Building the Evidence Behind Leader Development
At the Doerr Institute, we don’t just develop leaders. We study how leader development works.
Our Research & Evaluation Team conducts rigorous research to better understand how people develop as leaders and as human beings, which experiences create meaningful change, and how organizations can measure whether their leader development efforts are actually working.
Our research explores questions such as:
- How does professional coaching shape someone’s development as a leader?
- What helps people begin to see themselves as leaders?
- Which leadership skills can be effectively developed through targeted interventions?
- How do purpose, well-being, resilience, and self-awareness relate to leader development?
- How can organizations measure the impact of their leader development programs?
- How do culture and social expectations influence who we want as a leader?
To answer these and other such questions, our researchers use a range of methods, from longitudinal and experimental studies to self-assessments, ratings by trained observers, and reports from colleagues and peers.
The result is research designed to contribute to the science of leadership while helping universities, coaches, organizations, and practitioners make better decisions about how they develop leaders.
Our work is regularly published in peer-reviewed journals, books, and other scholarly publications and presented at national and international conferences.
Doerr Leadership Lab
Explore more insights from our team in The Leadership Lab, where we translate research on leadership, leader development, and assessment into practical ideas and approaches.
Featured Books
Measuring the Mist: A Practical Guide for Discovering What Really Works in Leader Development
Ryan P. Brown, Ph.D. | 2022
How do you know whether a leader development program is actually working? Measuring the Mist provides a practical approach to evaluating leader development, helping practitioners move beyond participation numbers and satisfaction surveys to understand whether their programs are creating meaningful change.
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Leadership Reckoning: Can Higher Education Develop the Leaders We Need?
Tom Kolditz, Libby Gill & Ryan P. Brown | 2021
Higher education invests heavily in preparing students for their careers—but are universities doing enough to prepare them to lead? Leadership Reckoning examines the state of leader development in higher education and challenges institutions to take a more intentional, evidence-based approach to developing the next generation of leaders.
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Selected Research
Leadership Identity & Development
The Honor of a Leader: Examining the Content of Honor-Congruent Leader Prototypes
Aaron L. Pomerantz & Ryan P. Brown | Group Processes & Intergroup Relations | In Press
Explores how cultural norms about honor shape the qualities people associate with an ideal leader, offering insight into how cultural values influence our expectations of leadership.
On Knowing Who You Want to Become: Validating a Measure of Aspirational Self-Clarity
Ryan P. Brown, A. W. Hertel, Aaron L. Pomerantz, J. Lodi-Smith, K. Westmoreland & S. V. Parsons | Journal of Personality Assessment | In Press
Introduces and validates a measure of aspirational self-clarity, or the extent to which people have a clear and coherent understanding of the person they want to become. Studies link this dimension of self-awareness to wellbeing, growth orientation, and purpose. The research provides a new way to examine an important element of personal development.
Leadership as Development: Validating the Developmental Self-Concept Scale for Leaders
Aaron L. Pomerantz, Ryan P. Brown & S. Johnson | Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies | 2026
Introduces and validates a new measure for understanding the extent to which people view leadership as a process of follower development (versus merely as a means to achieve an objective), providing researchers and practitioners with another tool for examining how people think about becoming and growing as leaders.
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Professional Coaching & Leader Development
The Role of Actionable Planning in Facilitating Goal Progress Through Professional Coaching
Ryan P. Brown & R. Reitmeier | Consulting Psychology Journal | 2026
Examines how actionable planning and clarity of the desired self within professional coaching can help individuals translate their goals into meaningful progress.
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The Impact of Professional Coaching on Emerging Leaders
Ryan P. Brown, L. Varghese, S. Sullivan & S. Parsons | 2021
What changes when emerging leaders work with a professional coach? This study examines the impact of professional coaching on the development of emerging leaders.
Published in the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching & Mentoring.
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Lessons for Leadership Coaching in a Leader Development Intensive Environment
T. Woodruff, R. Lemler & Ryan P. Brown | 2021
Explores lessons learned from delivering leadership coaching within a military academy, an environment intentionally designed around leader development.
Published in The Journal of Character & Leadership Development.
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Coachability & Development
Assessing Workplace Coachability: A Multi-Study Approach to Design and Validation
E. Middleton, S. Zajac, K. Cavanaugh, K. Westmoreland, Ryan P. Brown, B. Smith, M. DeVeau & C. L. Holladay | 2024
What makes someone coachable? This research develops and validates a way to assess coachability in the workplace and offers new insight into an important factor in professional development.
Published in Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice.
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On Coachability: How Practitioners Determine Whether Someone Can Be Coached
K. Cavanaugh, S. Zajac, E. Middleton, R. Brown, B. Smith & C. Holladay | 2021
Explores how coaching practitioners think about coachability and the characteristics they use to determine whether someone is ready to engage effectively in coaching.
Published in the International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching.
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Leader Development & Higher Education
Future Leaders or Fortunate Elites? Rethinking Leader Development in Higher Education and Beyond
Aaron L. Pomerantz & Ryan P. Brown | 2025
Challenges traditional approaches to leader development and considers who receives access to developmental opportunities—and who may be left behind.
Published in Leader to Leader.
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Solving the Leadership Shortage: Helping Your Employees Thrive Bolsters Leadership Success
S. J. Johnson, S. E. Murphy, Ryan P. Brown & K. E. Westmoreland | 2024
Explores how supporting employees’ ability to thrive can strengthen leadership development and help organizations build stronger leadership pipelines.
Published in Navigating Leadership: Evidence-Based Strategies for Leadership Development.
Holding Higher Education to Account: Measuring What Matters in the Development of Students as Leaders
Ryan P. Brown & L. Varghese | 2019
Makes the case for moving beyond mere participation numbers or satisfaction scores to assess whether higher education leader development programs are creating meaningful developmental outcomes.
Published in The Journal of Character & Leadership Development.
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Research We Have Supported
The Doerr Institute has also supported research by other scholars that advances our understanding of leadership, teams, and evidence-based leader development.
Leaders, Teams, and Their Mental Models
Explore research into the ways leaders and teams understand their environments and how those mental models can influence team effectiveness.
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Research in The Leadership Quarterly
Explore scholarship supported by the Doerr Institute and published in one of the field’s leading journals devoted to leadership research.
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Leadership Training Design, Delivery, and Implementation
Explore research examining how leadership training can be designed, delivered, and implemented to create more effective developmental experiences.
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Meet Our Research & Evaluation Team
The Doerr Institute’s Research & Evaluation team is led by Ryan P. Brown, Ph.D., Director of Research & Evaluation, and Aaron Pomerantz, Ph.D., Assistant Director of Research & Evaluation. Together, they advance our understanding of leader development through rigorous research and evidence-based evaluation, helping shape more effective leadership development practices at Rice University and beyond.