Neuroleadership in Leadership Development: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

Background: Although neuroleadership has gained attention in leadership, coaching, and organizational neuroscience, the literature remains conceptually dispersed and methodologically uneven, and evidence specific to leadership development remains insufficiently synthesized. This study offers a focused systematic literature review of neuroleadership in leadership development and develops a research agenda that integrates theoretical, contextual, methodological, and ethical issues. Objective: This paper examines how neuroleadership has been conceptualized and applied in organizational leadership development, with a distinctive focus on leadership development and an ethics-extended TCCM framework. Methods: Searches were conducted in Scopus and Web of Science for English-language journal publications from 2020 to 2026. After deduplication and screening, 11 studies were included in the main review, while seven adjacent papers were excluded from the main synthesis and used as supporting literature. Screening and extraction were conducted by a single reviewer. The analysis used thematic integration and a TCCM-E framework. Results: Neuroleadership is better understood as an interdisciplinary explanatory approach than as a mature standalone leadership theory. Its strongest applications concern coaching, emotional regulation, trust building, digital change, human capital development, and neuro-assessment. Conclusion: Future research should consolidate concepts, expand contexts, strengthen longitudinal and multi-source designs, and establish ethical safeguards for organizational neurodata.