Developmental Readiness for Leadership: The Differential Effects of Leadership Courses on Creating “Ready, Willing, and Able” Leaders

Abstract

The development of effective leadership capacity involves multiple factors including increasing students' leadership self-efficacy, motivation to lead, and leadership skills. This study of 165 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory leadership theory course explores the degree to which students report changes in these three areas of leadership from the beginning to the end of the course. Our analysis showed two important findings. First, students report significant gains in leadership self-efficacy, transformational and transactional leadership skill, and each measured form of motivation to lead at the conclusion of the course. Second, a closer examination shows that student learning is not across-the-board but, rather, differentiated. Students experience significantly different outcomes depending on their levels of self-efficacy and motivation to lead when they enter the course. These findings not only have broad implications for the way colleges and universities structure curricula around leadership development, but they also inform theoretical model-building regarding the process of student leadership development.

The Empowering Role of Profession‐Based Student Organizations in Developing Student Leadership Capacity

“…Student problem‐solving experiences increase self‐confidence and motivation to lead others (Amit & Bar‐Lev, ; Keating, Rosch, & Burgoon, ). PBO advisors should advocate for students to take responsibility for solving problems with PBO‐led projects but also make sure students have access to professionals with expertise that can help them solve these problems effectively.…”

Peaks and Valleys: A Two-year Study of Student Leadership Capacity Associated with Campus Involvement

“…Core Scale Items. The core set of items used in each phase of data collection directly corresponded to the Ready, Willing, and Able model of leadership capacity development (Keating et al, 2014) used as the conceptual framework for this study. Because 5-point Likert scale responses were used in AY14 and 7-point responses were used in AY15, we transformed both response scales to a 10-point scale, allowing direct comparisons across cohort groups.…”

“…Unlike industrial or managerial conceptualizations of leadership which position leaders atop a hierarchical structure in an effort to maintain the status quo, contemporary, or postindustrial, leaders are called to behave in collaborative ways in an effort to enact intentional change (Northouse, 2015;Rost, 1993). In line with this paradigm, skills such as collaborative problem solving, communication, social and intercultural awareness and competence, are often cited as critical learning outcomes for today's students ( The Ready, Willing, and Able conceptual model of leadership capacity (Keating, Rosch, & Burgoon, 2014; see Figure 1) depicts three interconnected components of contemporary leadership that serve to bolster one another when operating together. That is, in order for student leaders to maximize their capacity, they must simultaneously develop in the areas of leadership self-efficacy, motivation, and skill.…”

The Significance of Student Organizations to Leadership Development

“…Leadership educators, Keating, Rosch, and Burgoon () have advocated that leadership development initiatives should include more than a focus on student skill development and should attend to additional factors that contribute to students’ ability to practice behaviors associated with effective leaders. If any of these three factors are significantly missing from a student's portfolio, behavior change is likely to be absent.…”