Can we create the ‘being’ of leadership? A mixed-methods study of two leadership pedagogies at a southwestern, U.S. university

The leadership crisis globally, and in the U.S. specifically, draws concern for educators, leadership professionals, and organizations at large. This study evaluates two ways of teaching leadership courses in higher education: a conventional approach where students learn epistemological knowledge and apply such knowledge to case studies, and an ontological, phenomenological, phronetic, transformative (OPPT-in) approach that asks students to practice the being of leadership. Each OPPT-in student was paired with a conventional student as well as a professional role player in a leadership simulation scenario. External auditors evaluated video recordings of the simulation to determine each student’s hireability for a job requiring leadership skills. OPPT-in students were selected as hireable for a job requiring leadership more often than the conventional students. Qualitative data suggest that this may be due to differences in students’ relational invitations, request-making, task ignition, collaborator enlistment, and forthrightness in apologizing for work undone.