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Community college leadership has been changing at the presidential level. Senior-level leaders at many colleges are retiring, changing positions, or being changed by the Board of Trustees. Schaffer (2018) states, "Right now, we face a crisis in the leadership of our community colleges. Far too many of our leaders are leaving and, unfortunately, far too few stand ready to take their place" (p. 10). A president must be responsible for leading the college, meeting its goals, and fulfilling its purpose. A president must also provide a vision, have a strategy, and integrate policy into daily operations. As new responsibilities are added to leaders at community colleges, transforming the leadership team may mean including candidates from non-traditional routes as college president. Community college presidencies are expanding from traditional routes that consider talent from academic backgrounds to non-traditional routes that consider institutional candidates who are not academics. A growing problem at community colleges is having leadership without the knowledge and experience to meet changing demands. The next generation of college presidents will require leaders who can use different skills to meet those demands. Leaders from both traditional and non-traditional routes need to have the right leadership competencies to be successful in today's community college culture. This study sought to determine if there are significant distinctions in the leadership competencies of community college presidents who have emerged from either the traditional or the non-traditional career routes. This determination identified trends of future leaders that assisted in closing the leadership gap present in today's changing landscape of community colleges. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]