THE UTILIZATION OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES IN PUBLIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES

Abstract

Community college leadership development has traditionally been offered at the national and the state-wide level. A recent trend is the in-house leadership program offered by an individual community college to employees. There is evidence in the literature that that expansion of community college leadership programs is a response to the ongoing leadership succession crisis. The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) published a leadership competency framework in 2005 to strengthen community college leadership development programs. Recent research indicates the AACC leadership competencies are relevant to both the internal and external challenges facing community colleges. A limited body of research has explored how the AACC leadership competencies are used by in-house community college leadership development programs. This study explored the emphasis and utilization of the AACC leadership competencies and the presence of transformational leadership in the curriculums of in-house community college leadership development programs. The study also determined if college size and geographic location were factors in the presence of the AACC leadership competencies in leadership development program curriculums. The population for this study were the 273 Level 1 institutions located in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges (SACS) accrediting region of the United States. A repeated measures ANOVA determined that all six of the AACC leadership competencies were present to some extent in participating in-house leadership programs. The AACC leadership competencies most emphasized were community college advocacy and professionalism. The least emphasized leadership competency category was resource management. The study found no statistically significant relationship between college size and presence of the AACC leadership competencies or between college geographic location and presence of the AACC leadership competencies. The components of transformational leadership expressed in the open-ended responses were shared vision, empowering others, understanding organization culture, rewarding innovation and change, and ethics. The study included secondary findings that described in-house leadership program characteristics. Suggestions for leadership program curriculums were made based on the study findings and the study concluded with recommendations for future research.