written by: Catrina Notari, Margaret Toich, Valerie Sessa, Jennifer Bragger
Developing student leaders is a major objective at many universities and colleges across the United States, with patterns indicating an increase in educators tackling this challenge in learning and practice (Dugan & Komives, 2010). According to the International Leadership Association, more than 2,000 curricular and co-curricular leader development programs (LDPs) exist at institutions across the nation (Guthrie et al., 2018). How to best approach developing student leaders is a gray area, with scholars and practitioners often leaving students to their “best guess” regarding how to proceed (Allen & Hartman, 2009). Some researchers have suggested that embracing service-based opportunities allow students to reflect on their own values, sense of self, and how they engage with their peers as a means towards leadership development (Dugan & Komives, 2010; Jones & Abes, 2004). In addition, most leadership development scholarship has focused on single interventions (Fernandez et al., 2021; Giroir & Austin, 2019; Strawn et al., 2017; Posner, 2009; DiPaolo, 2002), ignoring the reality that many students participate in multiple leader development opportunities during college. Little research to date has focused on leader development trajectories across interventions and over time. The purpose of this article is to highlight student leader development pathways students take while in college. Developing an understanding of the pathways that include all leader development activities will allow us to better understand the different ways student leader development unfolds during college and what students gain as a result.
Leader Development in Students
A leader influences others by organizing, directing, coordinating, and motivating their efforts in pursuit of a shared goal (Drath et al., 2004). Leader development is about enhancing the capacity of individuals to experience, participate in, and understand leadership roles and processes (Van Velsor et al. 2010) and can be accomplished both within a natural process (Day & Zaccaro, 2004), planned interventions, or a combination of the two. Furthermore, Conger (1992) suggested that to develop into leaders, students must develop a conceptual understanding of leadership, build leadership skills and competencies, grow and change as individuals, and receive feedback regarding how they are doing with all these things. Research supports the notion that students learn these different leadership aspects depending on their specific experiences, whether academics, leader development programs (LDP)s, or leadership positions (LPs) (Sessa et al., 2014; Sessa, 2017; Stech, 2008).
College student leadership research frequently focuses on evaluating specific leadership development programs. Recently Fernandez and colleagues (2021) evaluated the outcomes of a two-year LDP and found that 42.9% of program alumni had a position change after the program. Giroir and Austin (2019) discussed the benefits of a graduate student honor society in developing both professional and leader identity. Posner (2009) examined the effects of a co-curricular LDP for business majors from their freshman to senior years. Results indicated that program participants reported significantly higher implementation of leadership practices (i.e., modeling, inspiring, challenging, enabling, and encouraging) than non-participants in their senior years. Similarly, Egan et al. (2020) found that participants in a four-year LDP successfully transferred leadership learnings to their jobs post-graduation.
Based on the existing scholarship, it appears that leader development opportunities increase leader behaviors and desire to lead. However, these studies do not assess all possible leader development opportunities students may participate in during their college careers. What are the benefits of participating in a co-curricular LDP, having a minor in leadership, and being president of an honor society? While these studies certainly highlight that there are benefits to each of these experiences, the multiplicative longitudinal benefits are not as clear. Undergraduate education is a unique time for students to develop or increase their leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities during their college years (Mayhew et al., 2016). Given the number of developmental opportunities that college students have, understanding the trends of participating in these various activities is pertinent to understanding their consequences. The purpose of our study is to begin to understand, when given an array of possibilities, which leader development pathways students choose, leading to our research question: What leader development pathways do students choose to pursue during their time in college?
Methods
Participants
We identified five institutions based on the following criteria: (1) The school had a first-semester, first-year LDP or academic course, (2) There were continued opportunities to participate in leadership via clubs and on-campus jobs, leadership majors, minors, or certifications, and LDPs during all four years of undergraduate education, (3) Schools differed from each other in terms of size, research classification, location, and demographic makeup of students. Three of the five colleges/universities had first-semester LDPs that were co-curricular, while two were curricular programs. See Table 1 for definitions of leader development opportunities across all five institutions. The schools differed in size (four large, one small), Carnegie classification (one baccalaureate, one master’s, three doctoral), and public/private (four public, one private). A total of 423 participants were drawn from 1,820 first-semester students enrolled in leader development programs across the five schools for an original response rate of 23%. One hundred seventy participants responded to all four years of surveys. Students were direct from high school with 68% women and 32% men, 49% Caucasian, 14% Asian, 14% Hispanic, 8% African-American, and 15% from another racial group or multiple racial identities.
