Leadership and Advocacy in Professional Organizations

This chapter synthesizes the theory, research, and practical aspects of leadership and advocacy in counseling professional organizations. Although the leadership and advocacy literature has exponentially increased over the last decade and the research on counseling leadership and advocacy consistently identifies the centrality of professional organizations, to date there have been few attempts to codify the literature on leadership and advocacy in professional organizations specifically. To address this gap, the author provides an examination of the theoretical base grounding leadership and advocacy in professional organizations and overviews the expanding and increasingly inter-related research on leadership and advocacy in professional organizations. In addition, the author introduces applications across training and supervision, as well as practice and professional organization activities, including the role of ethics as related to advocacy and leadership in professional organizations.