Are leaders born or made? In this study of contemporary leadership development programmes, we find that leaders are not only made but also – in Ian Hacking’s sense – made up. Such programmes increasingly employ practices like personality profiling, appraisals, feedback and coaching aimed...

Leadership development for youth is an increasingly large global business that has to date lacked sustained critical scrutiny. Our inquiry is based on application, interview and reflection data from participants in a university-based leadership programme, capturing them at the point they...