Six Ways of Understanding Leadership Development and Present Empirical Data and Theoretical Arguments for How They Are Arranged in Terms of Increasing Complexity

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Leadership 0(0) 1–27 Six ways of understanding ! The Author(s) 2020 leadership development: Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions An exploration of DOI: 10.1177/1742715020926731 increasing complexity journals.sagepub.com/home/lea

Sofia Kjellstrom€ The Jonk€ oping€ Academy for Improvement of Health and Welfare, The School of Health and Welfare, Jonk€ oping€ University, Jonk€ oping,€ Sweden

Kristian Sta˚lne Department of Materials Science and Applied Mathematics, Malmo€ University, Malmo,€ Sweden

Oskar Tornblom€ The Jonk€ oping€ Academy for Improvement of Health and Welfare, The School of Health and Welfare, Jonk€ oping€ University, Jonk€ oping,€ Sweden; Department of Industrial Economics and Management, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract Leadership development is a multifaceted phenomenon with a multitude of definitions and meanings requiring closer exploration. The aim of this study was to identify and investigate qualitatively different ways of understanding leadership development and categorize them from a complexity perspective. We conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with professionals and managers. Analysis using a phenomenographic approach revealed six categories and different ways of understanding leadership development: (1) one’s own development, (2) fulfilling a leadership role, (3) personal development, (4) leader and organizational development, (5) collective leadership development, and (6) human development. The categories were arranged hierarchically according to increasing complexity. Our contribution recognizes more nuanced interpretations than previously identified and highlights underlying structures of complexity. The results help to empirically ground and elaborate current theories and distinctions within

Corresponding author: Sofia Kjellstrom,€ The Jonk€ oping€ Academy for Improvement of Health and Welfare, The School of Health and Welfare, Jonk€ oping€ University, PO Box 1026, 55 111 Jonk€ oping,€ Sweden. Email: [email protected] 2 Leadership 0(0) the field of leadership development research where similar patterns can be observed. They may assist researchers in making both their own and other’s assumptions on leadership development explicit, as well as informing the practice of tailoring leadership development activities to better match individuals and organizational contexts.

Keywords Leadership development, leader development, collective leadership, adult development

Introduction The meaning of leadership is ambiguous and confusing; definitions abound. Leadership has become an all-encompassing good that is vaguely described. There is value in thinking more precisely about leadership activities (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012). The same is true for the meaning of leadership development given that any underlying assumptions and perspectives have consequences for the promotion of different approaches within organizations (Mabey, 2013; Van Velsor et al., 2010). The way a person talks and writes about leadership development influences what they see, value and prioritize (Carroll, 2019; Mabey, 2013). Exploring the beliefs and implicit assumptions of central elements of leadership development processes among different stakeholders, framed as studying implicit leadership development theory, is a promising area for leadership development research (Vogel et al., 2020). It is often assumed that leadership development is positive and desirable for all employees, contributing favourably to the progress of an organization. However, leadership development programmes poorly matched to participants’ expectations can be harmful and create negative experiences. Arnulf et al. (2016) showed that participants embraced developmental activities in general but were not unequivocally positive; they raised concerns when unsuitable activities were unadjusted for their organizational and personal contexts. Even in well-designed leadership development programmes, participants can distance themselves from their organization, even to the point of leaving, which can be the result of a simplified “one-fits-all solution” failing to take a complex context into account (Larson et al., 2020). Leadership development activities may also imply that employees are being treated as a means to a “greater good” of increased productivity; from a critical studies perspective, some types of leadership development can therefore be questioned. There is a considerable difference between signing up for self-improvement workshops in one’s spare time and being assigned to developmental programmes at work because an employer has decided that all workers need to improve their performance (Kjellstrom,€ 2009). Research shows that some- times participants do not gain the value of the frameworks, models or theories presented in a programme (Carroll and Nicholson, 2014; Gagnon and Collinson, 2014). This might be explained by the different ways people understand leadership development, or that the underlying assumptions in the programme design do not match the expectations of the participants. This article exposes these underlying and implicit assumptions and illustrates how they are enacted as different understandings of leadership development. We explore the Kjellstr€om et al. 3 multiple meanings of leadership development by asking managers and professionals how they view and make sense of this concept. We then organize the different ways people understand leadership development, ordering them according to certain patterns observed in our data. We outline six ways of understanding leadership development and present empirical data and theoretical arguments for how they are arranged in terms of increasing complexity. These understandings are not contradictory but rather sequential in that each one builds on the previous one, creating more complex ways of understanding the concept. The six different ways we identified make three main theoretical contributions. Firstly, we provide more nuanced distinctions and assumptions and provide a more multifaceted way of understanding leadership development. Secondly, we show how our findings are congruent with leadership identities moving from individual to relational to collective identities (Komives et al., 2006; Lord and Hall, 2005), as well as adult development theories in terms of increasing complexity in addressing leadership tasks (Kegan, 1994; Rooke and Torbert, 2005). Consequently, this research supports the proposition that there is an underlying pattern of increasing complexity in the different ways of understanding leadership development. Finally, we contribute to critical management studies by exploring the underlying and implicit assumptions of leadership development theory. From a practitioner perspective, the study provides a substantial contribution to those responsible for supporting improvement of leadership development. Given the multifaceted, sequential and increasing complexity of understandings of leadership development, strategies such as examining the underlying assumptions are necessary when designing ethical desirable programmes. The study not only has relevance for practitioners on how to design and implement specific leadership development interventions but also has the potential to contribute to making their underlying assumptions explicit with regard to developing long-term leadership development strategies suitable for their organizations. We outline three research fields that frame the study and provide the rationale for our objectives and choice of study design. In the Results section, six ways of understanding leadership development are portrayed; their increasing complexity is then explored. In the Discussion section, our theoretical contribution and details of important practical implications arising from the study are presented.