Data Collection
Participants were sent emails containing instructions and a participation link during all six years of data collection (all four years of college and two years post-college). To maximize the data collected, students who did not complete the previous year’s survey were given a comprehensive survey the subsequent year to capture missing information. Results from each data collection point surveys were compiled into a single database. Additional data and surveys were also collected from all participants, though this data was not used during mapping the leader development pathways.
Measures
Leadership Experience
Students indicated which leadership opportunities they completed in their freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years during each year of data collection. These included coursework, declaring a leadership major, minor, or certificate, internal and external LDPs, and on-campus LPs (including paid, unpaid, elected, selected, and volunteer). In addition, each institution’s administrators identified on-campus LPs (e.g., Resident Assistants, elected Student Government positions) before collecting the data.
Alternate Surveys
Additional surveys were created to bolster participation for junior and senior years. Students that did not complete the sophomore year survey received a survey that asked about freshmen, sophomore, and junior year leadership opportunity participation during the junior year data collection period. Like junior year, senior year alternate surveys were created for those who did not complete the junior year survey or the sophomore and junior year survey, and students indicated which leadership experiences they participated in during those years.
Coding Pathways
We used quantitative descriptive analysis to code and identify student leader pathways (Loeb et al., 2017). Quantitative descriptive analysis is a data simplification technique to identify qualitative patterns in data. Two graduate students separately coded participation in academic, LDPs, and LPs for all four years of participants using a compiled database. To determine reliability between the two coders, kappa scores were calculated (Fleiss’s kappa = .87). Discrepancies were discussed and resolved with consensus coding. These codings were compiled onto participation sheets that contained participant identification numbers, freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year leadership participation as described above. See Table 1 below for a summary.
| Table 1 | |||
| Definitions for Participation Categories | |||
| Category | Definition | Subcomponents | Na |
| Academic | Participation in leadership-focused coursework and/or declaration of university-specific leadership major, minor, or certification program. | Coursework | 71.2% |
| Major/Minor/Certification | 8.2% | ||
| Leadership Development Program (LDP) | Involvement in co-curricular (organization or university program), curricular (course-focused program), and external leadership development programs (e.g., LeaderShape, participation in leadership conference). | Leadership Development Program (co-curricular and curricular) | 74.7% |
| External Leadership Development Program | 21.8% | ||
| Leadership Position (LP) | Acquisition of a formal leadership role and title in student-led organizations, work, or community organizations. These roles were either elected (formal election process), selected (requiring an application or interview), or volunteer (selecting into a leadership role). | Elected Position | 55.9% |
| Selected Position | 70.0% | ||
| Volunteer Position | 24.1% | ||
| Note. Each year’s survey contained items specifically measuring each of these variables. Ns refer to the percentage of participation in that category at any time between freshman and senior year.
aTotal N=170. |
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One faculty member and one graduate student examined each student’s participation sheet individually to examine trends in involvement across the participant’s undergraduate career. We sorted participants with similar overall participation trends based on type of leadership participation. The types included academic participation, LDPs, and LPs. We created pathways based upon which types the participants chose, including one type of participation, two types, or all three types. Finally, we provided a second faculty member not involved in the initial round of coding with a list of pathway definitions and sorted all participants based on the provided definitions. Coders agreed on participation sorting at 84.5% agreement (Fleiss’s kappa = .82).
Quantifying Amount of Participation
We used hierarchical cluster analysis to determine if there were significant differences between students who may have categorically followed the same pathway but had a significant difference in the quantity of participation (Dymnicki & Henry, 2011; Henry et al., 2015). For our analysis, we used SPSS version 27 (I.B.M. Corp., 2020) to conduct a hierarchical cluster analysis. The method chosen was ‘between-groups linkage,’ and the measure used was ‘counts’ using ‘chi-square’. The result showed three clusters with participants who completed up to three areas of participation in the first cluster. The second was 4 to 11 areas of participation, and 12 or more areas of participation were the final cluster. These three clusters, we labeled low, medium, and high levels of participation. We combined pathways and clusters such that each pathway was divided by low, medium, and high rates of participation.
Post-Graduation Interviews
In the final survey, we included an item asking participants if they would like to be contacted for an interview. As a result, we were able to schedule interviews with 16 participants. Interview questions were designed to establish credibility of the surveys as we had interviewees verify their participation in the activities, they noted on the survey including types, amount, and year. In addition, we asked questions regarding why participants participated in specific opportunities and what they gained from those experiences. For the purposes of this article, we summarized a few of these interviews to exemplify different pathways. The interviews were not coded for this study but were used for illustrative purposes.
