Journal of Organizational Behavior

J. Organiz. Behav. 31, 1181–1187 (2010)

Published online 16 March 2010 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.675

The Ready or not: How do we accelerate the

Incubator developmental readiness of leaders?
SEAN T. HANNAH1*,y AND BRUCE J. AVOLIO2z
1
Army Center of Excellence for the Professional Military Ethic, United States Military Academy,
West Point, New York, U.S.A.
2
Management and Organization Department, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Summary A theory of leader developmental readiness is examined comprised of leaders’ motivation and
ability to develop. Early theory-building and testing suggests leaders’ motivation to develop is
promoted through interest and goals, learning goal orientation, and developmental efficacy;
while leaders’ ability to develop is promoted through self-awareness, self-complexity, and
meta-cognitive ability. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

Few trainers would say that all participants attending any leadership development intervention are
equally ready, yet relatively little is done to assess readiness. In this Incubator, we focus on what
constitutes leader developmental readiness and how it can impact the success or failure of leadership
interventions.
In a comprehensive meta-analysis of leadership interventions conducted since World War I, Avolio,
Reichard, Hannah, Walumbwa, & Chan (2009) showed considerable variance in the impact of those
interventions. After controlling for theory type (e.g., Pygmalion), setting (lab or field), organization
type, level of analysis, type of dependent variable measured, and the quality of the intervention among
other variables; significant variance still remained, thus indicating other moderators must be present.
One potential moderator not yet explored in leadership research is the readiness of participants
themselves to change or develop. This is somewhat surprising considering that organizations in the U.S.
reportedly spend over $10 billion on leadership development annually with little evidence of those
programs efficacy. If organizations are to maximize ‘‘return on development investment,’’ leadership
research must go beyond the question of ‘‘how can we better develop leaders?’’ to also include ‘‘how
can we get leaders and their organizations better ready to develop?’’
Driven to discover the source of some of this ‘‘missing variance,’’ we have set out over the last five
years to better understand what individual differences serve to accelerate leader development. Guided

* Correspondence to: Sean T. Hannah, Army Center of Excellence for the Professional Military Ethic, United States Military
Academy, 646 Swift Road, West Point, NY 10996, U.S.A. E-mail: Sean.hannah@usma.edu
y
Director.
z
Marion B. Ingersoll Professor of Management.

Received 23 October 2009

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 26 October 2009
1182 S. T. HANNAH AND B. J. AVOLIO

by relevant literature from clinical, cognitive, and social psychology; organizational behavior and
leadership, early theory-building (Avolio & Hannah, 2008), and empirical testing (Hannah & Avolio,
2007) suggest that leaders’ developmental readiness is a function of at least two general parameters:
Leaders’ motivation and ability to develop. Consequently, we initially define leader developmental
readiness (DR) as the ability and motivation to attend to, make meaning of, and appropriate new leader
KSAAs (knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes) into knowledge structures along with concomitant
changes in identity to employ those KSAAs. This definition is informed in part by Lord & Hall’s (2005)
position that successful leader development requires new skills to be linked to identity and other deep
cognitive structures that facilitate employing those skills.
Early theory-building suggests that leaders’ motivation to develop is promoted through interest and
goals, learning goal orientation, and developmental efficacy; while ability to develop is promoted
through leaders’ self-awareness, self-complexity, and meta-cognitive ability. We briefly summarize
each of these six components and their potential role in accelerating leader development. Ultimately,
organizational researchers may extend this early work to build a fuller understanding of how to
accelerate leader development.

Individual Differences Promoting Motivation to Develop

Interest and goals

First, the learning literature suggests that to engage intently in learning opportunities requires
intrinsic motivation, which requires tapping into individuals’ interests and goals (see Hidi &
Harackiewicz, 2000). Interest is conceptualized as an intrinsic motivational orientation accompanied
by psychological arousal that develops in relation to a particular topic. Indeed, if a leader lacks interest
in exploring a new skill domain we would expect lower levels of engagement on their part in the
learning experience. The idiosyncratic nature of interest suggests leader-developers should strive to
individually-tailor learning strategies. Interest is also a function of goals reflected in the value leaders
see in gaining a particular set of skills, suggesting leader-developers should use evidence-based
programs where performance impact can be demonstrated. Ultimately, we suggest for other
researchers’ consideration that interest will lead to greater agency and ownership in the leader
development experience.

Goal orientation

To gain and maintain motivation to develop leaders must not only have interest, but also believe that
they can indeed change and develop. Some leaders may feel that leadership is born, not made, or that
they themselves are an ‘‘old dog that can’t learn new tricks.’’ To represent these beliefs we draw from
the literature on goal orientation (Button, Matieu, & Zajac, 1996), a somewhat stable individual
difference construct based on one’s implicit theory of the self (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Leaders’
implicit theories can be more incremental where they see themselves as able to develop, or as more of
an entity, where they see themselves as fixed. Important to leader development, implicit theories then
create different motivational patterns. ‘‘Incrementalists’’ tend to have a learning goal orientation
where they seek new experiences, view themselves as incremental learners, and tend to interpret task
feedback as developmental. They are more willing to strive to learn even when failure is a likely option.

