Journal of Educational Leadership in Action, Volume 9, Issue 3, Full Issue

Leadership identity (also known as leader identity) has been established as a sub-identity of general self-concept.A greater degree of leadership identity could have implications for leadership self-efficacy.Research on leadership identity development in the last 20 years has mostly been quantitative with limited qualitative efforts.Exploring the leadership identity development of academic leaders remains mostly absent from the literature.Using the Leadership Identity Development Model, a descriptive qualitative study was conducted with cohort members of two national academic leadership development programs, the Food Systems Leadership Institute and LEAD21.Interviews explored participants' leadership identity development during their careers leading up to their current roles in university administration.A variety of themes emerged including mentorship, reflection, training and developmental needs,and the change in their self-concept as academic leaders.The results of this study suggest that emerging academic leaders are advancing to a more differentiated view of leadership, though this process is not necessarily linear.Recommendations include further research with this population and others, particularly administrators at 1890 land-grants and non-land-grant universities.Additional work exploring the role of gender in leadership identity development, specifically among female university administrators, is also suggested.