Unraveling leadership potential: Learning agility as a long-term predictor of growth in effective leader behaviors

As leaders have a significant impact on organizational performance, the identification and development of (potential) leaders in organizations is of utmost importance to gain competitive advantage. However, current leadership potential research deals with conceptual and measurement issues such as the conflation of constructs and the confusion of current performance and future potential. Similar issues refer to learning agility research. This is problematic, as learning agility is considered an important determinant of leader potential and performance, specifically in today’s complex and unpredictable business context. Therefore, this dissertation sheds light on the difficulties concerning leadership potential research by proposing a novel conceptualization of leadership potential in which a long-term approach is pivotal, and by applying a subsequent measurement approach in the different studies in this dissertation. Moreover, learning agility is reconceptualized and its role as a long-term predictor of growth in effective leader behaviors is examined.