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 31, 1181–1187 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/job
 LEADER DEVELOPMENTAL READINESS 1183

‘‘Entitists’’ have a performance goal orientation, through which they view themselves as being less
able to change, where tasks become a ‘‘test’’ of their capability. Feedback is thus interpreted as more
self versus task-diagnostic, limiting propensity to engage in challenging developmental events.
Ironically, research indicates that leadership is on average 30 per cent heritable and 70 per cent
developed (e.g., Avolio, Rotundo & Walumbwa, 2009), providing solid support for an incremental view
of leader development.

Developmental efficacy

The third motivational component of DR is developmental efficacy, which is akin to Bandura’s (1997)
learning efficacy. Developmental efficacy represents a leader’s level of confidence he or she can
develop and successfully employ specific KSAAs in certain leadership contexts. For example, a leader
can have a learning goal orientation, yet have different levels of efficacy to develop public speaking
skills as compared to project management skills. When a leader has developmental efficacy for a
specific capability it will elicit encoding categories, affect, goals, expectancies, and self-regulatory
plans that drive their engagement towards greater mastery and thus development (Hannah, Avolio,
Luthans, & Harms, 2008).

Individual Differences Promoting Ability to Develop

Self-awareness and self-concept clarity

Leaders with high levels of self-awareness should be more capable of incorporating new KSAAs into
their deep knowledge and identity structures. We, therefore, include self-concept clarity (SCC) as an
ability factor comprising DR. SCC is defined as ‘‘the extent to which self-beliefs (e.g., perceived
personal attributes) are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and stable’’ (Campbell,
Trapnell, Heine, Katz, Lavallee, & Lehman, 1996: p. 141). SCC should enhance DR through (1)
increasing leaders’ ability to make meaning of development through enhancing the ability to determine
how new KSAAs integrate with their self-concept, (2) by understanding their strengths, weaknesses,
and interests related to new experiences, (3) by understanding their implicit theories and goal patterns,
and (4) by understanding their patterns of self-reflection. Concerning reflection, leaders can use
patterns of thinking and emotions that are open, positive, and learning oriented, which facilitates new
learning; or leaders can engage in maladaptive reflection, such as ruminating over the negative aspects
of an otherwise successful experience. With greater SCC, we propose that leaders can better understand
and accelerate their self-development, attenuating negative influences.

Leader complexity

With respect to leader DR, complexity represents how well a leader differentiates as well as integrates
various sources and types of information. More cognitively complex leaders can process
developmental information more thoroughly as they use more dimensions to discriminate amongst
the information as well as see more commonalities among these dimensions (Hannah, Woolfolk, &
Lord, 2009). Complexity is domain specific and can include the level of complexity in leaders’ self-

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 31, 1181–1187 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/job
1184 S. T. HANNAH AND B. J. AVOLIO

concepts (i.e., self-complexity), as well as complexity in the different development domains a leader is
exposed to (e.g., motivating followers to become leaders). We propose that self-complexity will
particularly facilitate leader development across a myriad of contexts through enhancing the ability of
the leader to differentiate and integrate new knowledge of the self. For instance, a more cognitively
complex leader who is entering a different culture should be better able to differentiate values and
customs that are different from the leader’s indigenous culture, as well as those that are similar,
increasing the leader’s capability to develop more rapidly to accommodate differences and capitalize
on similarities.
In sum, more complex leaders have more cognitive and affective associations with which to process,
interpret, and appropriate new developmental experiences. However, this does not necessarily mean
they will be more successful in doing so as other DR factors need to be considered in terms of how
successful development proceeds.

Meta-cognitive ability
The last ability component of DR is meta-cognitive ability which enables richer processing and
meaning-making concerning developmental experiences. Meta-cognitive ability facilitates ‘‘second
order’’ thinking—the ability to ‘‘think about thinking’’ and monitor and control cognition and one’s
awareness of cognitive strengths and weaknesses (Metcalf & Shimamura, 1994). For example, leaders
might reflect upon whether they are using adaptive or maladaptive reflection; how new experiences
provide new self-insights that can be leveraged; what has been learned about their interests and efficacy
to develop; how emotions are influencing their interpretation of tough feedback; and whether their
implicit theories promote or limit their development. Such meta-cognitive reflection increases depth of
processing and can lead to greater self-insight, less maladaptive processing, and changes to deeper self-
structures that can contribute to accelerating DR.

How can DR be Developed?

