About the Authors

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have been working together for more than thirty years, studying leaders, researching leadership, conducting leadership development seminars, and serving as leaders themselves in various capacities. They are coauthors of the award-winning, best-selling book The Leadership Challenge. Since its first edition in 1987, The Leadership Challenge has sold more than two million copies worldwide and is available in more than twenty-two languages. It has won numerous awards, including the Critics’ Choice Award from the nation’s book review editors and the James A. Hamilton Hospital Administrators’ Book of the Year Award, and was selected as one of the top ten books on leadership in Covert and Sattersten’s The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.

Jim and Barry have coauthored more than a dozen other award-winning leadership books, including Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It; The Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know; A Leader’s Legacy; Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others; The Student Leadership Challenge; and The Academic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership. They also developed the highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360-degree questionnaire for assessing leadership behavior, which is one of the most widely used leadership assessment instruments in the world, along with The Student LPI. More than five hundred doctoral dissertations and academic papers have been based on their The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership model.

Among the honors and awards that Jim and Barry have received is the American Society for Training and Development’s highest award for their Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance. They have been named Management/Leadership Educators of the Year by the International Management Council; ranked by Leadership Excellence magazine in the top twenty on its list of the Top 100 Thought Leaders; named among the 50 Top Coaches in the nation (according to Coaching for Leadership); and listed among HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers.

Jim and Barry are frequent keynote speakers, and each has conducted leadership development programs for hundreds of organizations, including Alberta Health Services, Apple, Applied Materials, ARCO, AT&T, Australia Institute of Management, Australia Post, Bank of America, Bose, Charles Schwab, Chevron, Cisco Systems, Clorox, Community Leadership Association, Conference Board of Canada, Consumers Energy, Deloitte Touche, Dorothy Wylie Nursing and Health Leaders Institute, Dow Chemical, Egon Zehnder International, Federal Express, Genentech, Google, Gymboree, HP, IBM, Jobs DR-Singapore, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Foundation Health Plans and Hospitals, Intel, Itau Unibanco, L. L. Bean, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Merck, Motorola, NetApp, Northrop Grumman, Novartis, Oakwood Temporary Housing, Oracle, Petronas, Roche Bioscience, Siemens, 3M, Toyota, United Way, USAA, Verizon, VISA, the Walt Disney Company, and Westpac. They have lectured at over sixty college and university campuses.

Jim Kouzes is the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, and lectures on leadership around the world to corporations, governments, and nonprofits. He is a highly regarded leadership scholar and an experienced executive; the Wall Street Journal cited him as one of the twelve best executive educators in the United States. In 2010, Jim received the Thought Leadership Award from the Instructional Systems Association, the most prestigious award given by the trade association of training and development industry providers. He was listed as one of HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers for 2010 and 2011, named one of the 2010 and 2011 Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America, and ranked by Leadership Excellence magazine as number sixteen on its list of the Top 100 Thought Leaders. In 2006, Jim was presented with the Golden Gavel, the highest honor awarded by Toastmasters International. Jim served as president, CEO, and chairman of the Tom Peters Company from 1988 through 1999, and prior to that led the Executive Development Center at Santa Clara University (1981–1987). Jim founded the Joint Center for Human Services Development at San Jose State University (1972–1980) and was on the staff of the School of Social Work, University of Texas. His career in training and development began in 1969 when he conducted seminars for Community Action Agency staff and volunteers in the war on poverty. Following graduation from Michigan State University (BA degree with honors in political science), he served as a Peace Corps volunteer (1967–1969). Jim can be reached at [email protected].

Barry Posner is Accolti Professor of Leadership at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, where he served as dean of the school for twelve years (1997–2009). He has been a distinguished visiting professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Sabanci University (Istanbul), and the University of Western Australia. At Santa Clara he has received the President’s Distinguished Faculty Award, the School’s Extraordinary Faculty Award, and several other teaching and academic honors. An internationally renowned scholar and educator, Barry is author or coauthor of more than a hundred research and practitioner-focused articles. He currently serves on the editorial review boards for Leadership and Organizational Development and the International Journal of Servant-Leadership. In 2011, he received the Outstanding Scholar Award for Career Achievement from the Journal of Management Inquiry.

Barry received his BA with honors in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara; his MA in public administration from The Ohio State University; and his PhD in organizational behavior and administrative theory from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Having consulted with a wide variety of public and private sector organizations around the globe, Barry also works at a strategic level with a number of community-based and professional organizations, currently sitting on the board of directors of EMQ FamiliesFirst. He has served previously on the boards of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Santa Clara County, Center for Excellence in Nonprofits, Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay, Public Allies, San Jose Repertory Theater, Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, and both publicly traded and start-up companies. Barry can be reached at [email protected].