Results and Findings
Students followed several different pathways as they developed themselves as leaders during their four years. See Table 2 below for a breakdown of our pathways (from the descriptive analysis) crossed with amount (from the cluster analysis) and the number of students who followed each pathway. Our dataset did not have any participants who only participated in LPs because our participants were drawn from either an LDP or an academic course in their freshman year offered through their institution.
| Table 2 | |||||||
| Pathways | |||||||
| High Participation | Mid Participation | Low Participation | |||||
| Definitions | 12 or more total areas of participation | 4 to 11 total areas of participation | 3 or fewer total areas of participation | ||||
| N | N | N | |||||
| Academic | Only academic participation | – | – | 13 | 7.6% | ||
| LDP | Only LDP participation | – | – | 6 | 3.5% | ||
| LPa | Only LP participation | – | – | – | |||
| Academic/LDP | Academic & LDP participation | 4 | 2.4% | 3 | 1.8% | 5 | 2.9% |
| Academic/LP | Academic & LP participation | – | 26 | 15.3% | 6 | 3.5% | |
| LDP/LP | LDP & LP participation | 9 | 5.3% | 29 | 17.1% | 5 | 2.9% |
| Mixed | Participation in all 3 categories | 28 | 16.5% | 35 | 20.6% | 1 | 0.6% |
| Note. Total N= 170. Ns are how many participants are in each pathway.
aCould not have positional only because of the way we collected the data. |
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To better illustrate a few of these pathways, we provide 5 brief summaries from our student surveys and interviews below. We chose these summaries because they vary by amount of participation based on our cluster analysis (low, medium, or high) and type of participation based on our descriptive analysis. Table 3 uses the same formatting as Table 2 but only provides the information for the interviewed participants, illustrating the broad scope across pathways these interviews covered.
| Table 3 | |||||||
| Interview Pathways | |||||||
| High Participation | Mid Participation | Low Participation | |||||
| Definitions | 12 or more total areas of participation | 4 to 11 total areas of participation | 3 or fewer total areas of participation | ||||
| N | N | N | |||||
| Academic | Only academic participation | ||||||
| LDP | Only LDP participation | 1 | 6.25% | ||||
| LPa | Only LP participation | ||||||
| Academic/LDP | Academic & LDP participation | ||||||
| Academic/LP | Academic & LP participation | 1 | 6.25% | 1* | 6.25% | 1* | 6.25% |
| LDP/LP | LDP and LP participation | 1 | 6.25% | 1* | 6.25% | 1* | 6.25% |
| Mixed | Participation in all 3 categories | 4* | 25% | 1 | 6.25% | ||
| Note. Total N= 16. Ns are how many participants are in each pathway.
*One interview from this group was included in this article within the example summaries. aCould not have positional because of the way we collected the data. |
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The first example is a student who had a high level of participation in leadership courses, LDPs (internal and external), and LPs.
(David), a communications major, began his college experience in his University’s LDP. He applied for and joined an additional LDP that year, which is a program for a select group of students. He mentions this about these early LDP opportunities: “I feel like my entire college experience was put on a different trajectory because of [LDP]. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I, I couldn’t possibly tell you what my life would’ve looked like at [University] if I didn’t have that experience beforehand.” As a result, he continued his leader development for the next three years. In his sophomore year, he continued with both LDPs, took a required leadership course, and joined a student activity campus advisory board. In his junior and senior years, he continued all experiences from sophomore year and added a new role as a New Student Orientation Leader. He additionally joined Alternative Spring Breaks (a national program where students spend their spring break doing a community service project as a group) to gain more service experience. During these years, David also attended the Lead 365 National Conference, NODA National Conference, and NACA National Conference as a part of the LDP programs. (David) is now employed as a recruiter for a human resources company in New York City.
This second example is a student who had a mid-level of participation, beginning with her University’s LDP but spending most of her time in LPs.
