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Evidence supports that leadership development programs effectively increase leadership skills. Best practice in leadership curriculum development based on empirical evidence from occupational therapy, business and management, and higher education disciplines -will be introduced. A case study of an innovative curriculum developed based on these best practices, learning theories, and learning science principles will be described. The structured approach to construction and implementation of the leadership curriculum based on authentic leadership theory demonstrates one program's approach to the assessment of the impact and knowledge transfer among graduate occupational therapy students.
Keywords: authentic leadership, graduate students, leadership development, leadership curriculum design
INTRODUCTION
As the Harvard Business School has noted, although a majority of U.S. colleges and universities include leadership development as a goal and refer to leadership in the mission, there is a gap in the number of institutions that are actually measuring leadership and leadership development as an outcome. Therefore, leadership development impact is unknown (Avolio, 2010). Consistently, higher education institutions mention leadership in their mission and vision statements, indicating a large degree of importance and value. However, there is little in the way of practical application and understanding of how this leads to curriculum that can translate to impactful leadership outcomes.
In order to determine the methods used within and the effectiveness of established leadership curriculums and workshops, literature from occupational therapy, business and management, and higher education were investigated. Higher education was chosen in order to frame the curriculum in the context of the educational environment and identify the needs of the student population. Leadership development programs for healthcare students or healthcare practitioners were analyzed (Block & Manning, 2007; Blumenthal et al., 2014; Dunne et al., 2015; Lenihan et al., 2015; Rosenman et al., 2014; Walia & MarksMaran, 2014), as well as leadership development programs for students in higher education in general (Blumenthal et al., 2014; Cosner, 2019; Grantham et al" 2014; Haber-Curran & Stewart, 2015; Ladyshewsky & Taplin, 2014; Lenihan et al., 2015; Mansfield et eil., 2010; Mukoza & Goodman, 2013; Passarelli et al., 2018; Sandfort & Gerdes, 2017; Wiewiora & Kowalkiewicz, 2019). Within business disciplines and leadership literature, development and implementation of leadership curriculum has been presented in systematic reviews (Leskiw & Singh, 2007; Rosenman et al., 2014), a meta-analysis (Collins...