Background We begin by presenting some established definitions of leadership development based on a functionalistic perspective. The functionalist perspective has been criticized for providing too simplistic a foundation for leadership development (Larsson et al., 2020), but given its dominance in research and practice, it is necessary to briefly outline these definitions. We then introduce interpretative and critical perspectives, which include the importance of insights into people’s experiences and views, but critical perspectives also emphasize the importance of examining implicit assumptions. These two perspectives highlight the need to explore people’s understanding of leadership development and whether there may be more helpful ways of understanding the phenomena. For this purpose, we chose as a theoretical framework a phenomenographic approach in combination with adult development because they both focus on exploring and understanding complexity. 4 Leadership 0(0)

Functionalistic effective leader and leadership development definitions In leadership research and practice, the dominant perspective is a functional one where leadership is seen as a rather stable object and the goal is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of leadership (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Carroll, 2019; Mabey, 2013). Leadership development from this perspective is characterized by its focus on individual leaders and how they need to contribute and improve effective individual and organizational performance (Carroll, 2019; Mabey, 2013). Instead of relying on current fads and vendor hype when deciding on leadership development (Collins, 2013; Yukl, 2013), practices should be carefully tailored to present the developmental needs of the leaders and matched with managerial roles and organizational structures (Day et al., 2014). Within a functionalistic perspective, there have been efforts to define the concepts of leader and leadership development, even though they elude definition (Allen, 2007). Leader development and leadership development are often used interchangeably in the literature, despite being differently nuanced (Day, 2000; Day et al., 2014; Iles and Preece, 2006). We present the distinction by Day (2000) between management, leader and leadership development. Management development refers to managerial training focusing on proven solutions to known problems by providing knowledge and training in the skills and abilities to improve task performance in a managerial role (Day, 2000). Development applies to a person in a particular position and can be defined as “the process by which individuals pursuing managerial roles learn the interrelated sets of skills and abilities (i.e. competencies) necessary for effectiveness” (Dragoni et al., 2009). Leader development can be defined as an expansion of a person’s capability to be effective in a leadership role and process (Van Velsor et al., 2010). This is built on the assumption that if a leader develops knowledge, skills and abilities, leadership will be more effective. Leader development focuses primarily on human capital (Day, 2000) and enhanced capabilities that should enable people to think and act in new ways. When focusing on individual leaders, development refers to individual-based knowledge, skills, and abilities primarily connected to being effective in formal leader roles (Day, 2000; Day and Dragoni, 2015). Leader development, in this sense, builds upon a sharp division between leaders and followers (Day, 2000). However, there are broader ways of seeing leader development that go beyond formal roles. While acknowledging the emphasis on the development of an individual, some also recognize that people take on formal as well as informal leadership roles, at work and in leisure time (McCauley et al., 2010). Subsequently, a wider set of capabilities needs to be developed in three domains: leading oneself, leading others and leading the organization. Leader development is created based on experiences in these contexts and the process of learning and growing can also be applied, resulting in better leadership involving all three domains (McCauley et al., 2010). Life in general, as a source of development, is also apparent in this way of viewing leader development, similar to the definition of leader development as “every form of growth or stage of development in the life cycle that promotes, encourages and assists in one’s leadership potential” (Brungardt, 1997: 83). Leadership is seen as a continuous learning process that spans a lifetime. Leadership development is based on a broader and qualitatively different view of leadership (Day, 2000). It refers to processes of development involving multiple individuals, such as groups, teams, networks, or entire organizations (Day et al., 2014). Hence, leadership development is defined as expanding the collective’s capacity of organizational members to Kjellstr€om et al. 5 engage effectively in leadership roles and processes in order to produce direction, alignment and commitment (Drath et al., 2008; Van Velsor et al., 2010). This definition builds on a new way of conceptualizing leadership as beliefs and practices whereby the collective of a group produces leadership at the level of the whole organization. Leadership development can then be seen as the development of human cultural capital within the entire organization and working with system processes, collective practices and organizational cultures, where leadership is developed as an outcome of shared work and interaction (Van Velsor, 2007). However, the shift to a collective collaborative view on leadership does not change the fact that the underlying assumptions are functionalist, focusing on effectiveness (Mabey, 2013). In terms of the relationship between the leader and leadership development, both concepts must be linked and seen as complementary: leadership development transcends and includes the development of individual leaders (Day, 2000). Three levels of complexity and inclusiveness are proposed: leadership as role-based authority, leadership as an influence process, and leadership as a shared property of a social system including inter- dependencies among individuals, teams and organizations (Day and Harrison, 2007; Drath, 2001; Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). All three imply different ways of working with leader development.

Making critical sense of leadership development An alternative way of studying leadership development is to use interpretative and critical approaches that focus on how leadership is socially constructed in ongoing processes of intersubjective understandings and how underlying assumptions and understandings need to be examined (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Carroll, 2019; Mabey, 2013; Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). Leadership is not merely a characteristic of an individual; it is attributed and performed. People actively construct meaning for their experiences in the world, including the domain of leadership development (Bolden and Gosling, 2006; Drath et al., 2008; Kennedy et al., 2013; Probert and Turnbull James, 2011). From this perspective, it becomes important to explore how people socially construct leadership and its development. There are qualitative studies on how participants experience leadership development programmes. Some explore the more positive sides of leadership development. One series of studies explored more than 1000 leaders’ experiences of key events and what has supported their development as leaders, and showed that new tasks and assignments and relationships with others are perceived as the most valuable sources for developing as a leader (Yip and Wilson, 2010). Others show that professionals’ views on leadership development affect how programmes are supported in an organization (McAlearney, 2006). There is also a specific type of critical studies that builds on understanding how leadership is given meaning in different situations but goes one step further by examining the patterns of power and relating them to broader institutional conditions (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012, 2014) as well as exploring the shadow side of leadership development. Critical studies on leadership development address how people need to negotiate their identities and even resist some of the images that training programmes try to pursue (Carroll and Nicholson, 2014; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013; Sinclair, 2009). Nevertheless, to our knowledge there are no studies on how people make sense of what leadership development means for them. Exploring and exposing peoples’ underlying implicit assumptions, sense making and ways of understanding are essential in critical studies. This is done through processes of surfacing, 6 Leadership 0(0) exploring and even questioning and trying to change assumptions (Carroll and Levy, 2010; Kennedy et al., 2013). This approach builds on a belief that individual and collective assumptions about leadership delimit how organizational members work with leadership within an organization (Probert and Turnbull James, 2011). Through a process of sense making, it might be possible for individuals as well as organizations to renew the leadership concept, which also opens up new approaches to leadership development. The leadership concept is defined as the set of schemata and assumptions about leaders and leadership that an organization has embedded in its culture (Probert and Turnbull James, 2011: 142). Sense making of the underlying leadership assumption is essential in leadership development for handling current, as well as unforeseen, demands. The role of leadership development can be seen as reviewing assumptions of leadership (Probert and Turnbull James, 2011) and becoming aware of potential discrepancies. The consequences for an organization can be signifi- cant when different groups have different assumptions (Wang et al., 2014). Thus, it is important to investigate the variety of ways of understanding leadership development. If one of the main roles for leadership development initiatives is to renew the leadership concept, because they shape how organizational members perceive, act and evaluate leadership (Probert and Turnbull James, 2011), then leadership interventions need to influence the leadership concepts. Sense making is used to renew leadership concepts, and in the renewal process, it would be beneficial to know how people make sense, and what is the next step in understanding leader and leadership development. Leadership takes on multiple meanings and appearances, which evolve over time (Day and Harrison, 2007). Thus, we acknowledge that different ways of understanding leadership development, and leadership as whole, manifest not only for practitioners but also for researchers. The critical approach will also be employed towards ourselves in the sense that we as researchers are critical towards the explicit or implicit assumptions that we might have and thus are open to different new perspectives on leadership development. Identifying implicit assumptions can create better leadership development designs and substantially extend the understanding and impact of leadership development research. Thus, there is a genuine need to explore implicit leadership development theories, described as the cognitive structures of stakeholders regarding leadership development (Vogel et al., 2020). There seems to be a lack of studies that explore the assumptions of what leadership development means for different individuals.