Although (Lilith), an English and Theatre major, was involved in her school’s LDP her freshman year, she spent all four years participating in various groups, some as a participant and some in LPs. In her freshman year, she applied and was selected for two LPs. One position was unpaid as a tour guide and student ambassador. That led to a paid position in the Office of Admissions as a Student Coordinator during her second semester, which she continued through all four years of school. When discussing her position within the Office of Admissions, she stated, “I loved the interpersonal connection that I made with everyone, and just being able to evolve and grow as a person, which is what I really wanted out of my college experience.” She also joined a sorority, which required her to volunteer for LPs each year, resulting in roles as Public Relations Representative, Standards Representative, Events Coordinator, and Parliamentarian. In her sophomore and junior years, she worked with [university organization], which helps first-year students transition to college. She was also heavily involved in several groups and clubs in a non-leadership capacity. She was involved with her campus’ performing arts theatre sophomore through senior year, adding in her campus’s theatre festival her last two years. She was also involved with the campus chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, an honor society for English majors, during her sophomore and junior years. Finally, she worked as a barista at the cafe on campus her freshman through her senior year. (Lilith) currently works as a freelance product listing specialist.
The third example is a student who had a mid-level of participation, beginning with his University’s academic leadership program and held some LPs.
(Jared), a business administration major with a concentration in human resource management, opted into his school’s leadership course his freshman year through his school’s Honors College, and he then spent all four years participating in various clubs and groups in LPs. He went on to take three more honors leadership courses throughout his time as an undergraduate. When discussing these courses, (Jared) stated that they “enhanced the experience a lot more and encouraged a lot more collaboration and leadership than just ordinary classes.” In his freshman year, he began to seek out leadership opportunities, and the Dance Marathon group at his school offered for new students to join in LPs to begin gaining leadership experience. For all four years of school, he was the leader of a group of about eight to ten people, varying throughout the semester. They were solely responsible for all of the fundraising initiatives for Dance Marathon. In his sophomore year, he joined his campus’s Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) group on campus. However, he would not hold a leadership position with SHRM until his Junior year, when he became the vice president. (Jared) stayed in this LP until he graduated. As vice president, he was in charge of a lot of the documentation pieces, making sure that they were meeting the requirements needed to be certified as a chapter and engaging members by booking speakers for events and meetings. (Jared) now works as an HR specialist.
The fourth example is a student who had low participation through her University’s academic leadership courses and LDP.
(Jamie) was a marketing major and was enrolled in her University’s honors program. She was in the program for her freshman year only and took one academic leadership course. In her sophomore year, she transferred to a different, larger university. After which, she started joining more clubs and gaining a couple of LPs in her junior and senior years. In her junior year, she joined ‘Women in Business’ as their event planning coordinator and became a member of her school’s American Marketing Association chapter. When discussing why she chose those organizations, she stated, “I just wanted to be around people who also liked marketing and hopefully gain some more experience in marketing and business-focused clubs.” In (Jamie’s) senior year, she left the ‘Women in Business’ club but remained in the American Marketing Association chapter and was elected their vice president. She now works in freelance financial positions.
The fifth example is a student who had low participation through his University’s LDP and held few LPs.
(Tommy) was a pre-medicine major and was enrolled in his University’s LDP his freshman year, though he would not complete the full program. Despite not completing the program, it seemed to have a lasting impact. He stated it “helped [him] be more introspective” and “more responsive and sort of lean on [his] strengths.” His freshman year, he would join a pre-professional organization, the pre-physician’s assistant (pre-PA) club and stay in it throughout his senior year. However, he would not hold any leadership positions within the club. His sophomore year, he joined a charity organization on campus and became a part of the fundraising team. Junior year, (Tommy) became a captain of part of the fundraising committee and held the position through his senior year. (Tommy) now works at a hospital in their clinical research department as a data coordinator.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to determine the pathways that students choose when presented with an array of leader development possibilities, including academic, LDP, and LP opportunities. Although students chose a number of different paths, interviews suggested that most paths emerged based on serendipity or chance rather than on preplanning, aligning with the theories of Allen & Hartman (2009) on how students choose areas of leader participation. While there will always be some element of chance during leadership development–being elected (or not), being selected (or not), we believe that with goals and forethought, students can be encouraged to pick and choose leadership development opportunities that are right for them and their situations and that are balanced in terms of developing a conceptual understanding of leadership, building leadership skills and competencies, growing and changing as individuals, and receiving feedback regarding how they are doing with all these things (Conger, 1992).
The pathways chosen by students suggest that only a little over one-third of college students take advantage of a mix of leader development opportunities. Each type of leadership opportunity we measured provide different skills from each other- academic opportunities provide students with leadership theory, LDPs provide a place for students to learn new skills, and LPs allow students to apply what they learned in both academic opportunities and LDPs- and it is concerning that two-thirds of our participants missed out on one or more of these pieces (Sessa et al., 2014; Sessa, 2017; Stech, 2008). We found that some students within the highest cluster of participation had over thirty areas of participation in just four years, while some stopped participating completely after just one LDP or academic program. These various factors come together to create the pathways, which can help to suggest future directions for research and suggested best practices for practitioners, both of which we discuss further before.
