why are you not leading yet?
Developing leaders and leadership capacity is more important than ever to organizations. Leaders in for-profit and non-profit industries are challenged to exhibit effective leadership in a number of ways. Leaders must be prepared to make the rightdecisions, set the correct direction for their organizations to succeed, and avoid ethical missteps. To prepare these leaders,organizations focus on development opportunities that include building skills, increasing self-awareness, and identifying actions
and methods for improvement.Although research suggests that individuals are able to improve their leadership skills, the effect sizes for many developmental programs still remain low. However, in the last 20 years, research has uncovered some of
the factors that impact leader development including the effects of leadership identity, the importance of adult development, and the role of expertise
One limitation to our understanding of leader development is the focus on developmental experiences that occur late in life.
Most studies on leader development examine managers and executives, ignoring development in youth and adolescence. Yet, leaders are likely to have had developmental experiences well before reaching mid-management and these early development experiences are important for adulthood. At the most obvious level, engaging in leadership roles as an adolescent improves one's chances of getting into college and has a positive impact on future earnings.
In addition to the direct benefit of leader experience on these outcomes, we argue that early experiences create the foundation for future leadership development to build on. There are two main reasons why this might be the onescase: the greater ability for development to occur at a young age and the self-reinforcing nature of leader development.
First, it is possible that development occurs more readily in childhood and adolescence than in adulthood because one's behavior, personality, and skills are more malleable at a young age than in adulthood. Indeed, researchers have argued for the likelihood that some skills may be more important to develop early on . We argue
that early points in life represent a sensitive period for development. Unlike a crucial period (which is a period by which an ability must be developed or it cannot occur), sensitive periods reflect a time in life when skills are more easily and rapidly developed
. Moreover, development that occurs in this sensitive period need not be seen immediately; instead, the effects of early influences may only become easily observed in adulthood (Bornstein, 1989). A sensitive period does not preclude future development from being influential, nor does it guarantee successful development. Rather, receiving adequate development during the sensitive period (when greatest change is occurring) sets the stage for future development to occur, barring unforeseen influences.
Second, one's development to eventually become a leader is a self-reinforcing process. For example, as one gains greater leadership efficacy, or confidence in one's ability to lead a group, that individual is more likely to engage in leadership experiences,
which will serve to increase the individual's leadership efficacy . Likewise, when one has
leadership experience, others' expect him or her to be a leader, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy effect for that leader . A self-fulfilling prophecy is when others' high expectations for another cause that individual to meet those high expectations because of increased attention, access to resources, or self-efficacy (Eden, 1993). Therefore, analogous to a snowball effect, small developmental experiences at an early age (when the snowball is small) can have a profound impact on future development outcomes, given the reinforcing nature of leader development.
. Lack of research on youth leader development
Despite the potential importance of leader development in the early years, there is a dearth of research on leader development activities or leadership effectiveness before college. With few exceptions, most studies on college students ask them to play the role
of leaders in workgroups and those studies that focus on actual college student leader development tend to be published in journals
of higher education . For example, a search of all articles published in The Leadership Quarterly revealed ten papers that focused on youth leadership directly, or indirectly as a topic . A more targeted search by developmental stage in the Journal of Adolescence revealed
only three articles with leadership in the title, all published in the early 1990s. Although a number of studies were published in the
1930s through 1950s that examined the role of youth personality characteristics in later leadership emergence or success more recent work focuses exclusively on gifted students. However, there do seem to be a number of recent studies that isolate some aspects of children's personalities (e.g.,dominance, extraversion, and social competence) that are related to leadership ratings by teachers or peers only three articles with leadership in the title, all published in the early 1990s. Although a number of studies were published in the
1930s through 1950s that examined the role of youth personality characteristics in later leadership emergence or success (Bass &
Bass, 2008); more recent work focuses exclusively on gifted students (Schneider et al., 1999). However, there do seem to be a
number of recent studies that isolate some aspects of children's personalities (e.g., dominance, extraversion, and social
competence) that are related to leadership ratings by teachers or peers
One possible reason for the lack of systematic study of leadership through the lifespan is that there are no theoretical models of leader development that incorporate these younger years. Although Avolio and Gibbons (1988) presented a model of transformational leader development which took a lifespan perspective, there was limited follow-up research on the lifespan aspects of the model. Of the limited work on early life influences on leadership, most has used a “snapshot” approach to understanding the effect of early influences on leadership outcomes, examining the relation between children's attributes andleadership at the same point in time), or examining the relation between stable character traits developed in childhood and adult leadership outcomes
similar to a biographical data approach , has examined the relation between current leadership
outcomes and past life events, recalled in the present time
Although these studies, albeit all very recent, should be commended for beginning to examine this important question, they still ignore the dynamic nature of leader development over time. By examining the correlation between Time 1 factors (in
childhood) with Time 2 factors (in adulthood), the implicit assumption is that the developmental trajectory has been unwavering.
Or, at the least, the studies ignore the effects of changes in the developmental trajectory. Yet, one innovative study of the life narratives of 120 notable leaders looked for events in a leader's life (e.g., turning-points or redemption events) that provided the leader with the opportunity to change his or her developmental course . That study highlights the importance of considering a longitudinal perspective on leader development to elucidate the dynamic nature of leader development.
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