Professional development: identifying leadership skills to include in mid-level administrator leadership development training simulations

It is well documented that community colleges are facing a leadership crisis resulting
from retiring baby boomers who occupy senior leadership positions. Community colleges are
faced with a shortage of qualified leaders who possess the skills and competencies necessary to
step into executive-level positions. The American Association of Community Colleges
recommends that institutions strengthen their leadership pipeline by developing grow-yourown leadership development programs and leadership simulations designed to develop the
skills and competencies of faculty and mid-level administrators.
This qualitative multiple case study was designed to identify the skills, competencies,
and types of scenarios that would be best to include in leadership development simulations
that are incorporated into institutional grow-your-own leadership programs. Data were
collected in two phases. The first phase included data collected from questionnaire responses
received from 11 Illinois community college chief human resource officers and executive
administrator job descriptions collected from nine Illinois community colleges. Quantitative
methods were not applied to the questionnaire data collected. Phase two included face-to-face
interviews with eight Illinois community college executive administrators purposely selected to
provide maximum variation with the participants.
The study discovered that many Illinois community colleges were not offering growyour-own leadership programs, and those that did were not making use of leadership
simulations. Based on the data collected, it was determined that executive administrators felt
that there were certain aspects of the job that they were not prepared for. Including the skills,
competencies, scenarios, and situations identified by this research could help prepare future
executive leaders for the position. The two most important skills identified were the ability to
lead people and solve problems. Examples of the type of scenarios identified included
presenting to a board of trustees, collective bargaining sessions, and conflict resolution.