Warren Bennis to Discuss "Failed Leadership in a Time of Vulnerability"

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Oct. 12, 2001 –Distinguished professor and author Warren Bennis will give a talk on “Failed Leadership in a Time of Vulnerability” on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m., in Griffin Hall, room 3. The talk is free and open to the public.

Bennis is University Professor of Business Administration and founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California. This year, he is Thomas S. Murphy Distinguished Research Fellow at the Harvard Business School, and also holds an appointment at The Kennedy School of Government.

Author of 26 books on leadership, including the best-selling “Leaders” “On Becoming a Leader,” and “Organizing Genius,” much of his work has focused on leadership, change, and human development. He has advised four U.S. presidents and more than 150 CEOs of multinational companies. Forbes Magazine has called him the “Dean of Leadership Gurus.”

Bennis believes “great leaders are able to accomplish great feats because they are able to articulate, focus, and even embody the values of the groups they lead.”

In an interview with Behavior Online, he said, “Learning to be a leader is virtually the same process as becoming an integrated and healthy person. Good leaders have a high capacity to reflect upon their past experiences: Assuming the learner has a healthy aspiration for leadership, they must develop the capacity to learn from experience, which means the capacity to reflect.”

After earning a Ph.D. in economics and social science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bennis served for several years on the faculty of MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Bennis is a former provost and executive vice president of the State University of New York at Buffalo and was president of the University of Cincinnati from 1971 to 1977.

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Published October 12, 2001