Cultivating student leadership in professional psychology.

Abstract

Professional psychology involves comprehensive training incorporating coursework, clinical experience, research, teaching, and professional development. One critical but often overlooked part of professional development is leadership experience. Developing leadership skills is likely to enhance psychology students' training and professional competence and serve to strengthen the profession as a whole. In this article, we discuss the concept of leadership with a particular focus on the role of leadership and its need in psychology. We also highlight important issues in student leadership, such as professional mentoring and multicultural diversity. We then offer recommendations to enhance student leadership development in professional psychology, including illustrative examples of how these recommendations can take place across graduate, internship, and postdoctoral settings and how leadership outcomes may be measured. Finally, we employ a case study to illustrate our recommendations in the context of a professional organization. Recommendations are broad in scope and may also be utilized to foster student leadership in the context of other psychology subdisciplines (e.g., experimental training programs). Our position is informed by the belief that it is important to conceptualize psychology students as developing leaders for the next generation of socially responsible, service-oriented psychologists.

Counseling Psychology Model Training Program

“…For students headed towards careers in independent practice, the APA Practice Organization and its substantial resources can be useful, as well as other national, state, or local professional organizations. Kois et al (2016) provided an outstanding summary of the multiple ways in which student leadership may be fostered, such as by giving students a role in admissions, leading lab teams, being student representatives to program meetings or heading up other student initiatives, and serving on university committees such as graduate student councils or campus diversity programs. The Society and other APA divisions and committees provide similar opportunities for student involvement, such as the Student Affiliates of Seventeen.…”

“…In terms of leadership training, there is a voluminous, interdisciplinary, and somewhat fragmented literature on leadership and leadership theory with which program faculty may wish to become familiar. Good review articles and recent attempts at integrative leadership frameworks may be particularly useful (Derue, Nahrgang, Wellman, & Humphrey, 2011; Eberly, Johnson, Hernandez, & Avolio, 2013; Kois, King, LaDuke, & Cook, 2016; Lord, Day, Zaccaro, Avolio, & Eagly, 2017). A special issue was recently published in The Counseling Psychologist on leadership (Fassinger, Buki, & Shullman, 2017a, 2017b).…”

Society of Counseling Psychology Leadership Academy: Cultivating Leadership Competence and Community

“…Thus, professional associations will need to take further initiative for developing new leaders. Based on exemplars of governance within APA Division 41, Kois et al (2016) made insightful recommendations for developing student leaders in the activities and governance processes of professional associations. However, they did not discuss any distinct leadership development programs in particular.…”

“…Explicit leadership training and development traditionally have not been part of doctoral programs in psychology (Kois, King, LaDuke, & Cook, 2016). Although the blueprint for education and training in health service psychology (Health Service Psychology Education Collaborative, 2013) includes leadership as a competency that all psychologists should possess, leadership is not part of the most recent Standards of Accreditation for Health Service Psychology (APA Commission on Accreditation, 2015).…”

Leadership Development in Counseling Psychology: Voices of Leadership Academy Alumni

“…Counseling psychologists have been at the forefront of leadership in APA governance for decades, and were key contributors to the multicultural competence (Constantine, Hage, Kindaich, & Bryant, 2007) and social justice movements (Arredondo & Perez, 2003; Lewis, Ratts, Paladino, & Toporek, 2011). Despite the demonstrated leadership of counseling psychologists, leadership training and leadership development within counseling psychology doctoral programs are lacking (Kois, King, LaDuke, & Cook, 2016). Thus, the aim of this study is to extend the formative program evaluation of the Leadership Academy (LA), a leadership development initiative of the Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP), from the perspective of its participants.…”