James M. Kouzes

James M. Kouzes is a leadership scholar, educator, and author, best known as coauthor with Barry Z. Posner of the award-winning, bestselling book The Leadership Challenge, which has sold millions of copies worldwide and gone through multiple editions. He has served as Dean’s Executive Professor/Fellow of Leadership at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, and is a Fellow at the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University. Earlier in his career, Kouzes founded the Center for Human Services Development at San José State University and directed the Executive Development Center at Santa Clara University, and The Wall Street Journal has named him one of the twelve best executive educators in the United States.

Kouzes’s work focuses on evidence-based leadership practices, and he has coauthored numerous books and resources on the topic, including The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations, The Student Leadership Challenge: Five Practices for Becoming an Exemplary Leader, Credibility, Encouraging the Heart, and Leadership in Higher Education, as well as the widely used Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) and related workbooks and tools. He has also served as president, CEO, and chairman of the Tom Peters Company, and has received honors such as Toastmasters International’s Golden Gavel and the **Wilbur M. McFeely Award