Student Selection Criteria in Undergraduate Leadership Education Programs

Educational Considerations Educational Considerations

Volume 37 Number 1 Article 10

9-1-2009

Student Selection Criteria in Undergraduate Leadership Education Student Selection Criteria in Undergraduate Leadership Education

Programs Programs

Daniel B. Kan

Claremont McKenna College

Rebecca J. Reichard

Claremont Graduate University

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Commentary �

Student Selection �

Criteria in �

Undergraduate �

Leadership �

Education Programs �

Daniel B. Kan �

and Rebecca J. Reichard �

Citizens expect and deserve effective leadership in both the

public and private sectors. In today’s 24/7 information access society,

high proﬁle leaders have become a source of constant scrutiny by

citizens and the media demanding results and integrity on par with

the enormous salaries and fringe beneﬁts these individuals receive.

In fact, recent research has demonstrated that a change in leadership

had a small, but positive impact on important job attitudes and work

outcomes (Avolio, Reichard, Hannah, Walumbwa, & Chan, in press).

Managers as well are responsible for important leadership variables

such as employee satisfaction, productivity, and stress (Fiedler, 1996).

The societal need for and observed importance of the effectiveness of

leadership leads to the question, where can we ﬁnd more and better

leaders? In this commentary, we describe the origins of leadership,

the importance of undergraduate leadership programs in developing

future leaders, and the criteria for selection of students into higher

education institutions and leadership programs. We conclude the

article with recommendations for undergraduate leadership educa-

tion administrators.

Origins of Leadership

When examining the development of effective leaders, one must

consider the nature versus nurture debate (Avolio, 2005). Can the

qualities that make an effective leader be taught, or is every person

born with a certain propensity to lead? The answer to this age-old

Daniel B. Kan is a senior at Claremont McKenna College.

He will graduate with a double major in economics and

psychology with a sequence in leadership studies. He works

with the Kravis Leadership Institute, and his research focuses

on leadership predictors and their effect on admission to

liberal arts colleges.

Rebecca J. Reichard is Assistant Professor in the School

of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont

Graduate University. Her research focuses on leader

development and has been published in peer-reviewed

journals including

The Leadership Quarterly

and

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

as well as in several books.

question has major consequences for the approach by which poten-

tial leaders are identiﬁed, selected, and developed. If effective leader-

ship is due to genetic factors, then the solution is ﬁnding, identifying,

selecting, and fast-tracking naturally born leaders. For example, the

traditional “Great Man” approach argues that an effective leader is

recognized by speciﬁc traits, such as cognitive ability, determination,

sociability, self-conﬁdence, and integrity (Northouse, 2006). This

approach might be justiﬁed if one looks at families throughout his-

tory who are composed of individuals who achieved high levels of

success as leadership, such as the Kennedy family. The problem with

this argument is that often members of the such families not only

have genetics in common, but also a similar environment, such as

high socioeconomic status or exceptional education opportunities.

More recent research on the heritability of leadership takes the

form of adoption studies and twins studies, including both the study

of identical twins reared apart and the study of fraternal and identical

twins reared together. Arvey, Rotundo, Johnson, Zhang, and McGue

(2006) deﬁned and measured leadership in terms of the various for-

mal and informal work role attainment of individuals in work settings.

The authors found that for 238 male identical twin pairs and 188

fraternal twin pairs reared together, the proportion of variance due to

genetic inﬂuences on the leadership role occupancy scale was 0.30.

Similar ﬁndings were found in a study using 89 fraternal and 107

identical female twin pairs conducted by Arvey, Zhang, Avolio, and

Krueger (2007). These results indicated that around 70% of the vari-

ance in leadership emergence and effectiveness could be attributed

to non-genetic factors, namely developmental experiences. In sum,

genetic traits alone do not explain who ultimately has the propensity

to lead. Rather, leadership potential is a blend of factors with envi-

ronment playing a dominant role.

Developing Leaders

The emphasis on effectively leading companies has opened a

market for leadership development programs. The monetary invest-

ment in leadership development is substantial. In 2003, seventy-ﬁve

percent of large-scale companies spent around $8,000 dollars per

person on individual leadership development programs, including

360-degree feedback, mentoring, and goal setting, all aimed at out-

comes such as increasing productivity and reducing employee turn-

over (Murphy & Riggio, 2003). In 2007, twelve billion dollars were

spent on leadership programs in the United States (Avolio & Hannah,

2008). Many of the nation’s best-selling books focus on developing

effective leadership skills (Riggio, 2008). Individuals have the option

to develop leadership abilities through a variety of tools, including

corporate training, executive coaching, and higher education.

