Short-Term Leadership Development: Meeting a Need for Emerging Community College Leaders

With retirements looming in the ranks of senior leadership, the need for short-term, intensive, focused leadership development targeting midlevel administrators has become acute. Through survey responses and in-depth interviews, this study examines leadership development needs of midlevel community college administrators who aspire to higher leadership positions. The plethora of short-term programs currently available through local colleges, states, and professional associations—while well-intentioned—are most often serendipitous and without clear focus or theoretical underpinning. This study suggests a framework for providing coherent, high impact, short-term leadership development opportunities to assist emerging leaders meet the challenges of today's increasingly complex colleges.