the perspective of paradoxes and dilemmas or polarities. The authors define polarities as situations where there are no simple either/or solutions, where both existing alternatives are necessary, where problems cannot be solved by simple elimination of one of the alternatives. Furthermore, the authors assert that polarity thinking is a necessary attribute of a successful leader, and applying polarity thinking is especially important during leadership transitions. In their qualitative study, the authors have identified five polarities typical of transition periods, as well as strategies used to manage these polarities.

Conclusion

In summary, we hope that this special issue will be a useful resource for HRD scholars and practitioners, by not only offering new insights into emerging and current practices of LD but also providing impetus for further research in areas that are growing in importance in the world of practice, but have not yet received sufficient coverage in the academic and scholar-practitioner literature. We acknowledge that LD is a vast topic, and the likelihood of one special issue capturing all important emerging trends is extremely low. The choice of topics to include in this issue was based on our experience in practical work with LD and our familiarity with scholarly research in this area. Given the size limitation of a special issue, we had to make difficult choices regarding the inclusion or exclusion of certain initially proposed topics. There are many other emerging models, frameworks, and practices that we could have included in the issue. For a glimpse into other possibilities, we refer the readers to McCallum and O’Connell’s (2009) work on social capital and LD, the fast growing literature on both theory and practice of LD for sustainability and corporate responsibility (e.g., Avery & Bergsteiner, 2011; Pless, Maak, & Stahl, 2011), LD through service-learning projects (Pless & Maak, 2011), Mabey’s (2013) analysis of practical implications of alternative (e.g., critical or dialogic) approaches to the analysis of LD practices, and work on the relationship between employee engagement and LD (Shuck & Herd, 2012).