Barry Posner is the Accolti Endowed Professor of Leadership at the Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business, where he served for 12 years as the dean of the school. Posner received the Association for Talent Development's highest award for Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance. He has been named as one of the nation's top management and leadership educators by the International Management Council, recognized as one of the Top 50 leadership coaches in America, ranked among the Most Influential HR Thinkers in the world by HR Magazine, and listed among the Top 75 Leadership and Management Experts in the world by Inc. Magazine.
He is the co-author (with James Kouzes) of the award-winning and best-selling leadership book The Leadership Challenge. With over two million copies, the book has been described as a groundbreaking research study, combining keen insights with practical applications, and has been translated into 22 foreign languages. Fast Company ranked it among the top dozen books of 2012, and it has been listed among the Top 100 Business Books of All Time, receiving both book-of-the-year honors by the American Council of Health Care Executives and the Critics’ Choice Award from the nation's book review editors.
Posner has also co-authored several other award-winning, inspiring and practical books on leadership: Turning Adversity Into Opportunity; Finding the Courage to Lead; Great Leadership Creates Great Workplaces; Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It; The Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-the Matter Facts You Need to Know; Encouraging the Heart: A Leader’s Guide to Recognizing and Rewarding Others; A Leader's Legacy; Extraordinary Leadership in Australia and New Zealand; Making Extraordinary Things Happen in Asia; and The Student Leadership Challenge. Kouzes’ and Posner's Leadership Practices Inventory has been called "the most reliable, up-to-date leadership instrument available today," and the online version has been completed by over three million people.
Posner is an internationally renowned scholar who has published more than 100 research and practitioner-oriented articles, in such publications as the Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Relations, Personnel Psychology, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He is currently on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Servant-Leadership and Leadership and Organizational Development Journal.
Posner has served on a number of corporate boards and for a number of public and community organizations, such as the American Institute of Architects, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, Global Women's Leadership Network, and EMQ FamiliesFirst.
Posner received an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a master's degree from The Ohio State University in public administration, and his Ph.D. in organizational behavior and administrative theory from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
At Santa Clara, he has received several outstanding teaching and leadership honors, including the President's Distinguished Faculty Award and the School's Extraordinary Faculty Award. Posner has been a visiting professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Sabanci University (Istanbul), and the University of Western Australia.
Described as a warm, engaging and pragmatic conference speaker and dynamic workshop facilitator, Posner has worked with such organizations as Amazon, Apple, Applied Materials, Australian Institute of Management, Charles Schwab, Conference Board of Canada, Genentech, HP, IKEA, Kaiser Permanente Health Care, L.L. Bean, Levi Strauss, Merck, NetApp, Northrop Grumman, Petronas, Trader Joe's, and Westpac, and he has been involved with leadership development efforts at more than 50 college campuses. He has made presentations and conducted workshops across the United States and around the globe, from Canada, Mexico, South America, and Europe to the Far East (China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia), Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.