ILA Fellows

Our work is possible because of the power of curiosity and creativity and the desire to make an impact.

About the ILA Fellows Program

ILA Fellows, recognized as experts in their respective professions, serve as ambassadors for the ILA. In addition, each fellow is responsible for an ILA leadership project or program. During their time as fellows, each will:

Engage with ILA’s mission to do worthy work

Fellows will have opportunities to engage with ILA members, Board, staff and to work on a special project to help drive our mission forward. Fellows will turn leadership research and ideas into reality through action-based research, projects, programs, or publications.

Work at the intersection of leadership research and practice

Fellows will have experience and interest in the interplay of theory and practice that leads to effective leadership for the greater good. Fellows will value rigor and relevance at the nexus of leadership theory and effective practices resulting in thoughtful action-based work.

Network with like-minded individuals who bring different perspectives

Fellows will come from a wide range of backgrounds and will work across sectors and disciplines, reflecting the experience of many of the ILA members.

Desire to learn and to give back

Fellows have a desire to learn from those like and different from themselves with a curiosity and dedication to address the perplexing leadership questions of our time. While Fellows will come from different geographic regions and work on different projects, their common interest in leadership will bring them together periodically virtually to share ideas and in person at the global conference to meet, think, share ideas, and to be inspired.

ILA Executive in Residence

John Heiser

John Heiser is a transformational, global, and relational CEO with more than 25 years of leadership experience in multimillion-dollar pharmaceutical, technology, and manufacturing organizations. He leverages inclusive leadership, authentic connection, and decisive action to coalesce excitement and engagement internally and externally to creatively solve intricate business challenges. Recognizing that business is a social institution, John manages with conviction, ignites public policy initiatives, and innovates to enact positive change within society and the organizations he leads.

Most recently, John was CEO of LabVantage Solutions, Inc., a laboratory informatics technology company. A recognized leader in enterprise laboratory software solutions, LabVantage Solutions dedicates itself to improving customer outcomes by transforming data into knowledge. Prior to his role at LabVantage, John served as the President & COO of Magnetrol International, Inc. Magnetrol is a global leader in level and flow process control instrumentation. Magnetrol pioneered liquid level instrumentation for industrial applications in 1932 and continues to provide advanced measurement and control solutions across a wide product and technology portfolio. John began his career as an attorney in private practice before transitioning into business where he has held numerous leadership positions in legal, government affairs, sales, and marketing with DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Company, DuPont Pharmaceuticals, Merck & Co., Inc., and Bausch & Lomb.

John has built a career of enhancing stakeholder engagement to achieve exceptional results by utilizing values-based, positive organizational change frameworks that connect strategy to organizational values. John is an influential leader who leverages a portfolio of functional skills to tackle the dynamic issues facing business, non-profits, and society. He is a published author and frequent speaker on implementing values-driven leadership change frameworks for sustained, flourishing growth.

He holds a PhD in Values-Driven Leadership from Benedictine University, an MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business, a JD from Tulane University School of Law, and a BA in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Iowa.

Areas of Expertise include: Stakeholder Engagement, Strategic Growth, Operations, Global Strategy, Strategic Marketing, Corporate Social Responsibility, Change Management, Organization, Team and Talent, Development, Influential Communicator.

John is a Board Member, Treasurer, and Chair of the Finance Committee of the International Leadership Association. He also is a member of the Academy of Management, Vistage, and the Louisiana Bar Association.

Current Fellows

ILA Scholar in Residence

Jonathan Gosling

Jonathan Gosling

Emeritus Professor, Leadership Studies, University of Exeter

Gill Hickman

Gil Robinson Hickman

Professor Emerita, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond

Full Bios

Jonathan Gosling is Emeritus Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter, having been Chair and Director of the Centre for Leadership Studies there for 12 years. Prior to that he directed the Strategic Leaders Unit at Lancaster Universtiy Management School. He is a visiting Professor at Renmin University of China (School of Philosophy ) where he delivered a series of lectures on the philosophy of leadership (2015). He held an Otto Mønsted Visiting Professorship at Copenhagen Business School (2014), and has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership Development at INSEAD, France (2009), as well as a Visiting Professor at McGill University, Quebec; Auckland University in New Zealand, Lund University, Sweden and at Bristol Leadership and Change Centre (BLCC) at the Universtiy of West of England.