Exploring the complexity of leadership developmental perspectives A strength of this study is the use of two different paths for exploring qualitatively different ways of understanding leadership development. As a data collection and analysis method, we use phenomenography (A˚kerlind, 2005, 2018; Marton, 1981, 1986; Sandberg, 1997; and as a theoretical framework for discussion, we use adult development theories (Kjellstrom€ and Stalne,˚ 2017; Rooke and Torbert, 2005). These two research traditions examine the qualitatively different ways in which people experience or think about various phenomena in the world, and studies with phenomenographic methods have produced ﬁndings remarkably similar to those of adult developmental researchers (Dawson, 2004; van Rossum and Hamer, 2010). Mabey (2013) argued that Sandberg’s (2000) phenomenographic study is an example of an interpretive perspective. Adult developmental theories are constructivist developmental in nature (Carroll and Levy, 2010; Kegan, 1994). They are “constructive” in the sense that they deal with a person’s constructions and interpretations of experiences, and Kjellstr€om et al. 7

“developmental” in the sense that they map how these interpretations of experiences grow more complex over time (Kegan, 1994; McCauley et al., 2006). We argue that the study could also be seen as a critical study in the sense of critical performativity, combining critical questioning with an ambition to have an impact on practical organizational work on leadership development by “asking profound questions about the scope and scale of leadership [development] in organizations” (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012: 385). Phenomenography aims to reveal the qualitatively different ways of understanding, experiencing, or making sense of a certain phenomenon. This qualitative research approach was originally created to examine learning and pedagogical issues (Marton, 1981, 1986). However, it was then used to examine ways of understanding in a variety of domains, such as organizational roles (Larsson et al., 2003), evidence-based practice (Avby et al., 2013), and competence (Sandberg, 2000, 2001). A phenomenographic study on employees’ views of competence revealed three conceptualizations of competence with increasing comprehen- siveness (Sandberg, 2000, 2001). These three ways of understanding the purpose of their work also had consequences in practice, because they gave rise to variation in competence; employees with the most comprehensive conceptions also developed a wider set of knowledge, skills and attributes. Thereby, the way in which work is understood constitutes human competence (Sandberg, 2000). This means that changing conceptions of work could become a vital form of leadership development activity because understanding of work mandates which knowledge and skills are considered essential to develop. A unique feature of phenomenographic methods, which differentiates it from many other qualitative methods, is that the final step involves creating an outcome space, where categories are ordered by complexity (A˚kerlind, 2005). Adult development research takes a transformative and developmental process approach to leadership by acknowledging multiple levels and dimensions that transform dynamically throughout a lifetime (Hoare, 2006, 2011). Adult development is a research field studying sequential growth in complex thinking and meaning making in relation to oneself, one’s social context and the surrounding environment. Empirically based theories depict a transformation process in the structures of meaning making, and the process involves qualitatively different changes resulting in increasing hierarchical complexity (Hoare, 2011). These cognitive competencies develop throughout adult life and have strong predictive validity in relation to a wide range of issues in working life, such as competence at work and leadership effectiveness (Dawson and Heikkinen, 2009; Kegan, 1994; Kjellstrom€ and Andersson, 2017; Kjellstrom€ and Stalne,˚ 2017; McCauley et al., 2006; Rooke and Torbert, 2005; Torbert, 2004). Within adult development, there are several models and theories that outline an increasing complexity in the leadership development domain. Using the theory of hierarchical complexity, there are detailed descriptions of different levels of complexity in the concept of leadership (Dawson and Gabrielian, 2003; Dawson and Heikkinen, 2009). There is also research on peoples’ experience of their own identity and development as a leader (Komives and Dugan, 2014; Komives et al., 2005, 2006). The developmental dimension as an increasing complexity has also been applied to leadership development domains with activities such as coaching (Bachkirova, 2011; Berger, 2011), feedback (Drago-Severson, 2017), teaming, leadership roles, collegial inquiry and mentoring (Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano, 2012, 2018). A review of adult development leadership research identified the need for more research with a wider use of contextual factors and how developmental activities are interpreted at different orders of development (McCauley et al., 2006). Thus, the current 8 Leadership 0(0) research focuses on the leader as a person or the concept of leadership, but no study has explicitly focused on “leadership development”.

Aim Leadership development research is nascent, and this study adds to the knowledge gap by providing knowledge on the different ways people make sense of leadership development and by addressing practical leadership development challenges. The aim of the study is to investigate qualitatively different ways of understanding leadership development. In order to build empirical knowledge that can be tested theoretically in further studies, two research questions are explored: What are the different ways of understanding leadership development? How can these ways of understanding be ordered hierarchically according to increasing complexity?

Research design and methods This research was the initial study in an interactive co-production research project on leadership development, where researchers produce knowledge of both high practical relevance and scientific relevance, together with professionals (Svensson et al., 2007). Interactive research emphasizes joint learning between the participants and the researchers throughout the research process. The joint project involves three large global/national technology- driven and project-intensive organizations operating in the metal cutting, software development and infrastructure industries in Sweden. The Swedish management style is characterized by emphasis on trust, a team approach, non-confrontational, conflict avoidant, consensus seeking, anti-hierarchical and action-oriented (Isaksson, 2008). Leadership developmental practices are similar across private and public sectors (Pinnington, 2011). All the organizations have internal training programmes for new managers in formal roles and tailor-made courses for manager competences at all organizational levels. They also use coaching, mentors and team-building activities. This study has an explorative and phenomenographic design, and the COREQ 32 item checklist for qualitative studies was used to assure quality standards (Tong et al., 2007). The research team consisted of three people. The first author (NN1) is a full professor of leadership and has extensive experience of qualitative studies, leadership development and adult development research. The second author (NN2) is a senior researcher with expertise in adult development and complexity. The third author is a PhD candidate (NN3) with senior management consulting experience, including previous assignments in one of the participating organizations where he had met four of the participants.

