James MacGregor Burns is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Presidential biographer and
has devoted his professional life to the study of leadership in American life.
His most recent book is Running Alone: Presidential Leadership from JFK to
Bush II -- Why It Has Failed and How We Can Fix It (Basic Books, 2007).
Burns is co-editor (with George Goethals and Georgia Sorenson) of the 4 volume
award-winning Encyclopedia of Leadership (SAGE, 2004). He inspired and
helped to lead a group of leadership scholars who wrote The Quest for a
General Theory of Leadership (Elgar, 2006). In 1971, Burns won the Pulitzer
Prize and the National Book Award for his biography, Roosevelt: Soldier of
Freedom (1970). His book, Leadership, published in 1978, is still
considered the seminal work in the field of leadership studies.
Burns received
his doctorate in political science from Harvard, attended the London School of
Economics, and taught at Williams College. Burns is a former president of the
American Political Science Association, former president of the International
Society of Political Psychology, and former chair of the Berkshire Country
Commission Against Discrimination. Dr. Burns is a member of the prestigious
American Academy of Arts & Sciences and serves as Distinguished Leadership
Scholar at the Academy of Leadership which bears his name at the School of
Public Policy at the University of Maryland.
Watch a video of the induction event
James MacGregor Burns' induction event at ILA 2008 Los Angeles
2008 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
