ASI - Team members

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:

Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen, 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 FastCompany 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 and her Ph.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She completed post-doctoral work at Carnegie-Mellon and Stanford Universities.

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.