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The history of academic inquiry into leadership as a discipline has yielded the unintended consequence of compounding confusion and perpetuating the myth of leadership as mystical. This paper takes that acknowledgement and inquires into the past and future of leadership theory development from a systemic perspective to define the concept, propose an initial framework in which literature and inquiry may be framed, and offer a curriculum for leader(ship) training and development. Three aspects are proposed – requisite, fantasy, and requisite fantasy. This paper suggests the latter is the most appropriate and defines leadership as a binding strange attractor to social patterns. Upon this definition, this paper proposes an initial framework of six elements and six relationships for assimilating and re-organizing the literature, prescriptions, and speculations surrounding the discipline. Lastly, this framework serves to propose a curriculum for advancing the practice of leadership through training, development, and education.

Currently, more students receive leadership education from student affairs offerings than academic leadership courses. Using two simultaneous Delphi panels, Group A – 17 student affairs managers and Group B – 20 student affairs preparatory program faculty members, this study sought to identify the characteristics of a student affairs leadership educator. While there was agreement (93.8%, n = 32) that student affairs practitioners are leadership educators, there was a disconnect between the two panels in how leadership education should be demonstrated within the context of student affairs. These findings support previous research that student affairs practitioners and preparatory program faculty disagree on the characteristics needed to be a successful student affairs practitioner and expands the impact of these findings into the area of leadership education.

As more institutions of higher education engage in the practice of leadership education, the effective assessment of these efforts lags behind due to a variety of factors. Without an intentional assessment plan, leadership educators are liable to make one or more of several common errors in assessing their programs and activities. This article reviews some of the most common errors in assessing leadership programs, including failing to consider what the authors describe as the Honeymoon, Horizon, Hollywood, Halo, and Hallmark effects (otherwise known as recency, response-shift, socially desirable, and respondent biases). Suggestions for minimizing these potential issues in assessment are also included along with suggestions for practitioners and areas for future related research.

The purpose of this study was to explore how variables such as student demographics, pre-college leadership activities, and perceived pre-college parenting behaviors predict students’ leader self-efficacy (i.e., individuals’ confidence in themselves to lead and belief that others will support their leadership [Hannah et al., 2008]) in college and leader emergence (i.e., college-based leadership involvements [DeRue & Ashford, 2010]) in college. Undergraduate students (n = 420) at a large, public university in the Mid-Atlantic were surveyed to examine these relationships and data were analyzed using hierarchical and logistic regression, with appropriate controls and moderators. Findings included discovery that pre-college engagement with sports team positional leadership, community service, extracurriculars, and positive parenting behaviors, such as family routine and greater quality time with parents, predicted leader self-efficacy. Further, findings noted that pre-college community service, extracurriculars, peer tutoring and perceptions of parental quality time and proactive parenting predicted leader emergence. This study suggests that students’ leadership development is influenced by myriad systems across the lifespan and demonstrates that, as educators committed to student development, we must engage the full arc of our students’ leadership journeys and provide for intentional partnerships between higher education and the K-12 community.

This paper adds to the literature on societal grand challenges by shifting the focus away from business firms and other formal organizations as key actors in addressing such challenges toward the inherent organizing capacity that lies in the use of language itself. More specifically, we focus on the organizing capacities of metaphor-based communication, seeking to ascertain which qualities of metaphors enable them to co-orient collective action toward tackling grand challenges. In addressing this question, we develop an analytical framework based on two qualities of metaphorical communication that can provide such co-orientation: a metaphor’s (a) vividness and (b) responsible actionability. We illustrate the usefulness of this framework by assessing selected metaphors used in the public discourse to make sense of and organize collective responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, including the flu metaphor/analogy, the war metaphor, and the combined metaphor of “the hammer and the dance.” Our paper contributes to extant research by providing a means to assess the co-orienting potential of metaphors in bridging varied interpretations. In so doing, our framework can pave the way toward more responsible use of metaphorical communication in tackling society’s grand challenges.

Although leadership education typically is not explicitly incorporated into student affairs preparatory programs, student affairs practitioners are expected to facilitate the leadership development of their students. Thus, through two simultaneous Delphi panels, Group A: Student Affairs Practitioners (n=17) and Group B: Student Affairs Preparatory Program Faculty (n=20), this study explored the places or experiences where student affairs practitioners should learn and practice the professional competencies needed to be a student affairs leadership educator. Both expert panels agreed the graduate assistantship was the most important place to learn and practice how to be a leadership educator. Yet these findings demonstrate a gap between research and practice within student affairs preparatory programs. Four recommendations are provided to strengthen the professional preparation of student affairs practitioners as leadership educators.

This research explores the instructional strategies most frequently used by leadership educators who teach academic credit-bearing undergraduate leadership studies courses through a national survey and identifies signature pedagogies within the leadership discipline. Findings from this study suggest that class discussion—whether in the form of true class discussion or a hybrid of interactive lecture and discussion—is the signature pedagogy for undergraduate leadership education. While group and individual projects and presentations, self-assessments and instruments, and reflective journaling were also used frequently, overall, discussion-based pedagogies were used most frequently. These findings offer attributes that a variety of leadership educators have shared as effective for teaching and learning within the discipline and may facilitate the development of new leadership programming policies, provide direction for future research, and contribute to the existing body of literature.

Film has been used to teach leadership in recent decades, but a review of the literature indicates much of this work is prescriptive rather than empirical. This study sought to understand the effectiveness of film in an undergraduate leadership class by determining learner perceptions of a film analysis assignment and exploring learner ability to identify the stages of group development. A mixed-method approach was undertaken. Learners were surveyed to elicit their perceptions of an essay assignment where they analyzed the stages of group development in the film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. In addition, their essays were subject to a content analysis to determine if learners could successfully identify the stages of group development. The survey indicated that learners enjoyed the assignment and preferred film analysis as an assessment of their understanding of group development. The content analysis indicated that learners could identify the stages of group development throughout the movie. However, there was variation in which scenes were representative of the different stages. Future research should explore the distinction between inductive and deductive approaches to content instruction and learner outcomes. Film familiarity and its impact on learner outcomes should also be investigated.