| Contemporary leadership application and career development research acknowledges gender and minority differences while the field of leadership development has yet to explore how these differences might matter. Ideas and theories that consider leader diversity and development needs are in the beginning stages of exploration and understanding. The purpose of this study is to explore and understand how women in organizational leadership roles describe their lived experiences of leadership development. Women leaders participated in semistructured interviews with the researcher to explore the participants' perspectives and lived experience of leadership development. Five core meanings and themes were elucidated from the women's interview responses using phenomenological analysis methods: experiential versus theoretical leadership development and validation, being different means experiencing leadership development differently, growing leadership from adaptation to circumstances and environment, applied transformational leadership as leadership development, and the influence and significance of important others in the women leaders' leadership development experiences. The results of this study can be used to direct future research, to inform specific individual-level considerations for women's leadership development, improve leadership development applications, and to describe potential actions needed to address the issues that influence women's leadership applications. |
