Assessing and Teaching Team Leadership Capabilities: Field Testing a Behavioral Roles Approach with Business Undergraduate Students

Using the two-factor (task and social) model of team leadership, a course-based educational program designed to assess and improve student skills was empirically evaluated with 247 undergraduates at an urban regional campus of a Midwestern state university. Major findings revealed: (1) a statistically significant increase in mean overall team leadership scores of 20%, (2) statistically significant improvements in eight of ten specific task leadership roles and three of six social leadership roles, and (3) no substantive or practically significant differences in student improvement as a function of sex, age, race/ethnicity, or major.