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This study was conducted to explore leadership development within student collegiate clubs and organizations at an agrarian university in Ukraine. The data were then compared to a College of Agricultural Sciences at a university within the United States. The information collected in the study will serve as a basis for understanding leadership development within student collegiate clubs and organizations. The findings indicated that leadership development within student collegiate clubs and organizations is occurring. The study found that leadership development is a product of the culture in which it functions. Students from the Ukrainian university are developing leadership skills through a highly socialized model. This results in the development of a collaborative leadership style, which reflects the philosophy of the former Soviet culture. In sharp contrast to the collaborative style, the United States group is developing more of an individualistic style, indicative of its culture.

This paper summarizes the findings of the empirical papers in this volume and outlines future research directions for global leadership in general. We summarize the state of global leadership development in universities and recommend design criteria for these efforts. Given the popularity of study abroad as an integral component in many global leadership programs, we highlight common challenges for study abroad programs and the importance of taking an organization development approach. We conclude with future directions for global leadership development research in university settings, most of which emerged from the featured papers on this topic in this volume of Advances in Global Leadership. It is our hope that this chapter serves as a primer for both university program directors and researchers.

A study of community college students enrolled in a for-credit study abroad program in Costa Rica sought to identify the experiences that influence intercultural competency growth during study abroad trips and to learn how the experiences influence the development of global leadership competencies. The results led to a modified global leadership development expertise model for understanding the process of global leadership development in student populations. The study revealed a key link between antecedent characteristics of participants and their transformational ability during the study. The study also revealed that there are types of transformational experiences that, when experienced sequentially, can maximize transformational potential and the development of intercultural competencies.

The purpose of this paper is to present an innovative, research-based approach for stimulating self-awareness, reflection and intentional leadership development and address a call from the academic and business community to educate and prepare graduate students for leadership in contemporary complex workplaces. Building on previous research findings and recommendations, the authors suggest that leadership potential is understood and facilitated through leadership assessment, increased self-awareness and faculty coach-supported reflection and development planning by MBA students. Based on three key constructs in leadership development, a conceptual model depicts the approach to developing potential leaders at this juncture in their professional development.

New MBA students completed a leadership potential assessment instrument designed to target areas for focused leadership development throughout their MBA program and beyond. The assessment process is followed by faculty coach-supported reflection and development planning as an assignment during the students’ MBA orientation course. To explore the impact of this innovative approach to accelerating the development of leadership potential, reflection papers from students who completed the process were analyzed. Data analysis consisted of content coding with an inter-rater reliability of 0.99 to classify the responses into four key categories. Survey data were also collected from 504 MBA students who attended an on-campus orientation course to measure students’ increasing understanding and awareness of the value of the leadership development opportunity.

Quantitative and qualitative results provide initial support for this approach to developing leadership potential. Results suggest that the integrative model stimulates a process of awareness, reflection and intentional development, and supports the identification and pursuit of goal-directed learning opportunities throughout students’ MBA program.

Graduate business school students are at a leadership inflection point in their trajectory as leaders. Business colleges play a key role in closing the leadership gap during the development cycle of the students’ MBA program. The innovative approach in this paper, which facilitates self-awareness, reflection and intentional leadership development, offers a model for business colleges exploring how to foster these necessary leadership insights and capabilities.

This qualitative study explores the past experiences of six post-secondary students who self-identified as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and/or Queer (LGBQ) and held leadership roles in student organizations at one large public institution. The purpose of this exploration was to better understand the impact of friendship on the development of a leadership identity. Utilizing Komives et al.’s (2005) Leadership Identity Development (LID) model as a framework, data were obtained from a series of three in-depth interviews with each participant and analyzed through a grounded theory approach. The significance of friendship was noted across all stages of the LID model. Based upon my findings and the suggestions put forth by the participants, a number of recommendations are made for higher education research and practice.

Leadership development programs have become widespread in higher education; over 1500 different programs had been registered with the International Leadership Association as of 2012 (Owen, 2012). Given the prevalence of these programs and the substantial institutional investments they require, examination of their purported impacts is a valid area of investigation. Using the used Multi-Institute Study of Leadership, the current study explored the impact of experiential development programming on two of the instrument’s key outcome variables, resilience and self-efficacy. Results found a significant positive relationship between leadership development programs and self-efficacy, but not for resilience. Additional analyses found that other experiential activities (e.g., on-campus jobs, study abroad, etc.) had essentially the same (significant) impact on self-efficacy as did intentionally leadership development ones. Interpretations and implications are discussed.

