Leadership in Action: Change and leadership Development: The Experience of Executive Women

Change and Leadership Development: The Experience of Executive Women

Patricia J. Ohlott

At the end of most leadership development programs, attendees are typically asked to think about their future hopes and dreams and to set goals for themselves. Yet once they walk out the door relatively little is known about how they continue to work at their development on their own and how they integrate their goals with “real life.”

A team of researchers and program staff recently followed the experiences of sixty executive women over the course of a year after they had attended a CCL program (see sidebar) to document how their leadership development unfolded. One focus of our investigation was change.

Many of the women we interviewed reported that prior ...