The participants The aim of using a phenomenographic approach when analysing the various ways in which individuals understand leadership development motivated us to acquire a variety of work experiences and contexts. A purposive sample was created from professionals and leaders in different roles, organizational levels, ages, gender and organizations. The choice of which people to interview was made in cooperation with key individuals in the project with in- depth knowledge of the organizations. Twenty-two people were contacted by e-mail or phone and sent an information letter to start the informed consent process, but one declined due to lack of time. Kjellstr€om et al. 9

Data were collected at the workplace face to face from 21 people aged 29–60 years (8 women, 13 men). Eight were working in managerial roles (ﬁrst-line managers, middle managers, executives), and 13 were in professional roles (project leaders, team leaders, software developers, HR strategists/specialists, leadership experts). The leadership experts were senior leadership consultants outside the three organization and were included to potentially capture additional richness of data. Work experience at the organizations varied from 1 to 20 years (average 9.8 years). The level of education was 1 PhD, 17 university graduates, 2 ofﬁcer/military school graduates and 1 with a high school degree.

Data collection The interviews were semi-structured, and focused on three basic questions: What is leadership development? What promotes leadership development? and What hinders leadership development? Leadership development was deliberatively chosen as a broad concept, including the concept of leader and management development, but most participants made no distinction between leader and leadership development. Participants were invited to present nuanced accounts of their understanding of leadership development and probing was done by repeating questions and asking participants to elaborate or give examples. This is a complex task with a focus on a phenomenon that involves grasping the leader role, one’s own development and view of leadership development. During the interviews as well as the analysis, the researchers aimed to set their own assumptions regarding leadership development aside in order to be open to new perspectives that might be presented by the interviewees. The complexity of the task also lies in the foundation for creating different conceptualizations of the phenomena. The interviews lasted for 60–90 minutes and were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Only one participant took the opportunity to read the transcripts when offered.

Analysis The data were analysed according to phenomenography procedures proposed by Sandberg (2001) and A˚kerlind (2005). The analysis consisted of an interpretive and iterative process that started with familiarization, continued between what constitutes leadership development and how leadership development was described, and finally focusing on what and how concurrently. The first step involved familiarization by gaining a general view and then identifying the passages that answered the main questions. NN1 and NN2 independently read and coded the passages and then discussed them in order to reach a consensus. Memos summarizing the essential codes and features for each person were created collaboratively in the research group. In the second phase, the focus was on what leadership development referred to and trying to find similarities among the ways of understanding leadership development. In the third phase, transcripts identified as similar were reread for patterns in the conceptualization of leadership development. In the fourth phase, what and how questions were addressed simultaneously. This created categories of descriptions, which are abstractions of different ways of understanding. In the last phase, NN3 read all transcripts to validate the findings of NN1 and NN2 and ensure consensus was reached among all authors regarding the essential features of each way of understanding, and that each category represented a different way that a phenomenon can be understood. Direct quotes from several participants are used to 10 Leadership 0(0) gain transparency and illustrate the interpretation of the data. Each organization was assigned a letter A, B or C and the leadership experts D. In the last phase, an outcome space was created, delineating the internal relationship of the categories. This last phase is connected to the phenomenographic assumption that different categories of describing ways of experiencing a phenomenon are logically related to one another, typically by way of hierarchically inclusive relationships (A˚kerlind, 2005; Marton, 1981, 1986). One learning workshop was conducted at each organization and one cross-organization learning workshop took place at which the results were presented and discussed.

Results The results of the analysis showed six qualitatively different ways of conceptualization of leadership development, denoted W1 to W6 (for an overview, see Table 1). W1 starts with a concrete focus on the leader’s own development and is expanded in W2 as the development within one’s role at work. In W3, the understanding is broadened to include the leader’s personal views and the development that can occur in one’s spare time. The ﬁrst four ways of understanding have a focus on the individual leader, and in W4, the focus is on alignment of the leader to the values within the organization. W5 and W6 embrace the focus on the individual but add two different approaches: W5 in terms of a focus on collective leadership and W6 in terms of relating leader development to theories of the evolution of the human being. These six ways are presented and interpreted in relation to the current literature with regard to deﬁnitions of leader and leadership development (Day, 2000) and leader identity theories (Komives et al., 2006). The categories are ordered hierarchically with increasing

Table 1. Six ways of conceptualization leadership development.

Code Title Characteristics

W1 One’s own development Self-development with little generalization to leadership in general W2 Filling a leader role Leadership development as filling a formal managerial and/or other type of leader role, and coordinating self-development with the requirements of the role W3 Personal development Expands the notion of leader development to personal development, which transcends and includes development within the role W4 Integrating leader and Emphasizes an alignment between development of the leader, the organizational development person and the organization, which requires taking a perspective beyond previous understandings, but still from an individualistic view of the leader role W5 Collective leadership Distinguishes between leader and leadership development and development focuses attention mainly on the latter in experiential or hypo- thetical descriptions of shared and collective leadership W6 Human development Has a wider scope and view of leadership development than the organizational boundaries by relating it to human development as an evolutionary process, but still from an individualistic standpoint in terms of leadership Kjellstr€om et al. 11 complexity and according to how the categories relate to the leader role, the group, organization and view of leadership. Furthermore, the outcome space is presented in order to answer research question two (Figures 1 and 2).

W1: One’s own development Leadership development is understood as one’s own development and way of understanding, consisting mainly of one’s own perspective based on current experiences. “I think only of my own development since I’m a newly appointed boss.” A1. Viewing leadership development as one’s own development is a basic way of conceptualization, and has some similarities to Freedman’s (1998) model of career paths in which the ﬁrst step is managing oneself and focusing on your own work before becoming aware of yourself as a leader (Day and Harrison, 2007), or the initial stages in leadership identity whereby taking up responsibilities moves a person in the direction of a leadership position (Komives et al., 2005). In contrast to previous literature, our data add to the knowledge on what can be done to develop as a leader. Non-leaders also participated, and they expressed a need for feedback on their work performance and leadership:

I really don’t think it’s something you can learn by reading a book, but you have to look at “what do I do?” And what reactions do I get from the speciﬁc team? So, I think the most effective way, even if it might be the most demanding, is to get honest criticism from those you work with. C5

The responses that articulate this way of understanding relate primarily to concrete current needs and challenges of the leader role and what it would require to become a leader. In this ﬁrst category, gaining feedback is the most important source of development but is com- plemented by brief descriptions of training, time for reﬂection and a few more factors fully conceptualized in the following perspectives and ways of understanding. An interpretation of why people start off with these concrete experiences is that when people take on a new domain, they usually start with concrete happenings that build up to more complex reasoning (Kjellstrom€ and Ross, 2011; Ross, 2008). This is expanded to formal roles as a leader in the next category.

