A bibliometric review of the leadership development field: How we got here, where we are, and where we are headed

The development of leaders and leadership is a formative research area and a considerable industry in practice. Existing reviews are often restricted in scope or by subjective inclusion of topics or documents which limits integrative implications for the leader/ship development (LD) field. We address theoretical and methodological limitations by mapping the LD field with a comprehensive, objective, and integrative review. To do so we employed three bibliometric approaches, historiography, document co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and included 2,390 primary and 78,178 secondary documents. We show patterns in the evolution of the LD field, followed by four central observations about the current state and trends in LD. To shift the science and practice of LD we develop tangible suggestions for future research within the three research directions: (1) Pursuing research within the current framing of LD, (2) Striving for frame-breaking LD research, and (3) How We Can Get There – Transforming LD Research.