Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis
Born
Warren Gamaliel Bennis

(1925-03-08)March 8, 1925
DiedJuly 31, 2014(2014-07-31) (aged 89)
Occupations
Spouse(s)Clurie Williams Bennis, (m. 1962, div. 1980), Grace Gabe (m. November 29, 1992)
ChildrenKatharine Bennis, John Leslie Bennis, Will Martin Bennis

Warren Gamaliel Bennis (March 8, 1925 – July 31, 2014) was an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies.[1][2] Bennis was University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California.[3]

"His work at MIT in the 1960s on group behavior foreshadowed -- and helped bring about -- today's headlong plunge into less hierarchical, more democratic and adaptive institutions, private and public," management expert Tom Peters wrote in 1993 in the foreword to Bennis' An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change.[1]

Management expert James O'Toole, in a 2005 issue of Compass, published by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, claimed that Bennis developed "an interest in a then-nonexistent field that he would ultimately make his own—leadership—with the publication of his 'Revisionist Theory of Leadership'[4] in Harvard Business Review in 1961."[5] O'Toole observed that Bennis challenged the prevailing wisdom by showing that humanistic, democratic-style leaders are better suited to dealing with the complexity and change that characterize the leadership environment.

  1. ^ a b Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Fall 2005
  2. ^ Center for Excellence in Teaching, University of Southern California
  3. ^ USC Experts Directory, University of Southern California
  4. ^ Bennis, W.G. (1961), "Revisionist theory of leadership", Harvard Business Review, Vol. 39
  5. ^ Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Fall 2005