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Introduction
Leadership development has attracted considerable attention from eminent leadership scholars and practitioners not only as one of the most interesting fields, but also as a field that has effective contributions to advance leadership research and discover empirical, developmental implications associated with that advance. The emergence of this considerable attention began with the early publications of the Journal of Management Development (JMD) in the 1980s that provided a scientific research base based on empirical evidence in multiple settings and contexts. This gave the current review an opportunity to understand the importance of leadership theories for leadership development. The purpose of this paper is to review some of these works, identify challenges facing today’s organizations and highlight the link between leadership theories and leadership development theories by suggesting an appropriate theory of leadership for leadership development in order to overcome particular challenges. It is known that, in recent times, wars, natural disasters and political upheavals in many countries or corporate unethical practices such as financial corruption, sexual harassment and many other scandals have all created fear and uncertainty among internal or/and external stakeholders (e.g. Boyd, 2012; Northouse, 2018; Offermann and Malamut, 2002; Pearce et al., 2008; Sartor and Beamish, 2019). This, therefore, reinforces the importance of the present study.
We divide the review into several sections. First, we begin with identifying the major challenges facing organizations in the twenty-first century based on a comprehensive review of the leadership development literature. Second, we review leadership theories that can be used for leadership development. These theories and approaches are: traits approach, skills approach, leader–member exchange (LMX) theory, transformational leadership, servant leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership, team leadership and self-leadership. Third, we review the leading leadership development methods and activities in the field, and we highlight some places that are still relatively immature in each leadership development method or activity, which are replete with opportunities for researchers and theorists. Fourth, we discuss future leadership development research through our emphasis on the link between leadership theories and leadership development theories. Fifth, this review is not without some limitations that are addressed with a conclusion of the current review.
Method
The effectiveness of general leadership development programs targeting people at various levels of the organizational structure and the...