We examined the relationship between high school and collegiate organizational involvement and their differential and collective effects on the development of leader self- efficacy, motivation to lead and leadership skill. Our goal was to better understand how the student leader development process unfolds at different points in time over young adulthood. The study investigated members of registered student organizations (n=757) during the Fall 2016 semester. Results of the study indicated strong developmental relationships between past high school involvement, current collegiate involvement and leader capacity change. Positional leadership and students’ priority placed on their involvement during high school were predictive of leader skill and self-efficacy, while in college, only mental and physical engagement in organizations predicted leader development.

This instrumental case study sought to determine how collegiate-level students changed throughout a personal leadership development course. Document analysis of an archived course assignment was employed to analyze the students’ perceptions of their personal leadership development. Four themes emerged from the analysis: (a) self-evolution, (b) cognitive gain, (c) perceived self-awareness, and (d) framework confusion.

Similar to religion, spirituality is considered a private affair along with issues of faith, hope, and love (Palmer, 1998). American public education has been reluctant to address such issues due to our cultural norm of “separation of church and state” (Love and Talbot, 2000, p. 1) yet the American Council for Education calls upon higher education to provide students ways to explore their personal values, world beliefs, and spirituality (Chickering et al., 2006; Dalton and Crosby, 2006). As such, the purpose of this paper is to explore student leaders’ perspectives on how leadership development activities influenced their sense of spirituality.

A qualitative case study design was used to explore responses from ten student leaders who completed a leadership development program in the Spring 2015 at a public four-year institution. As part of the leadership development program, students were paired a peer mentor while they completed leadership workshops, a reflection paper, self-assessment, and an ongoing community service project painting murals with individuals who have intellectual disabilities. Participants were from various majors and religious backgrounds and had completed the leadership development program two months prior to their participation in this study.

Findings revealed that leadership workshops, self-assessment, reflections, peer-to-peer mentorship, and an ongoing shared community service project, influenced students’ perspectives of spirituality and their leadership identity. Student leaders both did and did not differentiate the developmental process of leadership from the spiritual development process, defining both as cognitive and emotional development deeply grounded in self-awareness. Study participants shared that through self-reflection, developing their inter and intra personal skills through conducting service, shaped their understanding of their spiritual identity and developed their sense of self.

Study results are not generalizable but provide insight into the experiences and perceptions of student leaders on two hard-to-define topics: spirituality and leadership. The order of the interview questions may have influenced the thought process leading up to student’s responses connecting spirituality and leadership concepts. Another limitation is that the leadership activities were designed and coordinated by the lead investigator. Hence, there may be findings that were influenced by the investigators’ personal beliefs about leadership. Study participants may have also felt more comfortable discussing their beliefs about spirituality because of their familiarity with the lead investigator.

Results support the notion that non-faith based public institutions may intentionally support the spiritual development of students through the context of leadership development program activities. Approaching spiritual and leadership development through Baxter Magolda’s (2009) theory of self-authorship allows students to experience new activities coupled with personal self-reflection, to deepen their self-understanding, compassion for others, and self-awareness. This learning is an ongoing process that expands as students engage in contemplative practices such as mindfulness training provided through leadership workshops, self-reflection, and peer-to-peer interactions and self-assessment.

This case study illustrates that intentionally designed and implemented leadership development programs may cultivate both the spiritual and leadership identities and behaviors of students. Also, this study reveals that spirituality and leadership are not mutually exclusive processes because both are deeply rooted in connecting to our community, connecting to our greater purpose and our higher consciousness about who we are and how we treat others. Hence, this work may support educators develop more compassionate and empathetic students who are agents of positive social change.

This qualitative case study suggests a new framework for public institutions to support students’ leadership and spiritual development through the theoretical framework of self-authorship. As such, educators can stop being fearful about discussing religion, spirituality, and matters of the heart if they use this framework to design leadership developmental activities.

The purpose of our research was to use Day, Harrison, and Halpin’s, (2009) theory of leadership development as a premise to investigate how students’ constructive development is related to their leader identity development and understanding of leadership. Baxter Magolda’s Model of Epistemological Reflection (MER, 1988, 2001) was used to understand constructive development, Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen’s Leadership Identity Development (2005) to determine leader identity, and Drath’s principles of leadership (2001) to determine understanding of leadership. Fifty junior and senior college student leaders filled out the MER and participated in an interview about their leadership experiences. Interviews were coded according to the above constructs of leader identity development and leadership understanding. Although there was a relationship between leader identity development and understanding of leadership, no relationship was found between these two constructs and constructive development. Findings suggest that most of the student leaders still depend on others to help them construct reality. Furthermore, many believe that because they are in a leadership role, they are leaders while others are not.