A Qualitative Exploratory Single Case Study of Developing Leadership Behaviors in Business: The Role of Graduate School at Davenport University

Businesses have identified a lack of qualified leaders as a major concern, and this shortage of qualified leaders was forecasted to increase as a large generation of older employees reach retirement age after the year 2007. There is a need for transformational leaders in business, but colleges and universities have not produced a sufficient quantity of this type of leader. Although much has been written and studied regarding leaders, there have been limited findings on the perspectives of business leaders regarding the specific experiences in graduate school that have influenced the development of leadership behaviors. This qualitative, exploratory single case study investigated the perspectives of business leaders who have completed graduate school at Davenport University in the last five years regarding their specific experiences while in graduate school that have influenced their leadership behaviors. Invitations to participate were sent to 186 individuals who had completed graduate school at Davenport University. Of these, 29 completed the multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ-5X) and 28 met the selection criteria to move on to the interview phase. This questionnaire identified the two leadership styles of participants of interest in this study: transformational and transactional. Interviews of 20 leaders were performed using an interview guide to determine their perspectives regarding specific experiences in graduate school that had influenced their leadership behaviors. These interviews helped identify 3 themes and 24 sub-themes of experiences that influenced students' leadership behaviors. This information can be used to provide a foundation for future research on developing leadership behaviors and could suggest policies and procedures for institutes of higher learning and other leadership development initiatives to purposely focus on cultivating transformational leadership behavior.