W2: Filling a leader role Leadership development in this way of understanding is leader development, namely that individual leaders become better in their role by developing increased competencies. Understanding is characterized by the goal of becoming better in the role and the view of leadership is beyond the present formal leader role. The individual is primarily in a formal managerial role or in another type of formal leader role, such as team leader or programme manager. Leadership development as individual leader development in a formal role is an established and prominent viewpoint in the research literature and in practice (Cullen-Lester et al., 2017; Day, 2000; Komives et al., 2005, 2006; McCauley et al., 2010). In this way of understanding, it is essential to deﬁne the leader(ship) role with a clear mandate and boundaries. The leader is described as needing both individual and relational skills. 12 Leadership 0(0)

Leadership development is conceptualized in two ways, either horizontally by developing the individual to handle the current role, or vertically by advancing to the next managerial level. “You have a clear idea of which competencies you want to foster, the ones we need to better and those we need to attain a certain level or see the bigger picture” A8. The skills and competencies vary depending on the managerial level.

So you have a hierarchy of leadership that works according to the structure of the company in some way. So that some are leaders with the right competence and motivation and everything, and C is C, and B is B, and A is A. I think that leadership development is when you develop D to become C, and C to become B, and so forth. A5

Leadership development programmes are viewed as a means for providing basic knowledge of tools, theories and methods. This way of understanding can be said to build on a competence framework (Bolden and Gosling, 2006; Carroll et al., 2008). A wide range of development activities are included in this way of understanding leader development, such as meetings and discussions with other managers, gaining support from networks and mentors, and training regarding conﬂict resolution, conducting salary reviews, work safety and difﬁcult conversations:

According to my view of leader development, it’s more about leadership theories and training in different situations, and so on: things such as what is legal and what you are allowed to do as leader, that require some sort of training. But these other things about training in different situations, I think, can be done better in daily practice by means of networks, mentorships, or with the support of HR ...I don’t think it’s enough to go away for three days and prepare for difﬁcult conversations in workshops and so on. It may provide a good foundation, but in order to create real change you need to continually work at it along with others. A4

Leadership development means changing one’s behaviour, which cannot be achieved with a quick ﬁx or single course event, because you are likely to revert to old patterns unless followed up in daily practice and remaining in contact with other course participants, course leaders, or mentors in a formalized way sanctioned by the organization. The next way of understanding expands the development beyond the role.

W3: Personal development Leadership development as personal development embraces and shares the focus on developing the individual within the role, but conceptualizes it as something broader, involving the whole person. The broader view of leader development (Brungardt, 1997; Cullen-Lester et al., 2017; Day, 2000) provided by (Van Velsor et al., 2010) does, to some extent, incorporate the notion of personal development, because it incorporates professional and private spheres in life. When a person grows as a leader and human being, growth manifests itself in all situations and conversely, personal and leadership development takes place in all life situations:

If you feel you have better self-esteem at work, you get to know yourself better and get better at dealing with people ...Of course, you then apply it and feel it in private, too; how you can deal with people in another way, and simply gain more conﬁdence in yourself. A3 Kjellstr€om et al. 13

It also means that this way of understanding leadership development is built on differenti- ation of leadership beyond the formal role and acknowledging that leadership could come from people in non-positional roles (Komives and Dugan, 2014; Komives et al., 2005). Beyond courses and everyday challenges at work, as well as experiences from outside work, time to reﬂect was brought up by all interviewees speaking from this perspective. This way of knowing moves beyond skills and competencies and puts emphasis on reﬂection and that one needs to know oneself to be a good leader:

You have abilities and insights on how to act and deliver results, and you constantly challenge yourself around that, which is, to a great extent, personal development. B1

Development is seen as more than involving “hard” instrumental aspects that regard effectiveness within the leader role as well as “soft” skills in terms of psychological inter- and intrapersonal awareness and capabilities: leading others requires self-awareness and self- leadership, which also means taking responsibility for one’s own leadership development rather than leaving it to the organization. The organization and its culture were brought up as a background and context in which to navigate, but only as an external factor, and are addressed in more detail in the next category.

W4: Integrating leader and organizational development This way of understanding leadership development uses an individual approach, but takes into account organizational context and culture. Leadership development is conceptualized as an essential aspect of organizational development and should be aligned with the aim of the organization in terms of adaptability to changing inner and outer circumstances. This way of understanding has similarities to a functionalistic perspective on leadership development whereby leadership development activities build on and retain leadership capabilities that maximize productivity and organizational performance (Mabey, 2013). A key characteristic for this way of understanding is a focus on consistency, for instance, of the organization’s image and the actions of its leaders. Leadership development is the starting point for organizational leadership in terms of developing the organization to address its strategic challenges, reach its goals, visions, etc.:

Developing leadership also develops the company and its operations and vice versa, so I think bringing about change in operations or business often returns to requiring leadership, managerial or leader development. C6

Focusing on a commitment to the larger aims of a group as well as internalizing the group values is also characteristic of a stage in leader identity development (Komives and Dugan, 2014). This category builds on the previous one, because all of these interviewees also took the view that leadership development could be seen as personal development beyond that of only developing leadership skills within the leader role. If there is a large discrepancy between one’s own values and visions and the organization’s, it may be appropriate to part ways. A desired culture is commonly expressed as open and creative where mistakes are tolerated and ideas are openly exchanged. Leadership development here can mean adapting to and growing into the culture to head it in a sound direction: 14 Leadership 0(0)

I think that each company has its own culture and you have to absorb it, for better or worse. It doesn’t have to be good, it can be darn bad really, but at some point, you have to take it in and deal with it, and at best, really learn from it, grow and develop in it. Then you have to somehow accept it, or not always accept it, and possibly change it at a reasonable pace. B3

This response expresses leadership development as becoming part of the culture and then possibly changing it from within. To lead by example contributes to shaping such culture. Change is perceived as an ongoing process where you test different approaches, learn from outcomes and adjust. There is a collective dimension in W4, but it takes its point of departure in individual leader development, whereas W5 conceptualizes leadership as a collective endeavour.

