The classroom as laboratory: A theoretical grounding of the intentional emergence framework for leadership development

Abstract Leadership development, like other professional areas such as medicine, teaching, and law, requires students to become as adept at practicing leadership as they are at understanding the theory behind it. For example, K‐12 teachers have student teaching, medical students have residencies, cadavers, and virtual reality‐but where is the learning laboratory for leadership? The intentional emergence (IE) pedagogy provides a framework for instructors and learners that both honors the role of the instructor as a goal/outcome‐setter while also embracing the complexities of the leadership development space as a living laboratory and practice field for leadership. Additionally, IE attempts to bring unconscious and default behaviors to the foreground so that critical components of leadership development such as power, privilege, and identities can be seen and included.