It is a recommitment on the part of KLSP participants to the notion that dedicated individuals can contribute much toward improving our understanding of and capacity for leadership. Ours is a large mission and one not likely completed in four years. Perhaps four decades would not do the trick, either.
Leadership is one of the most vexing subjects of human inquiry.
But efforts to better understand leadership are hardly futile. While it existed, KLSP brought together a community of leadership scholars and practitioners, identified some important new areas of common ground, and pointed to essential leadership questions of the future. Here we provide a brief history of the Kellogg Leadership Studies Project, for the sake of contextualizing the papers that follow. We hope to engage you in this work because our conversation goes to the essence of our democracy and must not be limited merely to the KLSP participants. Five years ago, a small group of leadership scholars gathered at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond to explore the state and future of the study of leadership.