Limitations and Implications for Research
All of our participants were already interested in leader development prior to entering their freshman year. It would be expected that motivation to lead, or the motivation to participate in leader development programs within this study, would be significantly higher than non-participant students because selecting these programs would reflect some aspect of willingness to lead. In addition, this sample fails to take into account students who take on leadership roles later or differently. Finally, as we saw, our sample, for various reasons, did not allow us to explore all possible pathways.
We intend to further analyze these pathways by taking a closer look at the qualitative data from the interviews. For example, there is some indication in the interviews that paths emerged based on serendipity or chance rather than on preplanning which aligns with research by Allen & Hartman (2009). Future research should include all students who participate in leader development to determine if all available pathways are followed. In addition, future research can address why students choose the pathways that they do.
Finally, we can explore if and what are the consequences of the different pathways at the end of college and post-college. Exploring the consequences of pathways can help to illuminate lingering questions regarding the effects of missing one or two areas of participation or if there is a point at which too much participation can actually harm development. For instance, can students truly take advantage of everything these opportunities offer if they are involved in too many at once, and can they still learn theory and skills and then appropriately apply them? Time is a finite resource, and we believe it unlikely that students would be able to take full advantage of leader development opportunities in such an instance.
Practical Implications and Recommendations
What can we do to improve college students’ leader development throughout college? In this section, we outline some suggestions for college faculty and administrators to help students plan and develop their leader development pathway in a well-rounded and balanced manner as Conger (1992) suggested including developing a conceptual understanding of leadership, building leader skills and competencies, growing and changing as individuals, and receiving feedback regarding how they are doing with all these things. The following recommendations for postsecondary educators and administrators may help students develop their leader development during their college years.
Community of Practice
We first suggest creating a leader development community of practice (CP) across the institution. Pennington (2005) highlighted common problems that leader development programs face–duplicated efforts, the absence of collaboration, and a lack of faculty support. This CP serves two functions that solve these problems. First, interacting as a CP of faculty, administration, and staff who share an interest in leadership will provide continual development within the CP itself. The positive influence on students will emerge as the CP members continue to develop in their understanding of leadership and in their practice as leaders. As a result, staff can communicate and model more developed leadership practices with students.
The second function is knowing who is doing what on the topic of leadership across the institution, which can help CP members mentor students to consider a broad array of possibilities. Further, interactions between CP members and students build meaningful relationships, allowing for conversations regarding leadership and leader values, shaping of the leader, and improving educational outcomes (Dugan & Komives, 2010). For example, if a faculty member knows that a student they are advising is an athlete, they can point them to the student-athlete leader development team advisor to find out how to join. Additionally, students who split their time between two or more departments, such as having two majors, a dual-major, or a major and a minor, would benefit from cross-communication between the departments they are involved in so they can develop a unified leader development plan.
Leadership Mosaic
In addition to communities of practice, it is useful for an institution to familiarize itself with the concept of a leadership mosaic and its own leadership mosaic. The concept of a leadership mosaic comes from Scroggs, et al. (2009), who described the available leader development components on campus as a mosaic since it is impossible to understand the full picture from one singular piece. Understanding the institution’s leadership mosaic is not only about the final product but also about the purposeful placement of each part to create the whole picture. In this way, it’s not only important to provide students with a variety of developmental opportunities but also to assist them in choosing the correct opportunities in order to fill in their own mosaics.
To create the mosaic, we suggest inventorying your institution’s leader development opportunities, what categories they fall under, and what undergraduate year they become available to students. For categorizing opportunities, we suggest the categories we used to develop the Pathways– academic, LDPs (internal and external), and LPs (include and note paid/unpaid, elected/selected/volunteer positions). Each category provides a different piece of the mosaic– academics help students understand leadership theory, LDPs allow them to grow their skills, and LPs provide first-hand experiences to apply the theories and skills they have learned (Sessa et al., 2014; Sessa, 2017; Stech, 2008). In this way, each piece of the mosaic builds upon the others until a complete image is visible. Creating an inventory not only improves the visibility of opportunities to students but also for faculty and staff who may not be aware of the programs and opportunities offered by other departments.
