摘要:Without feedback from members and former members, professional organizations run the risk of being stalemated. This study sought to explore perceptions of current and former members of the Association of Leadership Educators (ALE) related to the organization and the climate within the organization. No statistical differences were found in the perceptions of dues paying and non-dues paying members related to the climate of ALE as measured by the Team Climate Inventory (TCI); however, perceptions of both groups were fairly neutral. Open-ended questions were asked to elaborate, enhance, and clarify findings. Five themes emerged as successes achieved by ALE including the members, the ALE annual conference, information and idea sharing, networking, and the Journal of Leadership Education. Five themes also emerged as challenges facing the organization including a lack of direction or identity, recruitment and retention issues, lack of cohesion, lack of communication, and lack of participation. var currentpos,timer; function initialize() { timer=setInterval("scrollwindow()",10);} function sc(){clearInterval(timer); }function scrollwindow() { currentpos=document.body.scrollTop; window.scroll(0,++currentpos); if (currentpos != document.body.scrollTop) sc();} document.onmousedown=scdocument.ondblclick=initializeJournal of Leadership Education Volume 12, Issue 2 ¨C Summer 2013 89 Introduction As Bolman and Deal (2008) noted: Organizations need people (for their energy, effort, and talent), and people need organizations (for the many intrinsic and extrinsic rewards they offer), but their respective needs are not always well aligned. When the fit between people and organizations is poor, one or both suffer: individuals may feel neglected or oppressed, and organizations sputter because individuals withdraw their efforts or even work against organizational purposes. Conversely, a good fit benefits both: Individuals find meaningful and satisfying work, and organizations get the talent and energy they need to succeed. (p. 137) "Every organization, whether it deliberately creates them or not, is governed according to some explicit principles. They are not necessarily benign" (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, & Smith, 1994, p. 23). They argued that the development and deliberate articulation of an organization's guiding ideas is a "central function of genuine leadership" (pp. 22-23). However, they also argued that "many attempts to articulate guiding ideas in organizations result in bland 'motherhood and apple pie' mission or vision statements" (p. 23). Further they suggested that developing powerful guiding ideas requires both philosophical depth and seeing the process as ongoing. To develop true philosophical depth with respect to deliberately articulating the guiding ideas of the Association of Leadership Educators (ALE), we must first understand how the organization evolved and then try to understand how the organization is perceived today. The ALE was officially formed in 1990, at a seminar in Milwaukee, out of a common desire and felt need to unite individuals pursuing the mission of leadership education. ALE was created to serve leadership educators from many fields by providing a central professional organization where individuals could come together, learn from one another, provide a scholarly base for this new discipline, and be renewed professionally (Walker, 2002). The initial goals for this group were to "(1) strengthen the competencies of the career professional who works in the area of leadership education, and (2) broaden the overall knowledge base of leadership education" (Walker, 2002, p.13). An emphasis was added to the discussion and presentation of scholarly work to accommodate a growing constituency of practitioners from academia to the fledgling group. Many changes were made in the first few years as the organization grew in membership. Surveys were distributed to the membership in 1993 (Walker, 2002) to create some understanding of the wants and needs of members, and how the new organization could better serve and strengthen itself for the future. Of special note were items of proposed future direction including formation of goals, proposed target audiences for future recruitment of membership and organizational growth, how to best enhance the professional development of the current membership, and how best to strengthen the organization.