Promoting Identity Development in Leadership Education: A Multidomain Approach to Developing the Whole Leader

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 group discussion. We also present qualitative evidence of the intended outcomes of the exercises, including the desired effect of developing students' leader identities.