“Is it worth attending leadership training?” This article is the second entry of a blog series showcasing Third Floor Research’s findings on the impact of leadership development programs and civic engagement efforts. In this entry, we explore recent insights into how these programs enhance individual competencies.
There was a time when the term “leader” was associated with genetic, innate, and inborn capabilities that not everyone possesses. This definition confines leadership to specific times and places where a leader emerges. Although this belief remains widely accepted, a new paradigm has replaced “leader” with “leadership,” defining it as an activity that can be learned and practiced by anyone, anytime, and anywhere. Third Floor Research, an applied research partnership between the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) and the Staley School of Leadership, has recently provided empirical evidence supporting this idea.
Recently, Third Floor Research, in collaboration with the LeAD Labs at Claremont Graduate University, conducted a study assessing the impact of KLC’s Your Leadership Edge (YLE). YLE is a monthly leadership development program aiming to shift people’s understanding of leadership from a “leader-centric” to a “leadership as activity” perspective in response to their tough organizational and community challenges. The assessment was conducted on YLE online, which included more than 2,000 participants and took place February 2021 to February 2022, during the pandemic.
Researchers asked participants about their leadership behavior and self-views (self-efficacy, self-awareness, and leader identity) in a longitudinal way, before and up to one year after the program, to determine if YLE was making a difference. Moreover, one year after the program, researchers delved deeply into participants’ leadership practice stories to better understand their decision-making processes and learn from their successes and failures.
This study took three years of data collection and analysis and produced several insightful findings such as:
- Individuals’ transformational leader behavior and self-views significantly increased over time as a result of the YLE program.
- Race is a significant predictor of leader developmental readiness and transformational leader behavior, with underrepresented minority participants scoring higher on both variables on average.
- Individuals describe their leadership actions without relying on positional authority, while also acknowledging the presence of discomfort.
- Individuals described their decision-making process to exercising leadership by reflecting on three mental spaces: frustration, ambivalence, and assessment of action or non-action.
Based on the literature, this report defines “self-efficacy” as the belief in one’s perceived capabilities, “self-awareness” as the knowledge of one’s strengths, weaknesses, intentions, and values, and “leader identity” as how individuals perceive themselves as leaders.
A group of YLE online participants in May 2021
Additionally, the research found a positive relationship between individuals’ leader self-views and their transformational leader behavior. The study’s quantitative findings support the claim that leadership development programs like YLE convert knowledge and skills into leader behavior, enhancing an individual’s capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes. This study argues that improving people’s self-views in a short leadership program can impact their leader behavior in the long term.
Third Floor researchers explained why by interviewing 18 YLE participants. In this qualitative phase of research, participants reported that their self-awareness and confidence to exercise leadership increased due to the tools, knowledge, and experimental mindset they gained during the program. Participants found these tools and skills helpful in navigating the moments of ambivalence when deciding whether to exercise leadership.
The findings of this study were recently published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Leadership Education and as a comprehensive report by KLC Press. Tim Steffensmeier, Ph.D., professor at the Staley School of Leadership; Keyhan Shams, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Staley School of Leadership; Stephanie R. Dailey; and Darnell Mauricio, both Ph.D. students in Organizational Psychology at Claremont Graduate University, co-authored these publications.
To bridge the gap between research results and teaching leadership, Third Floor researchers convened a session named “Closing the Loop” after publishing the report. This session aimed to engage KLC teachers and coaches in interpreting the research findings and discussing recommendations for future programs. By making sense of the results and building connections between research and teaching practices, both researchers and teachers gained valuable insights that could make KLC’s future programs and research projects more impactful.
Closing the Loop session: A dialogue between researchers and educators
This research provides valuable insights for leadership educators, program evaluators, and leadership program sponsors. Leadership educators can understand what to focus on during their programs (e.g., self-awareness, self-efficacy, leader identity) to influence individuals’ behavior over time. Program evaluators will discover an innovative assessment design that incorporates both exploratory and explanatory methods. Lastly, program sponsors will find compelling reasons to support leadership development programs in organizations and communities.
Third Floor Research is an applied research partnership between the Kansas Leadership Center and the Staley School of Leadership. It is an international research initiative that fosters innovation in the exercise and development of leadership in a rapidly changing world. Third Floor Research contributes to a global understanding of leadership, adaptation and change management. Individuals, communities, and organizations that are interested in our work can contact us at Research@kansasleadershipcenter.org.
About the Author
Keyhan Shams, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor at the Staley School of Leadership. He holds a bachelor’s degree in urban planning and design from the University of Tehran and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Iran’s Shahid Beheshti University. Recently, he earned his Ph.D. in leadership communication from Kansas State University. His research revolves around studying the impact of leadership development programs and community engagement efforts. Using mixed-methods, he is particularly focused on developing assessment tools and methodologies to measure the impact of leadership interventions. Moreover, as a former urban planner and current leadership scholar, he is also interested in studying how leadership emerges in the public sphere, particularly urban spaces.
