Barry Z. Posner

Barry Z. Posner is an American leadership scholar and the Michael J. Accolti, S.J. Professor of Leadership and Chair of the Management & Entrepreneurship Department at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. He has served as Dean of the Leavey School of Business for twelve years and previously held roles including associate dean for graduate programs and managing partner for executive education. Posner earned a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an M.A. in public administration from The Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior and administrative theory from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Posner is best known as co-author, with James M. Kouzes, of the bestselling leadership book The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations and the broader Leadership Challenge franchise. Together they have also coauthored works including The Student Leadership Challenge: Five Practices for Becoming an Exemplary Leader, Encouraging the Heart, Credibility, A Leader’s Legacy, Learning Leadership, Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership, and they developed the widely used Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). Posner has authored or coauthored more than one hundred research and practitioner-oriented