Exploratory study of the humanistic philosophy of adult learning as principal philosophy for leadership development

This research seeks to further effective leadership development by contributing to the literature on developing a comprehensive theory of leadership development. More specifically, this article builds on research on a philosophy of adult learning perspective of leadership development. The research question explores the utility of the humanistic philosophy of adult learning (HPAL) as a principal philosophy for leadership development. The research question is operationalized by contemporizing Scholtz's (2023) Maslow, Rogers, and Knowles based taxonomy of the humanistic philosophy of adult learning before evaluating its scope against that of best-practice leadership development models. An integrative literature review-based search of contemporary HPAL-based articles on leadership development revealed 1,084 articles. The 48 final dataset articles are categorized, and their theories and concepts are integrated into the taxonomy's metaconcepts to contemporize the HPAL. The evaluation of the scope of the HPAL against four best practice models explores the utility of the HPAL. The discussion explores the implications of the HPAL's utility for designing and implementing leadership development programs, identifies the limitations of this research, and recommends future research projects. The proposition is that these evaluations illustrate the utility of the HPAL in both the design and the implementation of effective leadership development interventions.