W5: Collective leadership development This way of understanding characterizes leadership development as a collective endeavour, and collective leadership transcends and embraces leader development (Day, 2000; Day and Harrison, 2007; Drath, 2001; Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). Here, leadership is seen as an emergent quality of a collective, which in these responses refers to a team:

Leadership will, in this group, be exercised by the seven persons belonging to the team. I said self-governing, which is the word you use today. And there is also some, of course, some form of leadership. That is not exercised by a single individual but by all seven, if there are seven in the group ...Together they constitute the management of their team, where leadership development takes place. C4

According to this way of understanding, leadership is practiced by the team rather than by particular or formal leaders, and leadership development equals team development and is seen as a process of maturation of the team. Leadership is seen as a collective that includes multiple individuals sharing leadership responsibilities (Day and Dragoni, 2015; De Brun et al., 2019; Raelin, 2018; Yammarino et al., 2012). Implicit collective leadership theories show how leadership in teams can be seen as an emergent relational process between team members (Scott et al., 2017). A central tenet is also that the individuals and the team lead themselves in the frame of their mandate “ ...and when we have several self-governing teams, then, implicitly, no leaders are required. They lead themselves.” C4 Collective leadership approaches can occur in formal groups, teams, dyads, and formal collective structures such as departments and functional areas (Yammarino et al., 2012), but in our data, the only examples provided are teams and not the organization as a whole. However, the development of individual leaders is seen as being consistent with the development of the organization and its culture according to the previous perspective W4. It is also articulated how different people grow into taking responsibility as formal as well as informal leaders, which also includes perspectives W2 and W3. Collective leadership development from this perspective is described as being assembled as a team, assigned a task and assuming different roles while methodically and continually building trust in the team and releasing control. This is in line with research that states that collective leadership activities have a focus on building social capital and collaboration (Day, 2000; Raelin, 2018). These responses also take a transformational perspective on Kjellstr€om et al. 15 the organizational design by comparing different organizational structures, logics and the concurrent cultural shift, for instance from a traditional line organization to self-governing.

W6: Human development This way of understanding leadership development reﬂects a wider perspective and raises concerns that are broader than the organization. It was also articulated that individuals have fundamentally different views on the organization’s purpose and ways of working, and that there cannot, and should not, be one shared view of the organizations purpose and ways of working. Development is described as an open-ended process that cannot be fully controlled and with uncertain outcomes. Leadership development was also described in relation to evolutionary development.

...our human ability to cover the entire scale between past, present and future. I think that is an essential ingredient in leadership development ...And further, why talk only about leadership, but instead talk about human development. B2

The responses are typically ﬂexible in shifting between several complexity levels where the developmental aspect permeates all interviewee perspectives:

Leader development is ...a combination of several levels. First, there is an individual level where you can have your own perspective that you develop as a leader, but also that your co-workers, your separate co-workers, develop and in your role as leader see that it entails the development of your co-workers. But then, working with the management group that you are a part of, see that this group in turn develops in terms of leadership, and then on an organizational level where one matures and acquires a wider perspective on where leadership should be heading to develop operations in a desired direction. It’s a very complex question. D2

Similar to the responses from the previous way of understanding W5, these demonstrated an awareness of transformative aspects of personal, as well as organizational and cultural development. This view on development, which includes and even transcends the development and ideology of the organization or institution, may be regarded as being postconventional (Pfaffenberger et al., 2011; Torbert, 2004).

Outcome space: Internal relations among the categories The intent of the second research question is to explore the complexity of the ways of understanding by analysing their internal relationships. There are two potential options for ordering the perspectives hierarchically according to complexity, based on empirical and theoretical arguments (Figures 1 and 2). According to a theoretical argument, the different ways of understanding all represent some perspective or way of relating to the distinctions between leader and leadership, to the leader role, to the organization and its culture, structure and so forth. The ways of understanding that were highest in order were most comprehensive in terms of taking perspective and complexity. This ordering is done according to the following description. W1 relates to self-development with little generalizing to leadership in general. W2 con- siders leadership development as ﬁlling a formal managerial and/or other type of leader role, 16 Leadership 0(0)

Complexity

W6 – Human development

W5 – Collective development

W4 – Organizational/cultural development

W3 – Personal development

W2 – Leadership development in role

W1 – Own development

Figure 1. Human development as more complex than collective development as a way of understanding leadership development.

Complexity

W5 – Collective W6 – Human

W4 – Organizational/cultural development

W3 – Personal development

W2 – Leadership development in role

W1 – Own development

Figure 2. Collective and human development as parallel ways of understanding leadership development. and coordinates self-development with the requirements of this role. W3 expands the notion of leader development to personal development, which transcends and includes development within the role. W4 emphasizes an alignment between development of the leader, the person and the organization, which requires taking perspective beyond previous understandings, but still from an individualistic view of the leader role. W5 distinguishes between leader and leadership development and focuses attention mainly on the latter in experiential or hypo- thetical descriptions of shared and collective leadership. W6 takes a wider scope and concern of leadership development than the organizational boundaries by relating it to human development as an evolutionary process (Figure 1), but still from an individualistic standpoint in terms of leadership. It has not been established that W6 and W5 should be ordered according to what is previously suggested. Thus, perspective W6 could be tentatively ordered in parallel to W5 (Figure 2) and can be considered a more complex and mature version of W3; leadership Kjellstr€om et al. 17 development as personal development, but including the organizational perspective seen in W4. This interpretation is compatible with the notion that collective leadership transcends and embraces leader development (Day, 2000; Day and Harrison, 2007; Drath, 2001; Uhl- Bien and Ospina, 2012). It also concurs with the distinction in the research literature, whereby relational leader development, which focuses on interpersonal relationships and relational leadership development, is less complex than collective leadership development (Day and Harrison, 2007; Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). The theoretical argument is further supported in the discussion where the results are elaborated in relation to leader and leadership research (Day, 2000; Day and Dragoni, 2015; Day et al., 2014; Probert and Turnbull James, 2011), as well as from the adult development literature (Kjellstrom€ and Stalne,˚ 2017). The other argument for the ordering is more empirical; we have analysed all interviews to establish which ways of understanding they represent (Table 2). All participants articulate the most basic ways and more than one way of understanding. This ﬁnding is supported by phenomenographic studies where more complex categories are rarer (van Rossum and Hamer, 2010). The interviewees speaking from W5 and W6 explicitly integrated and embraced the previous perspectives. Generally, ordering of the conceptions is supported in that persons who expressed more comprehensive conceptions also expressed less comprehensive understandings, while the opposite did not occur. One exception is that the W6 responses did not integrate W5 perspectives or vice versa. Therefore, we conclude

Table 2. Interviewees’ expression of different ways of understanding leadership.

Interview code W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6

A1 X X A2 X X (x) A3 X X X A4 X X (x) (x) A5 X X (x) A8 X X A9 X X A10 X X X X B1 X X X B2XXXX X B3XXXX B4 X X B5XXXX C1XXXXX C2 (x) (x) C3XXXX C4XXXXX C5 X X (x) C6XXXX D1XXXX D2XXXX X

X: explicit description of way of understanding leadership development; (x): implicit expression of way of understanding leadership development. 18 Leadership 0(0) that the order of these two ways of understanding could either switched or seen as parallel (Figure 2). Further, the ordering of W4 and W5 can also be discussed because W4 focuses on organizational development, whereas W5 emphasizes collective leadership of the team, which is a smaller circle or collective. However, the interviewees who argue from W5 also express organizational perspectives according to W4 and not vice versa. To conclude, the six ways of understanding ranged from leadership of a single person to more collective and complex conceptions of leadership that span beyond organizational boundaries.

