Leadership Studies Commons^™

Promoting Identity Development In Leadership Education: A Multidomain Approach To Developing The Whole Leader, Rachel Clapp-Smith, Michelle Hammond, Gretchen Vogelsang Lester, Michael Palanski

Faculty Publications, School of Management

Empirical research suggests that focusing on one’s identity as a leader may enhance ongoing leadership development. As a complement to traditional theory- and skills-based approaches to leader development, we offer an identity-based, multidomain approach to leadership development through a series of integrated in-class exercises. Specifically, these exercises focus on developing four components of leader identity: meaning, strength, levels (personal, relational, and collective), and integration of domain-specific subidentities, culminating in the creation of a leader identity narrative. After a brief review of the literature on leader identity, we describe the exercises in detail along with potential prompts for personal reflection and …