The relationship between student leaders’ constructive development, their leadership identity, and their understanding ofleadership

Abstract

A successful component of programs designed to deliver youth leadership develop programs are youth educators who understand the importance of utilizing research-based information and seeking professional development opportunities.

How Business Students Think about Leadership: A Qualitative Study on Leader Identity and Meaning-Making

“…Second, our results contribute to and reinforce the nascent empirical evidence on the relationship between leader identity and leadership-structure schema (Komives et al, 2005;Sessa et al, 2016;Zheng & Muir, 2015) and the relationship between leader identity and person schemas of others as a leader (Guillén et al, 2015). Third, our findings advance existing research by providing new empirical evidence that an individual's self-schema as a leader is related to their leadership-structure schema and their person schema of others as leaders.…”

“…Recent research suggests that an individual may evaluate whether or not she is a leader based on her interpretation of what leadership is and thus that the meaning of being a leader is influenced by or grounded in an individual's leadership-structure schema (DeRue & Ashford, 2010;Hammond et al, 2017). While limited, there is nascent empirical evidence of a relationship between leader identity and leadership-structure schema (Sessa et al, 2016). For example, a recent study by Zheng and Muir (2015) amongst fifteen adult community members of a diocese and their ten mentors showed indeed that an individual's leadership-structure schema to be related to the salience of their leader identity.…”

“…Taken together, conceptual research and emerging empirical work suggest that leader identity develops though meaning-making (Hammond et al, 2017;Lord & Hall, 2005;Miscenko et al, 2017), that a student's leadership-structure schema influences whether or not this student claims a leader identity (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen, 2006;Komives et al, 2005;Sessa et al, 2016), that broadness of the leadership-structure schema is related to leader identity salience (Zheng & Muir, 2015), and that there is a relationship between an individual's person schema of others as leaders and their leader identity (DeRue & Ashford, 2010;Guillén et al, 2015). In other words, research suggests that individuals claim a leader or follower identity based on their perceptions of what leadership is and who they consider a leader.…”

“…Transferability to the student context is often assumed and how people think about themselves as leaders and give meaning to leadership is rarely part of leadership development (Komives & Dugan, 2014;Petriglieri & Petriglieri, 2015;Sessa et al, 2016). This despite research showing that leadership development needs vary across levels and circumstances, and that how people think about leadership and leaders influences their continuous and ongoing leadership development, leadership emergence, leadership behavior and effectiveness (Day & Harrison, 2007;DeRue & Ashford, 2010;Drath & Palus, 1994;Engle & Lord, 2011;Epitropaki & Martin, 2004;Lord & Emrich, 2001;Lord & Hall, 2005;Lord, Hall, & Halpin, 2011;Schyns, Kiefer, Kerschreiter, & Tymon, 2011;Shondrick, Dinh, & Lord, 2010;van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, De Cremer, & Hogg, 2004).…”

“…Furthermore, it requires that business schools pay attention to the underlying cognitive components of leadership such as values, beliefs, and meanings (Petriglieri & Petriglieri, 2015). How people think about themselves as leaders and give meaning to leadership are however rarely part of leadership research and development and even more rare in the context of student leadership development (Petriglieri & Petriglieri, 2015;Sessa et al, 2016). At the same time, ample research indicates that how people interpret leadership, view their own role, and the roles of others as leaders, impact how they engage in leadership processes (Day, Harrison, & Halpin, 2009;Epitropaki, Kark, Mainemelis, & Lord, 2017;Shondrick et al, 2010).…”