Scott J. Allen, Ph.D., is the Standard Products—Dr. James S. Reid Chair in Management at John Carroll University. He is an associate professor and teaches courses in leadership, management skills, and executive communication. He is also a communications coach, consultant, author, podcast host, and entrepreneur. For almost two decades, he’s worked with clients to improve their leadership and communication skills. Scott is the host of ILA’s official podcast, Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders. Phronesis offers a smart, fast-paced discussion on all things leadership. Scott and his expert guests cover timely, relevant topics and incorporate practical tips designed to help you make a difference in how you lead and live. Visit ILA’s podcast page to hear the latest episode. Learn more about Scott here.

Dr. Richard Bolden has been Professor of Leadership and Management and Director of Bristol Leadership and Change Centre at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England (UWE) since 2013. Prior to this he worked at the Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter Business School for over a decade and has also worked as an independent consultant, research psychologist and in software development in the UK and overseas.

His research explores the interface between individual and collective approaches to leadership and leadership development in a range of sectors, including higher education, healthcare and public services. He has published widely on topics including distributed, shared and systems leadership; leadership paradoxes and complexity; cross-cultural leadership; and leadership and change. He is Associate Editor of the journal Leadership.

Richard has secured funded research and evaluation projects for organisations including the NHS Leadership Academy, Public Health England, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, Singapore Civil Service College and Bristol Golden Key and regularly engages with external organisations. At UWE he leads modules on leadership, complexity and change for the EMBA and Advanced Clinical Practitioner degree apprenticeship programme and contributes to a wide range of other undergraduate, postgraduate and post-experience programmes on leadership, management and change.

Keith Grint has been Professor Emeritus at Warwick University since 2018. He spent 10 years working in various positions across a number of industry sectors before switching to an academic career. His first undergraduate degree (Sociology) was from the Open University in 1981, and his second (Politics) from the University of York in 1982. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1986. He was Junior Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University between 1985 and 1986 and a Research Fellow there between 1986 and 1987. Between 1986 and 1992 he was Lecturer in Sociology at Brunel University, and between 1992 and 1998 a Fellow at Templeton College, then University Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour, at the School of Management (now Saïd Business School), Oxford University. Between 1998 and 2004 he was University Reader in Organizational Behaviour at the Saïd Business School, and Director of Research there between 2002 and 2003. From 2004 to 2006 he was Professor of Leadership Studies and Director of the Lancaster Leadership Centre, Lancaster University School of Management. Between 2006 and 2008 he was Professor of Defence Leadership and Deputy Principal, Shrivenham Campus, Cranfield University. He was Professor of Public Leadership at Warwick Business School from 2009 to 2018.

He is a Fellow of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and Professorial Fellow of the Australian Institute of Police Management (AIPM). He is also a founding co-editor with David Collinson of the journal Leadership, and co-founder of the International Studying Leadership Conference. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2012 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science (honoris causa) from Warwick University in 2013. He received the Chief Constable’s Commendation for Contribution to Police Leadership in 2018 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Leadership Association in 2018.

His books include:

The Sociology of Work: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press) (1991); 2nd edition (1998); 3rd edition (2005); 4th edition with Darren Nixon (2015).

Management: A Sociological Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press) (1995).

The Machine at Work: Technology, Work and Society, (with Steve Woolgar) (Cambridge: Polity Press) (1997).

Fuzzy Management: Contemporary Ideas and Practices at Work, (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (1997).

The Arts of Leadership (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (2000).

Organizational Leadership (with John Bratton and Debra Nelson) (Mason: Southwestern/Thompson Press (2005).

Leadership: Limits and Possibilities. (London: Palgrave/Macmillan) (2005).

Leadership, Management & Command: Rethinking D-Day (London: Palgrave/Macmillan) (2008).

Leadership: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (2010).

Mutiny and Leadership (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (2021).

