Pervasive myths in leadership development: Unpacking constraints on leadership learning
✍ Scribed by John P. Dugan
- Publisher
- Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 66 KB
- Volume
- 5
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1935-2611
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Leadership theory continues to expand as scholars explore increasingly complex considerations associated with organizational culture, neuroscience, and social demands (Avolio, 2007;Bennis, 2007;Rock & Schwartz, 2006). However, the utility of theories is inherently constrained by the degree to which individuals and groups can adapt and apply their central propositions. Allen and Roberts (this issue) deftly articulate the need to clarify language when they encourage leadership educators to approach their work through a principled-universalism focused clearly on leadership learning. This approach refines definitional parameters differentiating among leadership training, education, and development. This clarity of language and intent may provide the critical foundation necessary to address the problematic reality that empirical inquiry into the leadership development process rarely captures the degree of complexity present in leadership theories. This contributes to a significant gap between what leadership looks like and how individuals and groups are prepared to engage in it. How do we go about building the human capacities necessary to engage in leadership? At the heart of 21stcentury leadership inquiry lies the critical question of how best to maximize the leadership development so needed in society.
Answering the preceding question quickly becomes a convoluted task for educators confronted with a seemingly endless amount of "scholarship" offering prescriptive approaches to cultivating leadership development.