Understanding College Students' Leadership Engagement.

Abstract

Today’s society requires all individuals, as leaders, to work wisely with diverse people and initiate changes for resolving complex, intertwining social issues. Relational models of leadership have conceptualized leadership as a collective property that is derived not from a single powerful individual in a position of authority, but from the relationships of people working together for a greater good. Given this relational conceptualization of leadership, this study seeks an understanding of college students’ leadership engagement by analyzing the three-year (2006–2008) longitudinal interview data from 39 students enrolled at four institutions participating in the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education. A total of 111 leadership experiences reported from 39 students over three years of their college attendance were analyzed for this study. A grounded theory analysis of these experiences revealed three key categories featuring these students’ leadership engagement. These categories are 1) predisposition towards leadership, a set of assumptions upon entering college that contributed to their eagerness to engage; 2) environmental nudges provided by either intentional educational practices or peers that prompted students to engage; and 3) modes of engagements, mechanisms in which students sustained their motivation and commitment towards a relational leadership process. Further, four distinctive modes of engagement were observed in this study: (a) task-based personal mode of engagement, the motive for engagement derived from achieving the challenging tasks that are directed to self-improvement; (b) value-based personal mode, the motive derived from expressing or acting congruently on internal values; (c) affinity-based connection mode, the motive derived from close relationships that provide a sense of unity; and (d) empathy-based connection mode, the motive derived from relationships with people towards whom students felt empathy. A gender comparison revealed that female students used connection modes more frequently than men, which demonstrated women’s interpersonally-oriented approaches to leadership. A developmental analysis framed by self-authorship theory showed that developmental complexities moderated students’ interpretation of and approaches to their leadership experiences. Not only were more complex modes of engagements prevalent among those using more advanced structures of meaning making, but students’ understanding of their leadership roles, values or relationships was more complex.