Ms. Metcalf – Founder, CEO, and Board Chair of the Innovative Leadership Institute (formerly Metcalf & Associates) is a highly sought-after expert in anticipating and leveraging future business trends to transform organizations. She has captured her thirty years of experience and success in an award-winning series of books which are used by public, private and academic organizations to align company-wide strategy, systems and culture with innovative leadership techniques.

As a preeminent change agent, Ms. Metcalf has set strategic direction and then transformed her client organizations to deliver significant business results such as increased profitability, cycle time reduction, improved quality, and increased employee effectiveness. For years, she has been willing to share her hard-won insights – through conference speaking opportunities, industry publications, radio talk-shows, and video presentations

The Innovative Leadership Institute has a 20-year track record of delivering value to high-performing clients ranging from local Ohio small businesses to Fortune 15 organizations to the US Armed Forces. Client industry mainstays include: technology, engineering, manufacturing, financial, and medical services. The Innovative Leadership Institute also has an international presence having been on-the-ground helping companies in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Areas of Transformational Expertise include: Leadership development, Implementing change in strategic direction, Merger/Acquisition/Spin-off/Divestment, Large scale system installation, Business reengineering, Governance, and Succession planning.

Publications include an international award winning nine book series focusing on Innovative Leadership. Ms. Metcalf is also a regular contributor to Forbes.com among a long list of other outlets. Her Innovating Leadership podcast often breaks the top 50 iTunes business list.

Stella Nkomo is a Professor in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Pretoria and the President of the Africa Academy of Management (AFAM). Through her work in AFAM, Nkomo has, quite literally, put African leadership and management practices on the map. Recognizing that Africa’s growing economies and emerging markets were hotbeds of innovative leadership practices in dynamic, turbulent environments, Nkomo knew the time was ripe for a community of African management scholars to emerge and support research into, documentation of, and dissemination of these practices. A thriving community, since 2010 AFAM has established a leadership journal published by Taylor & Francis and organized conferences across the continent.

Nkomo is a noted scholar and consultant in the areas of leadership and change, diversified workforces, and women and leadership. She is the author of several books and numerous refereed articles including the acclaimed Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity and Courageous Conversations: A Collection of Interviews and Reflections on Responsible Leadership by South African Captains of Industry. In 2016 Nkomo was named a Continental Lifetime Achiever from CEO Global’s Africa’s Most Influential Women in Business and Government Awards for her career contributions to leadership, higher education in South Africa, and her work developing young African academics.

Chellie Spiller is a professor of leadership at the University of Waikato Management School, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research explores wayfinding, authentic leadership and how businesses can create sustainable wealth and wellbeing. Chellie is a co-author of a book on traditional Polynesian navigation Wayfinding Leadership: Groundbreaking Wisdom for Developing Leaders (2015) with Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr and John Panoho. Wayfinding Leadership is a best-selling book for Huia Publishing. It was shortlisted for the Māori Book of the Year awards, 2016. Wayfinding Leadership is included in the list of 150 books by leading Māori authors assembled by the Royal Society of New Zealand to celebrate 150 years of Māori non-fiction publications. Wayfinding Leadership has catalysed a new approach to leadership development that is growing fast and programmes are currently being taught nationally and internationally. In 2013 her co-edited book with Donna Ladkin, Reflections on Authentic Leadership: Concepts, Coalescences and Clashes (Edward Elgar Press) was short-listed for an international leadership book award. Chellie’s latest book is Practical Wisdom, Leadership and Culture: Indigenous, Asian and Middle-Eastern Perspectives co-edited with Ali Intezari and Shih-Ying Yang. The stories from contributors around the world are illuminating and inspiring.

I am a Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at the University of Sussex Business School. I have a particular interest in dysfunctional and dark side leadership, which probably comes from growing up in Northern Ireland at a time of great conflict between its two main communities. We had many dark side leaders, and miserable times as a result of their activities. All this fed into my book The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective, published by Routledge in 2013.

