Leader development is defined as the "expansion of a person's capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes" (McCauley, Van Veslor, & Rudeman, 2010, p. 2).
These roles and processes are ones that aid in setting direction, creating alignment and maintaining commitment in groups of people sharing common work.
In contrast, Gestalt psychology examines the creation of new mental models that arise from experience, which can help a leader develop their intrapersonal competence.
Management development includes managerial education and training (Latham & Seijts, 1998; Mailick, Stumpf, Grant, Kfir, & Watson, 1998).
Support, which comes in the form of bosses, co-workers, friends, family, coaches and mentors, enables leaders to handle the struggle of developing.
It is also important to note that the leader development process is rooted in a particular leadership context which includes elements such as age, culture, economic conditions, gender of the population, organizational purpose and mission, and business strategy (McCauley et al.).
YGLP is an international leadership program for university and high school students aiming to groom young minds into exemplary leaders.
The objective behind creation of YGLP was to come up with a path-breaking leadership model that could be used across the globe to create a new generation of leaders who can push the limit of human accomplishments to new frontier.
The theory stipulates that "the leadership achievement of an individual is proportional to the optimal use of four principal components that makes a leader –motivation, planning, energising and executing".
There are three types of intrapersonal competencies related to leader development: self-awareness (emotional awareness, self-confidence, and accurate self-image), self-regulation (self-control, trustworthiness, adaptability and personal responsibility), and self-motivation (commitment, initiative, and optimism) (Day, 2000).
Together, the capabilities of self-awareness, self-regulation and self-motivation allow for enhanced individual knowledge, trust, and personal power, which can be seen as fundamental to create in a leader (Zand, 1997).
Leader development takes place through multiple mechanisms: formal instruction, developmental job assignments, 360-degree feedback, executive coaching, and self-directed learning (Boyce, Zaccaro & Wisecarver, 2009; Day, 2000).
Traditional styles provide leaders with required knowledge and skills in a particular area by utilizing coursework, practice, "overlearning" with rehearsals, and feedback (Kozlowski, 1998).
Following formal training organizations should assign leaders to developmental jobs that target the newly acquired skills (Zacarro & Banks, 2004).
The "stretch" or developmental assignment challenges the leader's new skills and pushes them out of their comfort zone to operate in a more complex environment involving new elements, problems and dilemmas to resolve (Ohlott, 2004).
However, when several different sources concur on a similar perspective, whether a strength or weakness, the clarity of the message increases (King & Santana, 2010).
Self-development is the process of not only acquiring new skills but also gaining an understanding of the leader's environment and self through new experiences and activities, such as seeking out mentors or developmental job assignments (Boyce, Zaccaro, & Wisecarver, 2010).