Leadership Development and its Impact on Development of Women Leaders: A Futures and Foresight Analysis How Shattered is the Glass Ceiling?

The paper presents an argument based on the application of a Futures and Foresight analysis (FFL) to the issue of leadership development and its impact on the development of women leaders. Two main questions guided the research — firstly, “Has leadership development changed the understanding of leadership since 2021?” and second “Has leadership development produced more women leaders?”. Our analysis led us to three main conclusions. Firstly, that influencing the direction of leadership research is a key challenge for HRD academics and professionals. Secondly, that having an impact on the position of women in leadership requires HRD academics and professionals to meet these challenges and thirdly, and based on our experience of this project, we conclude that FFL has a role in both HRD research and practice. The scenarios produced in the paper indicate possible end points. They also highlight directions of travel and so suggest actions that can be taken to influence which direction is taken. Our analysis suggests that there is clearly still much work to be done to completely shatter the ‘glass ceiling’.