A natural question is whether and how we can ‘‘develop developmental readiness?’’ While goal
orientation is thought to be fairly stable, considerable evidence suggests it is not completely so (Button
et al., 1996). The other five DR constructs have clearly been shown to be malleable or state-like. We
believe that enhancing leaders’ levels of DR will prepare them to develop more fully from both planned
developmental events, and perhaps more importantly, unplanned fortuitous events they will face in
their leadership experiences. Consequently, to achieve the greatest return on development investment
(RODI), it will be more effective to focus on DR at the outset of any specific leader development
intervention (Avolio, Avey, & Quisenberry, In Press).

Initial Empirical Evidence for DR

Preliminary research has tested the effects of three of the DR constructs in predicting the acceleration of
leader development: Learning goal orientation, meta-cognitive ability, and self-concept clarity. Two

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 31, 1181–1187 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/job
 LEADER DEVELOPMENTAL READINESS 1185

longitudinal field studies with military cadets demonstrated that these DR variables significantly
moderated (effect sizes of 0.20–0.47) levels of development in transformational leadership, authentic
leadership, and leadership efficacy over six months, as well as predicted subsequent leader performance
(Hannah & Avolio, 2007). Based on these exploratory findings we suggest that interested scholars
launch investigations of the full suite of DR constructs to determine the broader set of mechanisms
comprising and contributing to DR.

Creating a Measure of DR

It will be important to establish the psychometric properties and structure of DR. Previously validated
scales for SCC (Campbell et al., 1996), goal orientation (Button et al., 1996), and meta-cognitive ability
(Schraw & Dennison, 1994) have been used to date (Hannah & Avolio, 2007). The combined length of
these measures, however, is not practical for applied research. Advancing research on DR will require
the development and testing of a measure with lean subscales for the six DR components.
As the field moves forward in measuring developmental readiness, we suggest the six components
comprising DR will interact. For example, the depth one processes information is influenced by the
individual’s motivation for learning the topic. Thus, interest may increase the propensity for meta-
cognitive processing. Similarly, leaders exhibiting higher self-complexity have more differentiated
selves and more refined conceptualizations of their areas of interest and developmental efficacy
(Hannah et al., 2008, 2009). More complex leaders may also hold less ‘‘global’’ conceptualizations in
their implicit theories of themselves; forming more differentiated expectations of the specific areas for
which they can develop leadership. This leads us to suggest that future research examine the
interactions between leader complexity, goal orientation, and efficacy. This discussion raises the
possibility that when researchers assess DR they should consider whether it is a formative construct
where causal action flows from the indicators to create the composite variable; or a reflective construct
where the latent variable is merely a representation of its components.

Implications of a DR Research Agenda

The implications of DR for leader development research and practice are numerous. First, as noted by
Gary Yukl, Bernie Bass and others, leader development has been an under-researched area. We argue in
this Incubator article that DR may help the field better understand what individual differences
accelerate leader development. Furthermore, through advancing a measure of DR the field may begin to
account for some of the unexplained variance across intervention studies in the literature noted by
Avolio et al. (2009). Also, as DR is largely malleable, it provides for a new approach to building
leadership capacity in organizations.
Based on the variance of success rates across their sample of 200 intervention studies, Avolio et al.
(2009) demonstrated that RODI can range from extremely negative (
177 per cent) to positive returns
(200 per cent). By getting leaders ready to develop, we may be able to significantly reduce costs of
interventions and increase positive impacts on the bottom-line.
Finally, organizations vary as to levels of psychological safety, support, learning culture, and other
factors that may influence their leaders’ development. Thus future research should also consider

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 31, 1181–1187 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/job
1186 S. T. HANNAH AND B. J. AVOLIO

organizational developmental readiness. Minimally, multi-level research is warranted to assess how

organizational and individual DR may interact in terms of influencing the success of developmental
interventions.

Concluding Thoughts

We opened this paper with the question ‘‘how can we get leaders better ready to develop?’’ We believe
that examining DR offers one such strategy for accelerating development. With the numerous recent
examples of poor and malfeasant organizational leadership, we argue that accelerating the development
of leaders has implications at all levels including societal. Thus, we encourage researchers to join us in
advancing this new area of leadership study and practice.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Tom Wright and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful
comments that led to improvements to this manuscript.

Author biographies

Sean T. Hannah Ph.D., an Army Colonel and Director of the Army Center of Excellence for the
Professional Military Ethic, United States Military Academy, West Point. His research investigates
positive forms of leadership development including ethical and authentic leadership, leader identity
and self-complexity, and leader efficacy and courage.
Bruce J. Avolio Ph.D., Marion B. Ingersoll Professor and Director, Center for Leadership & Strategic
Thinking, Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington. Dr. Avolio has published
nine books and over 100 articles on leadership including, Psychological capital: Developing the human
competitive edge with Luthans and Youssef (2007).

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Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 31, 1181–1187 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/job