The Nature of Executive Leadership: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis of Success

What makes for success at the highest levels of executive leadership? Until recently, most research has been conducted with middle-level managers, whose success is based on distinctively different attributes those at the top. In this volume, the most recent research on the skills, knowledge, abilities, and other characteristics that define effectiveness of senior executives is examined and integrated in a comprehensive analysis. Industrial psychologists, organizational consultants, and others who work with executive leaders can use this integrated framework to develop innovative ways of assessing, selecting, training, developing, and coaching executives based on solid empirical data. Graduate students and other researchers will find exciting research paradigms and recommendations for avoiding common methodological problems that have plagued research on executive leadership in the past.

Stephen J. Zaccaro is currently an associate professor of psychology at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia