The CLI Team
The Connective Leadership Institute functions with a lean internal management team and a group of external associates who have engaged in achieving styles work for more than two decades.
These are the key players
The CLI Co-Founders:
Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen (show / hide bio)
Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen, Co-founder and CLI Director, serves as the Thornton F. Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Peter F. Drucker/Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA. Professor Lipman-Blumen is the author of several books and numerous scholarly articles. The Connective Edge: Leading in an Interdependent World (Jossey-Bass, 1996), based on the connective leadership and achieving styles models, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It was published in paperback under the title, Connective Leadership: Managing in a Changing World (Oxford, 2000). Lipman-Blumen and Harold J. Leavitt (see bio below) co-authored Hot Groups: Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization (Oxford University Press, 1999), which won the "Best Business Book for 1999" from the Association of American Publishers (Scholarly and Professional Division). Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt published more than 15 earlier articles on achieving styles in scholarly journals. Her subsequent book, The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians – and How We Can Survive Them (Oxford, 2005) won a top business book award from Fast Company Magazine. In 2008, she co-edited The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations, with Ronald E. Riggio and Ira Chaleff. Her earlier work focused on gender roles and female leadership. She has consulted to many public and private sector organizations in the US and abroad. Lipman-Blumen received her A.B. and A.M. from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She completed post-doctoral work at Carnegie-Mellon and Stanford Universities and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, CA. Professor Lipman-Blumen has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of La Verne. She received the International Leadership Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, an award that "honors an individual's accomplishments in the development and enhancement of the field of leadership over his or her lifetime."
Prof. Harold J. Leavitt (show / hide bio)
Prof. Harold J. Leavitt, Co-founder, served as the Walter Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior, at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, from 1966 through 1996 and remained as Emeritus Professor until his death in 2007. Leavitt was widely regarded as the father of the field of organizational behavior. His classic textbook, Managerial Psychology: An Introduction to Individuals, Groups, and Organizations in Terms of Modern Psychology (Chicago, 1958), pioneered the field of organizational behavior in business school curricula. It has been translated into 18 languages and is in its fifth edition. Throughout his life, Leavitt continued to be a leader in his field, publishing numerous scholarly articles, as well as many ground-breaking books, including Corporate Pathfinders: Building Vision and Values into Organizations (Dow, Jones-Irwin, 1986), and Managerial Psychology: Managing Behavior in Organizations, with Homa Bahrami (Chicago, 1988). As noted above, Leavitt and Lipman-Blumen co-authored Hot Groups: Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization (Oxford, 1999). His last book, Top Down: Why Hierarchies Are Here to Stay and How to Manage Them More Effectively (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), won numerous awards. Professor Leavitt consulted to organizations throughout the world. In addition, he designed, directed, and taught in executive education programs at Stanford, Insead, the London Business School, the National University of Singapore, and elsewhere. Leavitt received his B.A. from Harvard College, his M.Sc. from Brown University, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Prof. Harold J. Leavitt (show / hide bio)
Prof. Harold J. Leavitt, CLI Associate, served as the Walter Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior, at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, from 1966 through 1996 and remained as Emeritus Professor until his death in 2007. Leavitt was widely regarded as the father of the field of organizational behavior. His classic textbook, Managerial Psychology: An Introduction to Individuals, Groups, and Organizations in Terms of Modern Psychology (Chicago, 1958), pioneered the field of organizational behavior in business school curricula. It has been translated into 18 languages and is in its fifth edition. Throughout his life, Leavitt continued to be a leader in his field, publishing numerous scholarly articles, as well as many ground-breaking books, including Corporate Pathfinders: Building Vision and Values into Organizations (Dow, Jones-Irwin, 1986), and Managerial Psychology: Managing Behavior in Organizations, with Homa Bahrami(Chicago, 1988). As noted above, Leavitt and Lipman-Blumen co-authored Hot Groups: Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization (Oxford, 1999). His last book, Top Down: Why Hierarchies Are Here to Stay and How to Manage Them More Effectively (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), won numerous awards. Professor Leavitt consulted to organizations throughout the world. In addition, he designed, directed, and taught in executive education programs at Stanford, Insead, the London Business School, the National University of Singapore, and elsewhere. Leavitt received his B.A. from Harvard College, his M.Sc. from Brown University, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sounding Board
Prof. Warren G. Bennis (bio coming soon)
Dr. Frances Hesselbein (bio coming soon)
Dr. Tom Peters (bio coming soon)
Prof. Jeffrey Pfeffer (show / hide bio)
Prof. Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of thirteen books including The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First, Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action, Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management, and What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom About Management, a collection of 27 essays about management topics, as well as more than 120 articles and book chapters. Pfeffer's latest book, entitled Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don't will be published in September, 2010 by HarperCollins.
Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford. He began his career at the business school at the University of Illinois and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Pfeffer has been a visiting professor at the Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University, London Business School, and a frequent visitor at IESE in Barcelona.
From 2003-2007, Pfeffer wrote a monthly column, "The Human Factor," for the 600,000-person circulation business magazine, Business 2.0. Since 2007, he has written a monthly column providing career advice for Capital, a leading business and economics magazine in Turkey and, more recently, a blog for the Corner Office section of BNET (CBS Interactive). Pfeffer has appeared in segments on CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and CNBC as well as television programs in Korea, and has been quoted and featured in news articles from countries around the globe.
Pfeffer currently serves on the board of directors of the for-profit company Audible Magic as well as nonprofits Quantum Leap Healthcare and The San Francisco Playhouse. In the past he has served on the boards of Resumix, Unicru, and Workstream, all human capital software companies, and SonoSite, a company designing and manufacturing portable ultrasound machines. Pfeffer has presented seminars in 34 countries throughout the world as well as doing consulting and providing executive education for numerous companies, associations, and universities in the United States.
Prof. Robert Sternberg (bio coming soon)
Advisory Board
Peter S. Blumen (show / hide bio)
Bio coming soon.
Carolyn Cason (show / hide bio)
Lyn Cason, a Director of Stanton Chase International www.stantonchase.com is an experienced executive search consultant who brings more than 12 years of background in the profession, specializing in digital media, consumer services, non-profit and university sectors. Her earlier career in management for entertainment and broadcast media provides a unique platform that allows her to offer organizational growth and leadership development to her clients.
Lyn was on the senior management team at Westinghouse Broadcasting and Cable, Inc. (CBS). As Vice President Total Quality she was on the Chairman’s corporate staff, responsible for coordinating customer service initiatives in broadcasting stations and cable networks nationwide. Her past positions include Vice President Controller at Group W Productions in Los Angeles, and Controller at WJZ TV in Baltimore, KPIX TV in San Francisco, and NBC Radio in San Francisco.
Lyn received a B.A. in Broadcast Communications from California State University San Francisco, and an Executive M.B.A. in Management from the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. She also completed a Fellowship in Applied Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
She currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Drucker/Ito Graduate School Alumni Association, Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. She is also on Board of Directors for The Madeira School, a VAIS independent boarding school for girls in Virginia lending her skills to assist her alma mater.
Thomas Deegan (show / hide bio)
For the past 25 years, Thomas G. Deegan, Ph.D. has held executive positions in the financial and manufacturing sectors. His responsibilities have included business acquisitions and development, along with staff and sales development.
Dr. Deegan serves on the Board of the Connective Leadership Institute and is a certified CLI practioner, www.connectiveleadership.com or www.achievingstyles.com. The Connective Leadership Institute is a management consulting, training, and research firm whose mission is to assist individuals and organizations in achieving their leadership goals more effectively.
Dr. Deegan received his Masters in Education Administration and B.A. in Education from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He received his Ph.D. in Education from Claremont Graduate University; his primary areas of research were in the fields of leadership development, the use of Achieving Styles to improve decision-making processes for operational planning, and crisis management.
Dr. Deegan is an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University. His clients have included ditech.com, Google, Leadership Mountain View, ABG, Mail-Well, Inc., Sourcelink, and TPR.
Robert Fisher (show / hide bio)
Robert Fisher has been in the securities industry for over forty-four years, primarily serving in the positions of principal, managing director, partner or founder. He started and/or helped build three successful investment operations. He is now engaged in an active consulting practice focused on leadership and management issues for various entrepreneurial enterprises such as Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt and Trupanion (a pet insurance company where he serves as a board member). Last year, he was honored by the venture capital firm, Maveron for his counsel and contributions. (see addendum)
He was a founding partner of the Sandoz Family Foundation Financial America based in Geneva and Los Angeles from 2000 to 2004. SFF Financial America identified and acted as a funding agent for venture capital enterprises.
In 1989, Mr. Fisher started the Los Angeles office of Schroder’s, a British investment bank and was responsible for its activities until July 2000 when Salomon Smith Barney bought the bank’s domestic and international securities business. In 1991, he became active in the firm’s corporate finance efforts, with an emphasis on consumer branded companies, such as Il Fornaio and Starbucks. Fisher has had significant business experience in Europe and Canada.
Mr. Fisher was a Managing Director of Drexel Burnham Lambert from 1974 to 1989, serving as Managing Director for the St. Louis, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills (brokerage division) offices. Previously (1970-1974), he was a co-founder and principal of The Fisher Corporation, an institutional research and investment banking firm located in St. Louis, Missouri. Before that he was Director of Institutional Research at Scherck, Stein and Franc, a St. Louis investment bank, (1967 to 1970). Robert began his career at Goldman Sachs where he was in the private client services group (1963 to 1966).
He has an interest in leadership over the course of his career always mindful of the crucial role it plays in the world of global commerce and the human experience. This interest led him to become a Trustee at the Drucker Center’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Leadership, Claremont Graduate School. There, he served with noted authorities on leadership -- Professor Jean Lipman-Blumen, Professor Richard Ellsworth, the late Professor Emeritus Hal Leavitt (Organizational Behavior-Stanford University), and the distinguished professor/author Warren Bennis of the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.
Mr. Fisher received a BSBA from Washington University, St Louis, Missouri in 1964. His first marriage to Bonnie Fisher, wife of forty-four years, ended with her death in 2007. He has three adult children and five grandchildren and now lives in San Francisco with his wife, Peggy Knickerbocker, author and journalist.
Maura Harrington (show / hide bio)
Bio coming soon.
Kathie Pelletier (show / hide bio)
Kathie L. Pelletier is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and an organizational behavior researcher with a specialty in leadership (ethical and toxic), business ethics, and organizational corruption. Her research interests include toxic and ethical leadership, organizational corruption, and women’s issues in the workplace. Kathie has been in management for over 26 years, in both private and public sectors. She was a manager with a major freight carrier for 16 years, and has 10 years of management and leadership experience in both county and city government agencies. Kathie has conducted research in applied settings on topics such as organizational corruption and its impact on employees, predictors of ethics program effectiveness, organizational justice, and strategies to minimize health disparities of incarcerated women. Her research has been published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, and Building Leadership Bridges (a publication of the International Leadership Association). In addition, she was the 2009 recipient of the Jablin Dissertation Award for her dissertation that examined leader-follower relationships and how those relationships influence perceptions of and reactions to toxic leaders. Kathie is a member of the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology, Academy of Management, International Leadership Association, and the American and Western Psychological Associations. She is also a certified practitioner and Advisory Board Member at the Connective Leadership Institute.
Education
- Ph.D., Psychology (Organizational Behavior) Claremont Graduate University
- M.S. Industrial/Organizational Psychology, California State University, San Bernardino
- B.A., San Diego State University
Alan Ragains (show / hide bio)
Alan Ragains was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois. He attended Illinois State University, Normal, IL. After receiving his undergraduate degree, he taught speech, theatre, and English at Limestone Community High School in Bartonville, IL. While teaching, he attended Bradley University, earning a Masters in speech/theatre. Shortly after that, he began working fulltime at his great-grandfather’s shoe store in Peoria, while working as adjunct faculty at Bradley. He was also involved in historic preservation throughout Illinois, including restoring his Victorian home.
In 1986, Alan moved to Hawaii, working as a sales manager and store trainer at the state’s only department store, Liberty House. In 1989, he was hired as tenure track faculty at the University of Hawaii’s Windward Community College. He is the only fulltime professor in speech, supervising a number of lecturers and developing the curriculum.
Alan is also serving as department chair, has worked on a number of assessment and accreditation projects, and has coordinated the state’s Student Literary Competition for the League for Innovation, to mention just a few activities.
He is also the owner of Alan Ragains & Associates, a privately owned business specializing in quality communication services. He presents workshops on a wide range of communication skills such as speech coaching, client contact, listening, team building, using visual aids/PowerPoint, and persuasion. He also offers a variety of human resource development skills such as stress, anger and conflict management, building professional relationships, and assertiveness training. In addition, services are provided as facilitators, and in employee/management appraisal and leadership training.
Alan also enjoys traveling, but is always happy to return to his home in Hawaii.
Sarah Smith Orr (show / hide bio)
Sarah Smith Orr is the owner/principal in a management and planning consulting firm, Smith Orr & Associates specializing in the nonprofit sector. She is also an adjunct professor at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) teaching leadership and governance in the social/nonprofit sector, as a lecturer for the Women’s Studies Program at CGU, and also a guest lecturer at the Claremont McKenna College in leadership studies.
She is currently serving as the Interim Executive Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute. She and colleague, Ron Riggio, Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute co-edited and published Improving Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 2003), a text that includes chapters she authored or co-authored; one entitled “Soul-Based Leadership,” the other “Transformational Leadership.” She also wrote a book chapter entitled, “Women Directors in the Board Room: Adding Value, Making a Difference,” included in Boardroom Realities, with Jay Conger, Editor (Jossey-Bass). The Drucker Difference, a compilation of essays on the ‘Drucker Difference’ includes Sarah’s chapter “The Twenty-First Century: The Century of the Social Sector,” (McgrawHill, 2009).
Sarah is a certified trainer and a member of the Advisory Board for the Connective Leadership Institute. Due to her deep interest in the role of leaders and a commitment to support the advancement of women, she has been involved in the founding/start-up of Leadership California, a statewide educational program for women leaders in California (founding Executive Director), Leadership Berks County and Leadership Pasadena. She currently serves on the board of the National Women’s Hall of Fame and as a founding member of the National Advisory Forum for The Women’s Museum, An Institute for the Future. Sarah holds an Executive MBA from Claremont Graduate University and is currently completing her PhD in Education at CGU. Sarah lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Steve Rapier (show / hide bio)
Steve Rapier is a member of the Connective Leadership Institute Advisory Board. He recently joined Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management as a member of the Practitioner Faculty of Marketing where he is a member of the FEMBA Program Committee. He has lectured at a variety of academic institutions, including The Drucker School, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Los Angeles, Cal State San Bernardino, and the University of Southern California. He is presently a doctoral student in management at The Drucker School.
Steve also serves as Executive Vice President of the Artime Group, an advertising and branding firm in Pasadena, CA. Over the past 26 years he has provided strategic consultation for a variety of clients, including 3M Unitek, Rose Hills, IndyMac Bank, Utility Trailer, and Affinity Internet. Steve is an occasional contributor to the Smart Answers column in the Small Business section of BusinessWeek online as well as in the Small Business column in Los Angeles Times print and online editions.