Paper Title
COMPETENCY MODELS AS VEHICLES TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY IN LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Abstract
Despite decades of incessant calls warning that scholarly work marginally contributes to addressingthe issues industry faces (e.g., Car, 1980; Gopinath & Hoffman, 1995; Hodgkinson & Rousseau, 2009), there is still consensus around the notion that the gap between academia and industry persists (e.g., Vongswasdi et al., 2023). In the leadership development arena, discrepancies between academic and industry efforts are observable when contrasting the content of popular training options in industry (e.g., Franklin Covey, Dale Carnegie) with the theoretical frameworks that dominate the leadership literature (e.g., transformational leadership, authentic leadership; see Vogel et al., 2021). While overlaps between training in industry and theoretical frameworks are discernable, industry and academia seem to advance along parallel avenues without intentional intersections. In this study, we first discuss forces that prevent the narrowing of the industry-academic gap in the field of leadership development. Specifically, we analyze how a) legitimation, b) stakeholders’ expectations, c) time horizon perspectives, and d) audience divergences continue to exacerbate the industry-academia gap. We then advocate for the use of competency models as an alternative to circumvent these forces and narrow the gap in the field of leadership development. To illustrate, we translate three leadership theories (Transformational, Transactional, and Servant Leadership) into behavioral competencies thatrender these frameworks more accessible to industry. We conclude with recommendations for both scholars and practitioners regarding the application of our methodology inthe leadership development field. Keywords - Leadership development, industry-academic gap.