Chapter 4: The “Challenges” of Leadership: Assumptions, Concerns, Problems, and Recommendations Regarding the Use of Leadership Challenge Activities in MBA and Executive Leadership Development Courses

Over the last 20 years, corporate interest in leadership has skyrocketed all over the world. Leadership development has become a major concern for most every organization. This is the case because of a perceived shortage of adequately skilled and trained leaders across every type of corporation. In order to help develop more leaders, corporations are now investing unprecedented amounts of time and money into leadership development programs. Survey data show that formal leadership training is the primary method through which organizations develop their leaders (Conger & Benjamin, 1999).

Since training has become the primary means through which leaders are developed, leadership researchers are now focusing their efforts toward examining the effectiveness of various training methods. This chapter defines the concept, and describes underlying assumptions, administrative concerns, and design problems associated with leadership challenge activities. Lastly, the chapter offers some recommendations for improving leadership challenge activities, and provides two specific examples of such activities.