Discussion The analysis resulted in six distinct and characteristic ways of understanding leadership development, which are arranged hierarchically according to increasing complexity.

Theoretical contribution The first theoretical contribution is that the results show a greater variety and complexity in ways of understanding leadership development, which are elaborated in the following section where the results are compared with established definitions and distinctions in leadership development research. The second contribution is illustration of a dimension of increasing complexity and the expanding and evolving notion of leadership development, which becomes even more apparent when the results are related to identity development theories and constructivist adult development theories. In the adult development field, the notion of domain means the area or topic that the individual is understanding (Mascolo, 2008). The six ways of understanding can be seen as the first outline of a new developmental trajectory in the leadership development domain. The third contribution is the exploration of implicit leadership development theories, described as the cognitive structures of stakeholders regarding leadership development (Vogel et al., 2020).

A greater variety of leadership development definitions and distinctions. A main finding was that the ways of understanding that were identified provided a greater variety than established definitions, at the same time as established definitions were confirmed. The different ways of understanding articulated in W2 and W5 match the established and often cited definitions of leader development and leadership development, respectively (Day, 2000). Leadership development as individual leader development is prominent in the research literature and in practice (Cullen-Lester et al., 2017; Day, 2000; McCauley et al., 2010). The broader view of leader development (Brungardt, 1997; Cullen-Lester et al., 2017; Day, 2000) provided by Van Velsor et al. (2010) does, to some extent, incorporate the notion of personal development, because it incorporates professional and private spheres in life. Leadership as personal development W3 emphasizes the individual as a whole, and the link between personal development and development of leadership effectiveness is described as underutilized in the theory and practice of leader development (Ibarra et al., 2010; Petriglieri et al., 2011). Both W4 and W5 lead to the collective dimension with the difference that W4 takes its point of departure as leader development, whereas W5 conceptualizes leadership as a collective endeavour. This distinction is found in the research literature, where relational leader development, which focuses on interpersonal relationships, is seen as less complex than collective leadership development (Day and Harrison, 2007; Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). Kjellstr€om et al. 19

Because leadership development research is in the early stages, distinctions such as team development and leadership development are not completely clear, but there is a possibility that leadership development encompasses part of team development (Day and Dragoni, 2015).

The development of leader identity. The results are congruent with leader identity moving from a focus on individuals to relational focus on others, to leadership involving everyone (Komives and Dugan, 2014; Komives et al., 2005, 2006), and leadership identities move from individual, to relational, to collective identities (Lord and Hall, 2005). This move appears to be a developmental process (Komives et al., 2006). Since the concept of “leadership” is central in “leadership development”, we expected to find similarities between our results depicting different levels of complexity in leadership development and models that describe changing concepts of leadership (identity). Our results have similarities to but also some important dissimilarities from leadership identity development theory, which describes a six-stage model (Komives and Dugan, 2014; Komives et al., 2005, 2006). The first two stages describe the beginning of recognition of leadership and engaging in groups preparing for leadership but also include first experiences of being assigned as a leader. This is different from W1, which focuses on concrete needs in a leader role. The third stage is leader centric, and leadership is viewed as positional and often hierarchical (Komives et al., 2006). This stage shows the most similarities and is congruent with W2, sharing the focus on leaders in formal roles that are developed stepwise into new roles and levels in the organization. In Komives’ fourth stage, leadership is differentiated by making the distinction between leadership in roles and non-roles, and leadership is seen as a process happening everywhere (Komives et al., 2006). This expansion of the view of leadership is also seen in W4 although the difference is that it is more clearly tied to an inner view with a focus on personal development and self-awareness. Komives et al. (2006) describe stage 5 as the phase with a passion for commitment and a time to shape leadership philosophies, and stage 6 for commitment for congruent values with actions. In our results, the interest in values and alignment is played out in W5 as concern for values and aligning them with the organization. Thus, there are some similarities in how leadership identity develops and how the views of understanding of leadership development increase in complexity.

The developmental dimension of leadership development. The analysis and main findings regarding the different ways of understanding leadership development contribute to constructive developmental theories of adult development. Theories in the field have outlined different ways of understanding leadership (Joiner and Josephs, 2006; McCauley et al., 2006; Torbert, 2004), showing the increasing complexity involved in views of leadership (Dawson and Heikkinen, 2009; Ross, 2008) and the developmental dimension in leadership development activities; e.g. coaching (Bachkirova, 2011; Berger, 2011) and feedback (Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano, 2012, 2018). Yet, there are no current studies on how the view of leadership development evolves. This means that the six ways of understanding can be regarded as an outline of a developmental trajectory in the leadership development domain, contributing to the field by adding a more theoretical domain than previous work. The different ways of understanding leadership development appear to reflect an increasing ability for social perspective taking and complex thinking, with similarities to Robert Kegan’s five-stage constructive developmental theory (Kegan, 1982, 1994), which supports 20 Leadership 0(0) the claim that it represents a unique domain. For instance, expressing a view on leadership development in terms of consistency with organizational development, in accordance with W4, requires the ability to coordinate one’s own development as a leader with the development of the organization, which surpasses the mental requirements of previous ways of understanding. This seems to correspond to the fourth order of consciousness that is denoted as self-authoring or institutional according to Kegan’s theory (Kegan, 1982). The hallmark of that order is coordinating one’s own values and goals with those of one’s institutional-societal meaning context (Hagstrom€ and Stalne,˚ 2015), which in essence means that the leader identifies with the organization and has internalized its values and goals. This view on leadership development, which emphasizes alignment between personal and organizational development, is also reflected in the description of deliberatively developmental organizations where there is a focus on self-development in combination with emphasis on company culture, according to Kegan and Lahey (2016). Further data and analyses along with established tests of adult theories could be used to validate possible relations and correlations with adult development theories (Loevinger and Hy, 1996). Both W5 and W6 demonstrate similarities with descriptions of the more complex way of meaning making (Kegan, 1994).

Critical analysis of implicit assumptions of leadership development. Critical performativity studies combine reflexivity and questioning assumptions with an aspiration to change practical organizational work, which means using tactics such as taking the concerns of participants seriously, being pragmatic and clarifying one’s ideals (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012). This study adds to this field by acknowledging the participants different ways of understanding as well as critically examining the hidden assumptions and structures within different ways of understanding. Compared with studies that have outlined how participants in programmes are shaped by power (Nicholson and Carroll, 2013), our results are more affiliated with research that outlines the principles of working with leadership development (Collinson and Tourish, 2015). They also contribute to implicit leadership development theories that describe stakeholders’ cognitive structures of leadership development (Vogel et al., 2020). We add how a more fine-grained description and categorization of ways of understanding can be used to improve how leadership development is done in practice, as discussed in the following section, and also how a reflexive approach can be used when working with these issues.