With such a strong emphasis on developing leadership ability,

many higher education institutions are giving more attention to the

development of the next generation of leaders. Even before their

senior year, students are searching for top-tier jobs through career

service centers and on-campus recruitment by major corporations.

Many colleges are well aware of the fact that some corporations

screen for leadership ability and may even base starting salary on

leadership and skills assessments. In order to serve both hiring orga-

nizations and graduating students, many colleges are now emphasiz-

ing leadership development.

Preliminary research has begun to demonstrate the importance

of undergraduate leadership education on increasing future leader-

ship potential (Hall, 2005). In Hall’s evaluation of three separate

Educational Considerations 56

institutions, it was found that higher leadership conﬁdence,

combined with an undergraduate leadership experience, produced an

increase in future leadership behaviors. Further, in a multi-institution-

al study of 52 undergraduate leadership education programs, Komives

(in press) found that students in these programs identify as leaders.

Selecting Potential Leaders

With the success of graduates directly inﬂuencing the college’s

reputation and ranking (U.S. News and World Report, 2009), leader-

ship propensity should be an important selection criterion in higher

education institution’s undergraduate admissions processes, but is it?

For most colleges and universities, selection is done through a paper

application containing only a sliver of the student’s academic and

personal achievements (Ayman, Adams, Fischer, & Hartman, 2003).

Due to the nature of admissions, evaluating leadership potential is

unfortunately limited. On occasion, the institution will request an

interview; however, most do not require them due to time sensitiv-

ity and lack of resources. When conducted, the interviews usually

consist of a conversation that takes place in less than an hour and

focuses on personality (College Board, 2009). Also, the subjective

process of evaluating interviews as part of admissions decisions

was found to have minimal power towards predicting future college

performance (Gehrlein, Dipboye, & Shahani, 1993). Even the basic

practices of inﬂuencing others, which mildly evaluates candidates on

their leadership potential (McFarland, Ryan, & Kriska, 2002), are not

typically stressed. Thus, a limited amount of information on leader-

ship potential is gathered or used in the admission process. Sternberg

and Grigorenko (2004) argued that if administrators in higher educa-

tion wanted to maximize the chances of admitting those most likely

to be our best future leaders, they must expand the range of criteria

considered for college admissions, including criteria that evaluates

aspects of leadership potential such as measures of social skills and

motivation which better predict student outcomes of undergraduate

leadership education programs.

It may be easier to consider a wider range of leadership predictors

when selecting for a leadership development program from a pool of

students already admitted to a university or a college within the uni-

versity. The evaluation of the developmental readiness of applicants

for undergraduate programs should go beyond academic achievement

and prior leadership experience indicators and include the following

psychological factors; learning goal orientation; developmental efﬁca-

cy; and motivation to lead. Students with a learning goal orientation

for leadership, or those who seek knowledge from tasks regardless of

the outcome or result, may be well suited to an undergraduate lead-

ership education program (Reichard, 2006; Dweck & Leggett, 1988).

Similarly, high levels of leader development efﬁcacy or a belief that

one can improve as a leader, may be important (Reichard, 2006). A

student’s level of motivation to engage in leadership behaviors should

also be considered when predicting success in an undergraduate lead-

ership program. Students may be motivated to lead for a variety

of reasons including what Chan and Drasgow (2001) referred to as

affective-identity motivation to lead; or the student may simply enjoy

leading. Alternatively, students may choose to lead after weighing the

costs and beneﬁts of leading, referred to as a noncalculative motiva-

tion to lead. Finally, students may lead because they view leadership

as their responsibility; that is, leading is expected of them (social-

normative motivation to lead).

Conclusion

The need for more and better leaders is ever more apparent in our

society and the world. Based on the knowledge gained from research

indicating that leadership is both born and made, we discussed

criteria for selection of potential leaders for admission into college

and undergraduate leadership programs. We recommend that high-

er education administrators develop intentional and valid selection

procedures to identify those students who can beneﬁt most from

leadership development. When doing so, efforts should be made to

ensure that the selection battery includes valid and reliable measures

which supplement academic achievement indicators and self-report

measures of leadership.

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