Advisement Program
Implementing an advisement program composed of interested faculty, staff, and administration can guide students in their leadership growth and development and organically create a leadership pipeline (Komives et al., 2006; Rosch & Stephens, 2017; Egan et al., 2020). In addition, a program where higher-level students mentor lower-level students can also be put in place. This structure would add to senior students’ leader development while guiding newer students. We suggest designing the program to help each student develop their mosaic by assessing where they currently are in their leader development and helping direct them to where they need to be and how to achieve it. The purpose of the program would be to encourage students, to the extent possible, to consider developing a conceptual understanding of leadership, build leadership skills and competencies, grow and change as individuals, and receive feedback regarding how they are doing with all these things. Leadership development does not occur automatically simply as a result of doing leadership-related activities (Day 2001).
Institutions also need to keep track at a high level of who is doing what. Implementing such a program would allow for the tracking of students and their leader development through all four or more years of their undergraduate education. Often, once a student is in a leadership role and is visible as a leader to others, they tend to get elected, selected, and appointed into additional leadership roles over other students. Rather than allowing a few students to take on many leadership roles, the focus should be on encouraging many students to take on a few roles. While Komives et al. (2006) found that immersive experiences facilitate leader development, Sessa et al. (2018) found that students learn valuable leadership lessons by switching from holding an LP in one organization to another. It would benefit all students’ leadership development to experience the depth of a few roles rather than the breadth of many roles. In this way, it additionally allows for more students to take on the available LPs and further their leadership development. Each aspect of possible participation we studied (academics, LDPs, and LPs) all have different benefits and encourage growth in differing areas of leadership. These areas help create well-rounded leaders who are just as comfortable in LPs as they are with theory and personal development. Additionally, theory and development will impact a student’s ability to lead in various situations effectively. Many higher learning institutions boast that they are shaping future leaders’ minds, but few actually are. Students are finishing their education with gaps in their leadership development, and they are not the effective leaders that they could be.
Addressing Needs and Barriers
Leader development and mentoring programs will need to be flexible and adaptable, considering student level of development, needs, and context. There are possible barriers for some students regarding the opportunities they can choose. Just as students are presented with an array of developmental opportunities, various constraints in a student’s personal life may limit or entirely prohibit participation in developmental leadership opportunities.
For example, the prevalence of students who do not attend college directly after high school is increasing, with 40% of undergraduate students being non-traditional (over 25 years old, low-income, employed full or part-time) (CLASP, 2015). Additionally, almost all of the institutions we collected data from had students that came from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Demands on personal life from financial constraints to familial obligations may take priority over attaining an LP or taking part in an LDP. Students may also be more motivated to pursue paid positions, influencing a more diverse membership. In fact, Salisbury et al. (2012) found a positive relationship between off-campus employment and leadership capacity. Mentors and coaches can help students identify barriers and turn them into opportunities in which students can be encouraged to use their leadership knowledge and skills in all aspects of their life. Knowledge and skills can cross over between collegiate settings and outside settings.
Leader Development Portfolio
Students should be encouraged to develop a leader development portfolio (Sessa, 2017). This would be a systematic and organized collection of evidence that the student can use to monitor, understand, and communicate their change and growth in leadership knowledge, skills, abilities. The portfolio would help the student understand and take control of their own development as a leader.
Summary
In this paper, we outline common pathways found in our study and use those to suggest procedures that institutions can apply and implement that will allow students to make better decisions and take control of their pathways with guided intent.
Reflection Questions
- How may the benefits of leadership development opportunities differ by what leader development opportunity is participated in? Should students try to participate in academics, LDPs, and LPs?
- What is the leadership mosaic in our school? What are our strengths and developmental areas?
- How can we (and should we) encourage students to participate in multiple leader development opportunities? How many is too many?
- What barriers may be present that limit students in participating in leader development opportunities? How can we eliminate them or help students work around them?
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Author Biographies:
Catrina Notari is a current Ph.D. student in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Her research interests include leadership development, shared leadership, workplace psychological constructs, and psychometrics.
Margaret Toich is a current I/O Psychology Ph.D. student at The University of Tulsa. Margaret’s research interests include leadership development, personality in selection contexts, and survey response effort.
Valerie Sessa is a professor of psychology at Montclair State University. Professor Sessa’s research focuses on leadership learning and development in college students as well as how team members co-construct the emergence of leadership in their teams.
Bragger is a professor of psychology at Montclair State University where she teaches in the graduate programs and is the director of the Leadership Development and Civic Engagement minor. Her research interests include servant leadership, leadership development, stereotype threat at work, work-family conflict, and faith in the work place.