Practical implications: Developmental leadership development The six ways of understanding leadership development point to a multifaceted nature, where there is a variety in making sense of the concept. The large number challenges the assumption, often taken for granted, that leadership is an all-inclusive concept (Blom and Alvesson, 2015), and that there is one best way to do leadership development. Thus, the first practical implication is in performing critical analysis of the current ways of understanding leadership development and the underlying assumptions. Practitioners should ask questions such as: Which way of understanding do I and my organization currently have? What are the assumptions of leadership development in my organization, articulated in policies and training programmes? What is the historical and future focus in our organization regarding leadership development investment and activities? Asking these kinds of questions is a slightly different approach than seeing leadership development as about exploring, Kjellstr€om et al. 21 reviewing and renewing assumptions of leadership (Probert and Turnbull, 2011). The value of the analysis is a more reflexive and questioning approach (Alvesson et al., 2016; Collinson and Tourish, 2015) whereby structures and arenas for continuous reflection on the leader role are created (Andersson and Tengblad, 2016) reasonably enhancing leadership development in a more deliberate way. These analyses are important because cultural ideas of leadership development are not always aligned with members of the organizations. A functional perspective, mostly similar to W4, is claimed to be dominant with a focus on effective performance meeting organizational purpose (Mabey, 2013). This seems to be a general cultural demand. However, only about half of our interviewees expressed this idea, and in one of the organizations, this was barely men- tioned. This could be interpreted that there is a culture of leadership development in each organization, but there can also be subcultures within larger organizations (Wang et al., 2014). When practitioners take a notion for granted, we cannot expect that this idea is shared by all. The value of becoming more aware of the assumptions of leadership development is that participants in training and development form their leadership identity in relation to the implicit theories of effective leadership (Carroll and Nicholson, 2014; Gagnon and Collinson, 2014; Lord and Hall, 2005; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013). This happens because people participating in leader development programmes try to align with organizationally sanctioned identities (Carroll and Levy, 2010). There are ethical consequences of not matching individual and organizational ways of understanding. Voluntary engagement is essential and consequently creates organizations that allow individuals to develop to their full potential and organizations that respect people and provide adequate support, particularly because there is no guaranteed result when development is the target (Kjellstrom,€ 2009, 2010). An assumption within adult development research is that it is important to let people develop into more complex ways of understanding (Rooke and Torbert, 2005), although this is far from straightforward, e.g. due to a highly formalized nature of the work (Hagstrom€ and Backstrom,€ 2016). Therefore, it is an ethical principle to meet people where they are. The development of individual understanding of leadership development is sequential. It is not always necessary to change the sense making, but if needed or wanted, then our results highlight that it is important to pay attention to the sequence of understandings. If individuals want to pursue a collective form of leadership development, it is important to avoid shortcuts and instead consecutively build ways of understanding leader(ship) development. A more complex way of understanding leadership development is not necessarily better, and designing leadership development programmes and activities that do not match the context and the people can cause confusion and dropout. Crafting leadership development activities on ways of understanding that are too simple will probably have the reverse effect of boring people. Thus, there is a central concern that practitioners take the ethical perspective into account when deciding on leadership development investments and activities. An initial step in choosing leadership development activities is to decide if they are to be performed individually or in groups (Kjellstrom€ et al., 2020). The change from leader-centric to collective leadership may demand a new way of selection, training and development, and assessment (Raelin, 2018; Yammarino et al., 2012). If an individual approach is selected, there are additional choices. For example, with a W2 focus on filling a leader role in an organizational hierarchy, with competence frameworks and leadership pipelines, it becomes natural to develop the skills and competences needed for the role (Mumford et al., 2007). Leadership competencies are seen to be developed through formal training but also through 22 Leadership 0(0) self-initiated activities and developmental experiences and activities embedded within job assignments (Day et al., 2014; Salas et al., 2012; Yukl, 2013). If leadership development embraces personal development (W3), it is more likely to include self-awareness, self-knowledge and reflection exercises. If a collective approach is chosen W5. possible activities are team building and training that build interpersonal relationships and shared mental models (De Brun et al., 2019; Yammarino et al., 2012). If practitioners have more knowledge of individuals’ implicit assumptions of leadership development, better leadership development interventions can be crafted (Vogel et al., 2020). The process of matching, sequencing leadership development methods based on needs in the organization (which in itself is a W4 approach) is a promising approach to improve leadership development in practice.

Future research Future research needs to conﬁrm the results with greater samples of stakeholders from different contexts, and longitudinal studies are required to explore if and how individuals change their ways of understandings over time. It would also be interesting to explore which methods for leadership development (Kjellstrom€ et al., 2020) are related to and appropriate for different ways of understanding. Another interesting research area is to explore ways of understanding leadership as represented in different organizational contexts and which ones are lacking among individuals in organizations.

Conclusions When people talk about leadership development, they cannot take for granted that everyone understands it in the same way. We found six qualitatively different ways of understanding leadership development. The core in leadership development is that a person becomes better as a leader, but its meaning ranges from an initial focus on a speciﬁc person’s development to an expanded way of connecting individual development to organizational targets and visions and to leadership development as a group accomplishment. The outcome that there is an increasing complexity in the understanding of the leadership development has the potential to make leadership development fundamentally developmental. It can be used to improve the design of leadership development activities as well as to inform the practice of tailoring leadership development activities to better match individuals and organizational needs and contexts. This would mean meeting people where they are, but also creating designs that sequence the belief and expectations of leadership development. Furthermore, the results may assist researchers and professionals in making their own and others’ assumptions on leadership development explicit. The results can be used as a framework for rethinking leadership development with a genuine contribution by making leadership development developmental and exploring the implicit assumptions of leadership development.

Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conﬂicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Kjellstr€om et al. 23

Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following ﬁnancial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The project was funded by Knowledge Foundation, Sweden (20160158).

ORCID iD Soﬁa Kjellstrom€ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8952-8773

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Author biographies Soﬁa Kjellstrom€ , PhD Professor of quality improvement and leadership with current research interests in leadership development and interventions, adult development, change and co-production of health and welfare.

Kristian Stalne˚ , PhD senior researcher in construction engineering, with research interests spanning engineering, adult development psychology, leadership development and metatheories.

Oskar Tornblom€ , PhD candidate (2012–defense June 2020), current research interest in new forms of organizing, leadership and organizational development in high-tech companies. Executive advisor with 20þ years of industry experience.