Abstract

Business schools engaged in the development of student leadership largely continue to ignore the collective and contextual nature of leadership as approaches still focus on the individual as an entity separated from others and his or her context. Moreover, learning theories are seldom integrated into conceptual frameworks of leadership development; gender is rarely a main focus. Combining the leadership-as-practice perspective with the theory of situated learning, this research project sought to address these gaps by exploring the emergence of collective leadership in a group of undergraduate women students engaged in the practice of event organization in a business school context. With a special emphasis on learning, the author zoomed in on the accomplishment of leadership in the practice and then zoomed out to one of its related practices. Data were collected using an ethnographic approach through the observation of ten hybrid meetings, supplemented by interviews and the study of the practice’s artifacts. Findings indicate that the roles and artifacts of the practice combined with the cyclical needs of event organization to augment or diminish participants’ engagement in collective leadership, thus restricting or opening opportunities to learn how to do leadership. Moreover, the young women developed a sense of self as actual or potential future leader through contact with members of an associated practice. The study thus contributes to identifying potential opportunities and obstructions to young women’s collective leadership learning in business schools and provides paths for universities to reflect on future strategies to enhance learning.