I also have a strong interest in organisations that we commonly think of as cults, particularly but not exclusively those of a political nature. There are more of these than we normally imagine, and most of us can be vulnerable to the appeal of cult membership when we are going through some major crisis in our lives. Put simply, we are in pain – and a cult and its leaders offer to make the pain go away. This interest is reflected in what is now an old book that I co-authored with Tim Wohlforth – On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left, published by ME Sharpe in 2000.

More recently, I have also become interested in research ethics and in research fraud. It seems to me that much of the research which appears in academic journals is bogged down in trivial issues, that its methods are often unable to really address the issues being investigated, and even that an unknown but significant amount of it is based on fraud. Leadership studies is far from immune. There are many reasons for this, but the pressure put on academics to publish to advance their careers is one of them. This led to my book Management Studies in Crisis: Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. It seems that many people share my concerns. I published a paper in the journal Academy of Management Learning & Education in 2020 called ‘The triumph of nonsense in management studies,’ based on my book. To my surprise it won their best paper of the year award.

Leadership really matters, in business, society and politics. My interest is in helping people to spot where it is going wrong, and encouraging everyone not to put too much reliance on the alleged wisdom of powerful people at the top. We face many problems. An engaged and critical citizenry, at work and elsewhere, is vital if we are to overcome them.

Before becoming Principle of Ki ThoughtBridge, LLC Katherine Tyler Scott developed and directed several statewide and national leadership education programs. She has consulted with and trained thousands of leaders, written numerous articles, developed curricula and co-authored books on organizational change and development, conflict resolution change management and leadership.

Katherine is founder of Trustee Leadership Development, Inc. a national organization that worked with governance and executive leaders of not-for-profits; and the Lilly Endowment Leadership Education Program a training program for fellows committed to transformational systemic change.

Among her multiple awards is being named Sagamore of the Wabash the highest honor bestowed by the Governor of Indiana in recognition of her leadership and service.

Katherine was a convener of the ILA Applied Leadership global learning community and served as ILA Board Vice-Chair and Chair.

Dr Suze Wilson is a leadership scholar and senior lecturer at Massey University, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research examines issues of power, identity, gender, ethics, discourse, practice, context and crisis in relation to leadership and its development.  Her doctoral thesis won the 2014 Fredic M. Jablin Doctoral Dissertation Award given by the ILA in partnership with the Jepson School of Leadership Studies.  Her work has appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Organization, Organizational Dynamics, Leadership and Culture and Organization.  Suze’s books are Thinking differently about leadership (2016, ), Revitalizing leadership (2018), written in collaboration with Stephen Cummings, Brad Jackson and Sarah Proctor-Thomson, and After leadership, which she edited in collaboration with Brigid Carroll and Josh Firth. She is currently involved in editing the forthcoming Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies along with David Knights, Owain Smolovic-Jones and Helena Liu.  She is an Associate Editor of the journal Leadership and also writes public commentary for The Conversation. Prior to entering academia Suze held a range of senior leadership roles in several government agencies, the New Zealand postal service, in a trade union and in the student union movement.  

John Weng, PhD, ICF PCC ACTC, is the Principal of John Weng Consulting LLC, where he provides facilitation, solution design, and coaching services to help workplaces realize their goals. In addition to running his own leadership development firm, he also produces partners and serves on other teams to develop leaders and leadership, including serving as a Leadership Solutions Facilitator with the Center for Creative Leadership and Leadership Coach and Consultant with Judge School of Business at Cambridge University.

John brings to his leadership development work a combination of practical and research experience. John serves a lecturer at the University of San Diego’s School of Leadership and Education Sciences and Knauss School of Business where he teaches courses in the Leadership Coach Certificate Program as well as other on group dynamics, interpersonal relations, and research methodology. He uses a combination of case-in-point, group relations, and other experiential methodologies to enrich his classroom. He brings with him nearly a decade’s experience as a higher education leader.

John has been a facilitator for the ILA’s Leadership Education Academy since 2021. He is also a co-editor and contributing author in the New Directions for Student Leadership series, including the upcoming issue Intentional Emergence: Addressing 21st Century Learner Needs and the special issue Leadership Education through Complex Transitions. Learn more about John here.