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This study followed 134 university students within a national sample for one or two years, from their initial participation in a LeaderShape Institute session. We examined the shape of their trajectories of leadership growth over this course of time, with particular focus on development long after the session had ended. We also investigated the degree to which additional formal leadership development opportunities statistically predicted leadership development. Results indicated a typical non-linear shape to development and suggested that most formal experiences, as a whole, possess little association with leadership growth when controlling for other experiences associated with leadership development in students.

Existing leadership research focuses more on single experiences than the sustained application of skills beyond the formal leadership program. Using data from 124 college students who participated in a six-day leadership development program, this study used a four-phase longitudinal approach to examine influences on students’ leadership capacity and campus involvement. Students’ family income was placed in a structural equation model, along with their gender, race, leader self-efficacy, leadership skill, and changes in campus involvement, to determine the degree to which leadership capacity might moderate how family income predicts student campus involvement. Within the comprehensive model, no individual variables significantly predicted changes in campus involvement, suggesting that the leadership program itself exerts more influence in sustained campus involvement than student background, including family income.

This paper examined relationships between students’ engagement in community service in different contexts through classes, student organizations, work study, and on their own as well as their development of socially responsible leadership at a large, public, research university in the Upper Midwest. Results from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership survey distributed at a single institution (n = 1,282) suggest, among other things, that students who participated in community service on their own consistently reported higher socially responsible leadership while students who participated in service both on their own and in a student organization reported higher socially responsible leadership in all areas save for consciousness of self.

Numerous studies have provided evidence that interracial interaction can contribute to the development of leadership skills and behaviors for university students. Yet, little empirical research has been dedicated to understanding the effects of structural (compositional) racial diversity within leadership programs on program participant outcomes. This study examined the impact of the structural racial diversity of 50 leadership program sessions on student leadership capacity gains over time. A total of 667 participants in sessions coded as either “High,” “Moderate,” or “Low” with regard to racial diversity within the session served as the sample. Results from data collected immediately prior to, directly after, and 3-4 months after program participation suggest the training effects of a leadership initiative may be augmented by the recruitment of racially diverse participants.