Understanding the Leaders of Tomorrow: The Need to Study Leadership in Adolescence

Abstract

Leadership traits and behaviors are observed early in human development, and although an improved understanding of youth leadership would usefully inform many real-world contexts (e.g., education, parenting, policy), most empirical work on leadership has been limited to adult populations. The purpose of the current article is to add a developmental perspective to leadership research that has so far been absent. Here, we (a) highlight adolescence as a critical developmental period for leadership emergence and development, (b) argue that leadership among youths is poorly understood and critically understudied, (c) provide exemplars of synergy between research on leadership and adolescent development that are ripe for focused inquiry, and (d) underscore some of the positive consequences of accelerating empirical research on leadership in adolescence, including implications for a deeper understanding of leadership in adult working populations.

Exploring Gender Differences in Leadership Aspirations: A Four-Year Longitudinal Study of College Students From Adverse Backgrounds

“…Prior research suggesting gender differences in leadership aspirations (e.g., Sheppard, 2018;Singer, 1989) aligns with our findings. Importantly, this finding provides evidence that gender gaps form early on, prior to one's freshmen year of college, highlighting the importance of the emerging literature on leadership and adolescent development (Eva et al, 2021;Tackett et al, 2022). And while we also found female students' self-efficacy at college entry to be lower than that of their male peers, which is consistent with prior research (Eva et al, 2021;Haber-Curran & Sulpizio, 2017), our results suggest only a weak positive influence of self-efficacy on subsequent leadership aspirations development.…”

“…We offer that leadership aspirations develop during college as a result of three processes. First, leadership aspirations at college entry are influenced by prior formation that occurs during adolescence (Tackett et al, 2022) and are shaped by gender identity (Sheppard, 2018; Singer, 1989) and other sociodemographic characteristics (Ashby & Schoon, 2010; Massey et al, 2008; Schoon & Parsons, 2002), as well as dimensions of self-concept (Boatwright & Egidio, 2003; Eva et al, 2021; Haber-Curran & Sulpizio, 2017). Second, differences in leadership aspirations at the start of college, along with continued influence of gender and other sociodemographic and self-concept traits, affect a student’s tendency to access leadership “learning opportunities” (Lent et al, 2002), which in turn mediate the relationship between gender and development of leadership aspirations across subsequent years of college.…”

“…Among myriad social and economic factors that influence gender imbalances in leadership positions (e.g., Eagly et al, 2007) is the possibility that our higher education system is not sufficiently cultivating female students’ leadership aspirations during the college years. Further challenging our ability to address gender disparities is a lack of empirical work investigating leadership emergence in adolescence (Tackett et al, 2022) and in college-aged populations (Correia-Harker & Dugan, 2020).…”

Latent profiles of high school academic intrinsic motivation: Relations to educational attainment, curiosity, and work and leadership motivation in adulthood.

“…At age 38, the Motivation to Lead scale was administered again, and the same pattern of results was expected. Tackett et al (2022) advanced that leadership propensity and motivation emerge much earlier in life than adulthood, that very little is known about the scientific underpinning of early leadership, and that there is a need to study its developmental roots.…”

Understanding the Leadership Construct of Young Women Leaders

“…Moreover, the leadership characteristics of young people differ according to gender (Dagyar et al, 2022). Adolescence is a critical developmental period for the emergence and growth of leadership (Tackett et al, 2022). Conversely, lifelong learning skills acquired from leadership roles are crucial in the growth of young people and may even promote positive development in adulthood (Dagyar et al, 2022).…”