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After years of analysing what makes leaders most effective, management gurus have figured out how to boost the odds of hiring a great executive: Hire a female (Sharpe, 2002, in Business Week). Over the years, there has been a dramatic shift of women’s roles in leadership. Women have always had the capacity and desire for leadership; however, due to political, economical and societal restrictions, they were unable to advance in leadership positions. In 1972, women held 18% of administrative positions in the United States; and by 2002, these positions increased to 46% (US Bureau of Labour Statistics, 1982, 2002). Recent results show that traditional gender gaps in competitiveness have sharply decreased. Recently, a gender comparison of emotional intelligence revealed a significant difference in favour of females by (p〈.05). Changes will continue in leadership regardless of gender and societal stereotypes. Future interest will undoubtedly follow the journey in which women advance in leadership roles.

The purpose of our research was to use Day, Harrison, and Halpin’s, (2009) theory of leadership development as a premise to investigate how students’ constructive development is related to their leader identity development and understanding of leadership. Baxter Magolda’s Model of Epistemological Reflection (MER, 1988, 2001) was used to understand constructive development, Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen’s Leadership Identity Development (2005) to determine leader identity, and Drath’s principles of leadership (2001) to determine understanding of leadership. Fifty junior and senior college student leaders filled out the MER and participated in an interview about their leadership experiences. Interviews were coded according to the above constructs of leader identity development and leadership understanding. Although there was a relationship between leader identity development and understanding of leadership, no relationship was found between these two constructs and constructive development. Findings suggest that most of the student leaders still depend on others to help them construct reality. Furthermore, many believe that because they are in a leadership role, they are leaders while others are not.