123 – Thomas Kolditz: Leadership Professor, Yale School of Management; Author of “In Extremis Leadership”

Summary: Thomas Kolditz is a Professor in the Practice of Leadership and Management & Director of the Leadership Development Program at the Yale School of Management. His experience as a leading development expert spans four decades in the public, private, and social sectors. A retired brigadier general and titled Professor Emeritus by the U.S. Military Academy, Tom led the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point, for 12 years. In that role, he was responsible for teaching, research, and outreach activities in management, leader development science, psychology, and sociology. A highly experienced global leader, General Kolditz has more than 26 years in leader roles on four continents. His career has focused both on leading organizations and studying leadership and leadership policy across sectors. He served for two years as a leadership and human resources policy analyst in the Pentagon, and a year as a concept developer in the Center for Army Leadership, and was the founding director of the West Point Leadership Center. He was instrumental in the design and formation of the Thayer Leader Development Group, and is the managing member of Saxon Castle LLC, a leader development consultancy. Professor Kolditz is an internationally recognized expert on crisis leadership and leadership in extreme contexts and in the development of programs to inculcate leadership and leader development in everything from project teams to large organizations. He has published extensively across a diverse array of academic and leadership trade journals, and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of several academic journals. He is a fellow in the American Psychological Association and is a member of the Academy of Management. In 2007, while still on active duty, Tom was appointed a visiting professor at the Yale School of Management, where he designed a crisis leadership course and taught in the school's MBA curriculum for three years His most recent book, In Extremis Leadership: Leading as if Your Life Depended on It, was based on more than 175 interviews taken on the ground in Iraq during combat operations. He has been named as a leadership Thought Leader by the Leader to Leader Institute and as a Top Leader Development Professional by Leadership Excellence. In 2009, he was named to the Council of Senior Advisors, Future of Executive Development Forum, and currently serves as the Academic in Residence for the Global Leadership Strategy Network.