Advancing the science of 21st-century leadership development: Theory, research, and practice

Leadership development seeks to understand, predict, and intervene effectively in addressing the questions of how individuals develop as leaders and how collections of individuals develop a capacity for leadership. These questions are attracting scholars interested in the factors and processes involved in developing leaders and leadership. Presented in the special issue is a set of state-of-the-science empirical studies and theory development articles representing 21st century leadership development. We also provide a brief overview of issues related to the leadership development field – broadly construed to include individual leader development – that are especially pertinent and where the research evidence is scarce or contradictory. These areas are theoretical foundations of leadership development, practices and methods of development and talent selection for development, accurately estimating return on investment for leadership development initiatives, the role of time in developing leaders and leadership, understanding and remedying biases and inequities in leadership development, and the role of development in mitigating the so-called dark side of leadership. Although we have learned much about leader and leadership development over the past 20 years, there is an ongoing need for more research and theory development especially with respect to identifying causally and practically relevant knowledge able to inform policy.