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Creating a logical and consistent picture of the state of leadership theory and research is a difficult task (Hernandez, Eberly, Avolio, & Johnson, 2011). Attempts to describe leadership studies occasionally include words such as “paradox,” “inconsistencies,” “contradictions,” and “messy” (Brungardt, 1996; Klenke, 1993). These adjectives flow from many diverse ways of thinking about leadership (Bass, 2008; Grint, 2000; Northouse, 2015; Ruben, 2012). This paper presents an alternative view of leadership theory providing practitioners, educators, and students with an additional-and perhaps a singular-conceptual framework for their toolbox. It also provides leadership studies students with a unifying perspective of leadership theory without taking anything away from individual theories.

The challenges of the 21st century, post-industrial society are increasingly complex. They will not be solved by the actions of individual, “heroic” leaders; instead, they require the participation of diverse stakeholders in order to make progress. Through a discussion of the evolution of leadership theory, we demonstrate that theories emerging from a post-industrial paradigm highlight the collective dimensions of leadership in contrast to the leader-centric theories of the Industrial Era. We draw from this literature to problematize the leader-centric nature of community leadership programs in the United States by specifically examining their sponsorship, content, and structure. Finally, we offer a vision for how to re-imagine community leadership programs so that they are more responsive to the complexity of the 21st century by drawing upon collective leadership and postmodern curriculum theory.

The relationship between an individual’s comprehension of his or her role in society, the gender expectations of society, and how these thoughts and stereotypes influence an individual’s behavior in particular settings seem to be separate, yet interrelated. It is for this reason that an analysis of four main theories of gender and leadership must be reviewed for contrasts and comparisons. This paper reviews and analyzes the research literature on Social Role Theory, Implicit Theory, Attribution Theory, and Leader Emergence Theory. Further it draws conclusions and comparisons that will provide recommendations and implications for future research and practice.

Leadership, organizational, and institutional theories provide competing explanations on the nature of leadership and role of leaders. Part of the problem is that each theory is often studied in isolation, leading to incomplete perspectives on the essence of leadership in value- driven contexts. A holistic paradigm that blends the three dominant models for understanding the work of the collective is warranted and necessary to optimize organizational outcomes. This article briefly highlights the contributions and limitations of each frame and provides an overview of complexity theory as a model for reconciling major differences. The paper provides specific perspectives, practices, and metaphors for navigating the collective to bring about desired outcomes.

As Huber (2002) noted, striving to understand how leadership is taught and learned is both a challenge and an opportunity facing leadership educators. This article describes the Leadership Aha! Moment assignment used in a leadership theory course to help students recognize the intersection of leadership theories and their daily lives while practicing their written communication skills. The assignment requires a paper in which students describe when they experienced something outside of class during the semester that made them understand something from the course on a deeper level. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the assignment is helping students connect with course content on a more personal level.

Mind mapping can be a pedagogical tool that helps students brainstorm how to organize information in a way that incorporates creative and active learning, as well as critical thinking. In this article, we describe the application of using mind maps in an undergraduate course focused on teaching leadership theory as an effort to help students think more holistically about how theories intersect with their lives. The assignment description, rubric, and details of the application are provided. Examples of ways students have organized their maps to integrate theories into their lives (e.g., based on themselves, organizations, or metaphors) are also included. Through this practice, we found that mind mapping leadership concepts to areas of students’ lives develop their ability to describe how leadership theories operate holistically in their life, rather than limiting their understanding to one or two popular theories. We recommend leadership educators consider mind mapping as a pedagogical tool to teach theories and other content that require understanding in a broader context.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate final projects in a freshman leadership course (combining grounding in leadership theories with a service-learning component) to determine what students learned about leadership, themselves as developing leaders, and leading in the civic community, and how deeply they learned these concepts. Students found situational leadership theories, team leadership theories, and leadership principles (Drath, 2001) most relevant to their experiences. Personally, students learned about themselves as individuals, leaders, team members, and community members. Civically, students learned how to apply leadership theories, work in teams, and about the community as a system. In terms of depth of learning, based on Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy, students were able to identify, describe, and apply concepts and to some extent analyze and synthesize them. These findings suggest that using service learning to help students learn about both the theory and practice of leadership is a viable alternative.

Emotionally intelligent leadership (EIL) theory combines relevant models, theories, and research in the areas of emotional intelligence (EI) and leadership. With an intentional focus on context, self and others, emotionally intelligent leaders facilitate the attainment of desired outcomes. The 21 capacities described by the theory equip individuals with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics to achieve desired results. The purpose of this article is to propose an integrative, process-oriented EIL theory to provide a framework for conceptualizing and integrating future research and practice. The authors review and organize research and theory in emotional intelligence and leadership within the context of higher education, introduce the EIL model, and provide suggestions for future research. The article concludes with practical implications for leadership development in the context of higher education.

This study describes the development of a grounded theory of applied critical thinking in leadership studies and examines how student-centered experiential learning in leadership education bridged critical thinking with action. Over three semester undergraduate students in an upper level leadership studies course at a large four-year public institution in the southeastern United States completed a written assignment in which they were asked to define the concept of “leading critically.” A grounded theory of critical leadership – utilizing critical thinking skills to make decisions about leadership actions in different situations – emerged after completing a qualitative document analysis of these papers and incorporating the researchers’ existing knowledge of leadership and student development theory. The hope is that this research will create dialogue concerning new approaches to leadership education and encourage practices that apply critical thinking skills to leadership.

Most leadership theories assume that leadership is a quality of leaders (e.g., trait theory), or a response to environments (e.g., situational theory), or a combination of both (e.g., contingency theory). In all these approaches leadership is something knowable and definite. However, after years of research there is no agreed definition of what leadership is or any universal agreement about who might be regarded a leader. This paper outlines an alternative approach in which leadership is a contested construct and describes two engaging teaching techniques that align pedagogic approach with the underlying theory. In doing so this paper makes a case for the adoption of socially-constructed theories in leadership education.