Portrait of Rebecca Reichard

Becky Reichard holds the position of full professor in the Division of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences and the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. Reichard regularly conducts research, teaches, and consults on organizational behavior and leader development topics.

Reichard’s research focuses on helping people better understand, predict, and accelerate the development of leaders, particularly those historically underrepresented in leadership roles, such as women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ individuals. To further this, she examines the psychological processes through which leaders develop: receiving feedback, goal striving, self-views, implicit theories, and leader developmental readiness, as well as the role of non-work contexts in leader development.

As of 2021, Reichard has 46 publications and 62 conference presentations related to leadership and leader development This includes 28 peer-reviewed publications, seven of which are in The Leadership Quarterly, which has a 2020 impact factor of 10.5, ranking fourth out of 83 journals in applied psychology. Other outlets she’s published in include Academy of Management Learning & Education, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Managerial Psychology, and Consulting Psychology Journal. Reichard has also published two co-edited books and 16 book chapters on leader development.

Reichard’s teaching is situated in adult learning theory. She utilizes multiple teaching methods and technologies in and out of the classroom, including reading up-to-date evidence, small group experiential learning, and applied case-based projects and exams. Across her 10 graduate-level courses, Reichard’s 267 students rated her ‘overall quality of instruction’ an average of 6.41 on a 7-point scale. Core graduate courses taught include Directed Research (6.6), Organizational Behavior (6.2), Advanced Topics in Organizational Psychology (6.3), Positive Leadership (6.6), Doctoral Seminar Leadership (6.1), Leader Development (6.8), and Training and Development (6.1). She seeks to integrate diverse perspectives and technologies into the classroom and has taught in-person, asynchronous, and synchronous online courses. Reichard has successfully shepherded 11 PhD students through the OB doctorate and co-authored 25 publications with 20 different student co-authors.

As a leader in her field, Reichard founded and developed LeAD Labs in 2013. Along with a small group of graduate students, the goal of LeAD Labs is to advance and align the research and practice of leader development. As of 2021, she has been awarded $818,307 in grants and contracts across 15 sources of funding employing 78 graduate students in consulting projects. These graduate students worked as assessors, facilitators, actors, coaches, evaluators, data managers, project managers, and research consultants. She has also given 50 invited talks, workshops, and webinars on leadership and leader development, mainly servicing non-profit and local community organizations.

Research funding organizations range from local institutions such as CGU, the Drucker School, the Claremont Colleges, and BLAIS, to institutions throughout California such as Golden West College, the Orange County Transportation Authority, and the California Agricultural Leadership Program, and even global institutions such as the Museum Leadership Institute, the University of Cape Town, and Right to Play Africa. Reichard provided these institutions with services including a developmental leadership assessment center, 360-assessment and feedback, self-assessment and feedback, online leader development planning, online self-studies on effective leadership and mentoring, and a series of workshops.

Reichard served as associate editor for Group & Organization Management from 2018-2021, managing 56 manuscripts through the review and revision process. She is currently an editorial board member of The Leadership Quarterly and an ad-hoc reviewer for 15 journals, as well as an active member, presenter, and reviewer for professional organizations: AOM, SIOP, and ILA. Reichard has served on the CGU Affirmative Action and Diversity Committee, the Budget and Planning Committee, and is a faculty sponsor for the student group, Org Talks.

At CGU, Reichard is the primary advisor for 17 OB doctoral students and 11 MA students, serving on dozens of thesis and dissertation committees, oral exam committees, and portfolio committees. She has also served on eight faculty search committees, including as Chair of one, and annually serves on PhD and MA admissions committees.

Co-authored with Shults*, Diaz*, Pitichat, and Kea-Edwards*. “Pursuing your leader development: Lessons from 101 executives.” Organizational Dynamics. (in press). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2022.100894

Co-authored with Kea-Edwards* and Diaz* “Development or discrimination: Black women leaders’ experience with multisource feedback.” Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. (in press).

Co-authored with Vogel, Batistic, and Cerne “A bibliometric review of the leadership development field: How we got here, where we are, and where we are headed.” The Leadership Quarterly (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101381

Co-authored with Yip, Trainor*, Black*, and Soto* “Coaching new leaders: A relational process of integrating multiple identities.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, (2020). https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2017.0449

Co-authored with Trainor* and Jensen* et al. “Women’s leadership across cultures: Intersections, barriers, and leadership development.” In Cambridge Handbook on Psychology of Women, edited by F.M. Cheung and D.F. Halpern. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108561716

Co-authored with Cotter* “Developing cultural competence through engagement in cross-cultural interactions.” Advances in Global Leadership (2019). https://doi.org/10.1108/S1535-120320190000012005

Co-authored with Middleton* and Walker*. “Developmental trajectories of leader identity: Effect of learning goal orientation.” Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051818781818

Co-authored with Pitichat*, Kea-Edwards*, and Middleton*, et al. “Psychological capital for leader development.” Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051817719232

Co-authored with Johnson et al. “Mastery goal orientation and performance affect the development of leader efficacy during leader development.” Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051817713689

Co-authored with Walker*, and Middleton*, et al. “Believing is becoming: The role of leader developmental efficacy in leader self-development.” Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051816657981

Co-authored with Beck*. “Leader developmental readiness: Deconstructed and reconstructed.” In Leader Development Deconstructed, Annals of Theoretical Psychology, edited by M.G. Clark. Switzerland: Springer International (2017). https://DOI.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64740-1_6

Co-edited with Thompson. “Leader developmental readiness: Pursuit of leadership excellence.” New Direction in Leadership (2016; vol. 149): Jossey-Bass.

Co-authored with Serrano*, Condren*, Dollwet*, and Wang* “Engagement in Cultural Trigger Events in the Development of Cultural Competence.” Academy of Management Learning & Education (2015). https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2013.0043

Co-authored with Dollwet* and Louw-Potgieter. “Development of Cross-Cultural Psychological Capital and Its Relationship with Cultural Intelligence and Ethnocentrism.” Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. (2014). https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051813515517

Co-authored with Dollwet* “Assessing cross-cultural skills: Validation of a new measure of cross-cultural psychological capital.” International Journal of Human Resource Management. (2014). https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2013.845239

Co-authored with Avey, Luthans, & Mhatre “A review, synthesis and meta-analysis of positive psychological capital.” Human Resource Development Journal (2013). https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.20070

Co-authored with Avey, Lopez, and Dollwet* “Having the will and finding the way: A review and meta-analysis of hope at work.” Journal of Positive Psychology. (2013). https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.800903

Co-authored with Sweida*. “Gender stereotyping effects on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and high-growth entrepreneurial intention.” Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development. (2013). https://doi.org/10.1108/14626001311326743

Co-authored with Johnson “Leader self-development as organizational strategy.” The Leadership Quarterly. (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.12.005

Co-authored with Avolio, Hannah, Walumbwa, & Chan “A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasi-experimental studies.”  The Leadership Quarterly (2009). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.06.006

Co-authored with Johnson, Murphy, Zewdie “The strong, sensitive type: Effects of gender stereotypes and leadership prototypes on the evaluation of male and female leaders.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.12.002

*Co-author was a student when the research was conducted.

Organizational Behavior
Directed research
Positive leadership
Training and Development
Leader development
Job design
Leadership assessment