The development of implicit leadership theories during childhood: A reconceptualization through the lens of overlapping waves theory.

Abstract

Implicit leadership theories (ILTs) are people's lay theories, definitions, or conceptualizations of leadership. In adults, they determine what actions we perceive as leadership, influence to whom we grant leadership status, and shape our own behaviors when we want to be seen as leader. Naturally, there has been an enduring interest in how these ILTs develop in children. Current theorizing on the development of leadership conceptualizations in children aligns with a stepwise progression mirroring Piaget's stage-based approach to cognitive development. However, contemporary approaches to cognitive development, such as Siegler's overlapping waves theory (OWT), acknowledge that children's development is linked to cognitive success and failure. This article integrates the findings from empirical studies into children's leadership conceptualizations and reinterprets them against OWT. This reinterpretation resolves findings that align poorly with a stepwise approach and demonstrates a strong fit with OWT. As such, children's leadership conceptualizations develop by generating and testing cognitive approaches-physical-spatiotemporal, functional, socioemotional, and humanitarian-and instead of progressing through these in order and according to age, they display variation and selection, that with experience and exposure, lay down selective combinations, which often engage multiple dimensions simultaneously. Consequently, the development of children's understanding of leaders is nonlinear, can be multidimensional, and is based on trial and error largely in response to their experiences. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for future research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).