The Good, the Bad, and the Unexpected: Adaptability, Challenges, and Opportunities of Leadership Learning Abroad

Creating a comprehensive, thoughtfully designed, and impactful learning experience abroad can be an overwhelming and uncertain undertaking. This article focuses on how leadership educators can address challenges, anticipate barriers, and design a leadership learning abroad course that powerfully supports student learning and avoids excess stress in the process. This article explores leadership learning in short-term study abroad programs through the lens of adaptive leadership. Using reflective narrative and practice-based examples, I examine the opportunities (the good), barriers (the bad), and ethical tensions (the uncertain) that arise when designing and facilitating leadership learning abroad. The article highlights faculty preparation and learning as a critical and often overlooked outcome of education abroad and situates leadership learning as a shared, relational process among students, educators, institutions, and community partners. I offer recommendations for leadership educators, institutions, and the field to support ethically grounded, developmentally appropriate, and adaptive leadership learning in global contexts.