QUESTION: Leadership Development for social change programs

question / pregunta: 

Can you suggest possible sources of information about leadership development programs in the United States and internationally that focus on leadership for social change, social movement building and/or public interest leadership (as distinct from programs focused on leadership in management or industry). One use of this information is to begin the development of a global database of socially conscious and progressive leadership develpment programs. Hope you can help. Thank you.


Answer posted by:
jim miller

If you are near a large public or academic library, you can also do research on this in many business and management databases. Public libraries often have Business Source(Ebsco). Their more general databases such as Masterfile or Infotrac might also be quite helpful. With a library card, you can get off-site access, including quite a few full text articles. Large academic libraries will have ABI/Inform, Factiva, and Business and Company Resource Center.

Since this is a broad subject, you will need to try many combinations, such as: "leadership development programs" and "public interest"; "leadership training" and "social change", etc. If you get too many hits, limit to title words or subjects, using "advanced search" or "guided search" options. In Ebsco and many other databases, you can even over-ride the "title, subject, abstract words" default, by typing in "search field limiters", for example: ti "leadership programs" and su "social change"

If getting library access is not practical right now, you can get quite a lot of research for free on the web. Google Scholar gets about 90 hits for: "leadership development programs" "public interest". But this DOES include some subcription-based journals, and it might be a bit discouraging if you are repeatedly asked for a user name and password. Google Scholar includes these as a convenience for its many academic customers - who often ARE on campus where these links often work because the institution's library subscribes and the publisher gives IP-address access. Compare a regular web search, using site:edu or, etc. Google's Web search: "leadership development programs" "public interest" site:edu gets 170 hits (238 including "very similar" ones)

You can use Google Books as a detailed index to books - which might have none of your search words in their titles or subject headings- but MIGHT have a very good chapter or two. For example, "leadership development programs" "public interest" gets 9 hits in Google Books, but NONE in Open Worldcat, the huge union catalog of most large libraries in the U.S. plus many libraries elsewhere in the world. Once your Google Books Search finds a title that looks promising, you can then check its title in your nearby library; or even check Worldcat to see the closest holding library to where you are located.