About Our Research

Cutting-Edge Leadership Research

At CCL, we’ve been conducting original scientific research in the field of leadership development for more than 50 years. The result? One of the largest leadership research databases in the world and a rich body of evidence-based science used to accelerate leadership performance. 

This pioneering mindset both directly shapes applied best practices for today’s leadership needs and anticipates and explores theories and practice for the next generation.

Our multi-disciplinary team includes a variety of social scientists, data scientists, statisticians, and product innovators. The team applies the latest scientific methodologies and leadership analytics techniques to produce academic publications, new products and services, thought leadership, and evaluation methodologies for measuring the impact of leadership development.

Our current leadership research includes a focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion; effective leader development; leading through change; collective and team leadership best practices; and leadership for the future.

In combination, our leadership research team has created new knowledge and interventions in research fields like resilience, social identity, and 21st-century leadership challenges.

As pioneers of leadership research and leadership development, we’ve created a reliable set of best practices and forged new directions for leaders and what leadership can achieve.

We Pioneered Leadership Development

We helped invent the field of leadership development. Since our start in 1970, CCL has always been a research-based institution. 

As we’ve evolved from experience, our research team was among the first to create and implement 360 feedback, use assessment for development, investigate leader derailment, and research the glass ceiling effect.

Our research-based frameworks have become industry standard and are widely lauded, including the 70:20:10 rule for L&D; defining leadership as a social process; and our pivotal SBI feedback model.

Explore Our Leadership Research

Innovation site

Shaping Best Practices in Leadership for Tomorrow

Learn more about the latest work of our Leadership Research & Analytics team by visiting cclinnovation.org. 

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Connect With Us

You can request permission to use our assessment content for your own leadership research, or if we can help use our decades of pioneering leadership development research to craft an evidence-based development solution for your organization, please get in touch!

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