Leadership Legacies: Honoring Luminaries in the Field

As the ILA prepares to celebrate its 10th Anniversary Conference, we have also been at work on a new project that will carry into both the future of the ILA and the future of leadership studies: the Leadership Legacy Project. Beginning with this year’s conference in Los Angeles, the ILA will induct six individuals from the field of leadership studies into the Legacy Project by presenting each of them with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The honorees have all made significant and diverse contributions to the field of leadership, and their portraits will be proudly displayed on the newly created Legacy Wall at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland. The first people to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award will be Jim Burns, Warren Bennis, Manfred Kets de Vries, Frances Hesselbein, Joe Rost and Bernie Bass. These recipients represent the full spectrum of leadership studies, and their lives and works will be honored throughout the conference. Following is a brief snapshot of the contributions that each of these internationally renowned scholars have contributed to the field of leadership.

Bernie Bass was a graduate of Ohio State University where he received his B.A. and M.A. degrees and a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Psychology. In 1994 he was honored by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology with its Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award and in 1997 received the Society of Psychologists in Management award for Distinguished Practice in Psychology. Dr. Bass was a founding editor of Leadership Quarterly and served as a senior scientist for Gallup. He was a Ford Faculty Fellow and a Fellow of both the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Academy of Management. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Kravis Leadership Institute. Bernie is perhaps best known for his role as a “founding father” of transformational leadership, inspiring a new generation of leadership scholars, practitioners, and students. He is the author of Transformational Leadership (with Ron Riggio), Bass & Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership, Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership (with Bruce Avolio), Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Application, Fourth Edition (with Ruth Bass), and numerous other titles. Bass’ award will be presented to his wife during the conference opening.

Joseph C. Rost, a distinguished scholar in leadership studies, was most noted for his conception of followership. Rost was a professor emeritus of leadership studies at the University of San Diego (USD) in San Diego, CA where he was a professor of leadership from 1976 to 1996. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he specialized in the politics of education. In his early career, Rost was a Christian Brother in the St. Louis, Missouri Province for twenty-one years, and he served as a teacher and administrator of several schools in the Midwest. After his retirement in 1996, Rost collaborated with several graduates and doctoral students in leadership studies at USD to inaugurate the Institute for the Advancement of Leadership. He served as Executive Director of this nonprofit corporation until it ceased operations in 1999. Rost’s Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (Praeger 1991) is one of the most quoted books about leadership in print. In this book, Rost emphasized the shift in leadership/management to a more collaborative form. His work is still used extensively in leadership courses today. Rost’s award will be accepted on his behalf by his niece during the conference opening on Wednesday evening.

Warren Bennis is University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the Marshall School and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California. He is also Visiting Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (UK). He has written 27 books, including the best-selling Leaders and On Becoming a Leader, both translated into 21 languages. The Financial Times recently names Leaders as one of the top 50 business books of all time. In 1993 Addison-Wesley published a book of his essays, An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Jossey-Bass just republished an updated version of his 1968 path-breaking book, The Temporary Society, co-authored with Phil Slater. Bennis has not only studied and reflected on leadership, he has also done it, first as the youngest infantry commander fighting in Germany at age 20, decorated with the Bronze Star and Purple Heart and then as President of the University of Cincinnati from 1971-97. He has served on the faculty of MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he was Chairman of the Organizational Studies Department. He is a former faculty member of Harvard and Boston University, former provost and Executive Vice President of State University of New York at Buffalo. He has served on the boards of The American Chamber of Commerce, Claremont University Center and currently serves on the board of the Salk Institute. Bennis has consulted for many Fortune 500 companies and has advised four U.S. presidents. The Wall Street Journal named him as one of the top ten speakers on management in 1993 and in 1996, FORBES magazine referred to him as the "Dean of Leadership Gurus." Bennis will be honored during a lunch on Friday, November 14. The lunch will include presentation of the award and remarks by Bennis. The cost is $35, and tickets may be purchased by visiting the conference home page at www.ila-net.org/conferences.

Manfred Kets de Vries is a Clinical Professor of Leadership Development who holds the Raoul de Vitry d'Avaucourt Chair of Leadership Development at INSEAD in Fontainebleau. He is the Director of INSEAD's Global Leadership Centre (IGLC), the Program Director of INSEAD's top management seminar 'The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders' and of the programs 'Consulting and Coaching for Change: Creating Reflective Change Agents 'and 'Leadership for Creativity: Insights to Expand the Limits of Organizational Performance'. Kets de Vries has also held professorships at McGill University's Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Montreal and the Harvard Business School in Boston and has lectured at management institutions around the world. He is a founding member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. The Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist have judged Manfred Kets de Vries one of world's leading thinkers on leadership. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than twenty-four books and has published over 250 scientific papers as chapters in books, or as articles. His unique views on the nature of individual and organizational change have made him one of today's most sought-after business speakers for keynote addresses around the world. Kets de Vries will be honored during a breakfast ceremony on Thursday, during which he will receive the award and offer remarks. The cost of the breakfast is $25, and tickets may be purchased by visiting the conference home page at www.ila-net.org/conferences.

Frances Hesselbein is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management), and served as its founding President and Chief Executive Officer from 1990-2000. She serves on many nonprofit and private sector corporate boards, including the Veteran's Corporation Advisory Board and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Management at the Kennedy School. Frances Hesselbein is Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal Leader to Leader. She is a co-editor of the book of the same name, as well as the three volumes of the Drucker Foundation Future Series. She also is co-editor of Leading Beyond the Walls, and Leading for Innovation, Organizing For Results, the first two books in the Drucker Foundation Wisdom to Action Series. Her book Hesselbein on Leadership was published in August of 2002. Be, Know, Do: Leadership the Army Way, introduced by General Eric K. Shinseki and Frances Hesselbein was published in February of 2004. Hesselbein was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor in January 1998. Her contributions were also recognized by former President Bush, who appointed her to two Presidential commissions. She will be honored at a breakfast ceremony on Saturday, during which she will accept her award and make remarks. The cost of the breakfast is $25, and tickets may be purchased by visiting the conference home page at www.ila-net.org/conferences.

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. Burns will accept his award and give remarks during a breakfast ceremony on Friday. The cost of the breakfast is $25, and tickets may be purchased by visiting the conference home page at www.ila-net.org/conferences.

Throughout the 2008 conference, award recipients will have the opportunity to host special sessions with conference attendees. These sessions will allow the Legacy Project inductees to explore the conference theme, Global Leadership: Portraits of the Past, Visions for the Future, from their own unique perspectives. More information regarding these sessions will be posted to the conference page of the ILA website, and we sincerely hope that you will join us in honoring the first recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award, in celebrating their legacies, and in hearing their visions for the future of leadership.

 

Awards : Leadership Legacies