Trained as an anthropologist, he worked for several years as a mediator in neighbourhood conflicts in London, founded the UK‘s first community mediation service and was the founding Secretary of the European Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. After taking a mid-career MBA, he moved into management education at Lancaster University, on the MBA and other programmes for major companies, including British Airways. He co-founded, with Henry Mintzberg and three other malcontents, a new approach to management education, the International Masters in Practising Management.  He also played a significant role in the so-called ‘critical management’ movement, launching an influential MPhil and PhD and contributing to the development of specialist conferences and interest groups.  He conceived and co-founded the One Planet MBA at Exeter, and now runs a module involving participants from several business schools – Managing Around the World: Roundtables for Practicing Managers. His commitment to workplace-based learning is expressed in CoachingOurselves.com, of which he is a founding Director.  He is a founding member of Exeter University’s Business Nature Value research group, where he initiated a major programme of research into agricultural supply chains and economic development in Colombia (partnering with Universidad de Los Andes). He is currently (2016/17) running OD programmes to support malaria elimination in two countries in southern Africa; and also contributing to the design and launch of leaderships development initiatives inRed Cross / Red Crescent National Societies in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Gill Robinson Hickman, Professor Emerita, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond.
 
Compelling common purpose. These three words are at the core of Gill Robinson Hickman’s institution building work in leadership studies, her life, and her research. As one of the inaugural faculty members of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, one of the first institutions in the world with a multidisciplinary faculty devoted to the study of leadership, Hickman joined forces with her colleague to build a leadership studies program from the ground up. A former higher education administrator and professor of public administration, Hickman’s background was ideally suited to the early work of structuring Jepson’s overall program. At the more granular level, Hickman and her colleagues not only created syllabi, lessons, and lectures from scratch, they had to write the textbooks they needed to teach their courses. Hickman’s own publications, Leading Organizations: Perspectives for a New Era and Leading Change in Multiple Contexts, have since become standards in a field that has experienced incredible growth since those first Jepson faculty gathered with their compelling common purpose more than 20 years ago.

Jepson was not the first place Hickman experienced a compelling common purpose. Growing up Black in Birmingham, Alabama during the Civil Rights era, Hickman experienced the power of people coming together in common cause to advance the work of change. She witnessed the fruitful outcomes of people of all ages voluntarily giving of themselves to challenge the entrenched system of segregation. Hickman credits this experience with fueling her lifelong passion for collective work and co-creative partnerships. Building from practice into theory, her writing and research into the relationship between leaders and followers in organizations is infused with this idea. Hickman’s co-creative, co-authored book with Georgia Sorenson, Invisible Leadership, fleshes out this theory and argues that dedication to compelling common purpose or “the charisma of purpose” is the motivating force in leadership. Retired from Jepson, Hickman’s work continues to examine the interplay between purpose and leadership. Her most recent book is When Leaders Face Personal Crisis: The Human Side of Leadership.

ILA Fellows

Scott Allen

Scott J. Allen

Standard Products—Dr. James S. Reid Chair in Management, John Carroll University

Richard Bolden

Professor of Leadership and Management, Director, Bristol Leadership and Change Centre, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England

Keith Grint

Keith Grint

Professor Emeritus, Warwick University

Maureen Metcalf

Maureen Metcalf

Founder, CEO, and Board Chair, Innovative Leadership Institute

Stella Nkomo

Stella Nkomo

Professor of Human Resource Management, University of Pretoria

Chelie Spiller

Chellie Spiller

Professor of Leadership, Waikato Management School

Dennis Tourish

Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies, Business School, University of Sussex

Katherine Tyler Scott

Katherine Tyler Scott

Principle, Ki ThoughtBridge

Suze Wilson

Leadership Scholar and Senior Lecturer, Massey University, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

Full Bios

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.  

Would You Like to Be an ILA Fellow?

ILA Fellows are selected by the ILA President and ILA Board Chair. Fellows will serve a two-year appointment with the option of renewal. Applicants will have achieved recognition in their respective fields, sectors, and disciplines and will come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Above all, applicants will be considered who aspire to make a greater impact on leadership in society.