Significant leadership developmental experiences of five pioneering women executives in higher education

This qualitative study describes the significant leadership developmental events of five women in top executive positions in higher education in one southeastern state and illuminates the lessons these pioneering women leaders learned from those events. The women interviewed for this study identified four key events (bosses, assignments, successes, and difficult times) and thirty-five concomitant lessons learned from those key events. The words of these women complemented and extended the findings of the research of McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison from the Center for Creative Leadership as recounted in The Lessons of Experience: How Successful Executives Develop on the Job (1988). McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison describe the role of experience in the training and on-the-job development of business executives. After interviewing hundreds of business executives, mostly white men, they identified three key developmental events (assignments, bosses, and hardships) and thirty-two lessons. This study confirmed that on-the-job development is an essential part of becoming a leader in higher education and that key events could be linked to specific lessons, even though one event might teach several lessons, and one lesson could be learned from many different events. The stories told by the women in this study of early experiences of awakening with mentors whose vision for them was an impetus to propel them into initial administrative positions added a unique dimension to the key events that was not found in the stories of the business executives interviewed by McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison.