Has conducted the largest study of
top leaders since 1971.


Highlights

Michael Lindsay is one of the country’s foremost experts on what it takes to turn individuals into effective — and even great — leaders. He is committed to helping organizations improve the ways they identify, develop, and place people in the ranks of future generations of leaders.

Michael is currently directing the largest and most comprehensive interview-based study of top leaders ever conducted. Drawing on successful executives from the corporate world, government, military, education, and non-profits, Michael has discovered the many and varied elements that move people to the top and provide them with the capabilities to take their organizations to the top as well.

In his seven-year study, he has gleaned insights from hundreds of executives running the country’s best known firms, including Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs, JC Penney, Macy’s, New York Life, PepsiCo, Levi Strauss, Travelocity, NBC, Office Depot, Wells Fargo, CNN. Men and women from the highest reaches of the US government are included as well: generals, admirals, members of Congress, cabinet secretaries — and even two US presidents.

One highlight of Michael’s work is the first ever examination of the most prestigious and successful leadership program in the country: The White House Fellowship. It brings a select group of young men and women to Washington to work in government, where they develop leadership skills they can apply to their careers in the private and public sectors. The program has proven to be an incubator for effective leadership, with former participants moving on to the highest levels of their organizations.

All of Michael’s work has led to a new understanding of the experiences, capabilities, and knowledge that shape men and women and transform them from early-career leaders to national figures of the highest caliber.

He brings his insights on leaders to bear in seminars, interactive workshops, and speeches designed to help businesses and nonprofits identify and cultivate high-potential individuals who are ready to step up to the next level and contribute in larger ways to the success of their organizations.

Michael is a featured columnist for the WashingtonPost.com on leadership, and his work has been featured and appeared in The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Houston Chronicle, USA Today, The Global Entrepreneur, among hundreds of other publications.

In 2006, the International Sociological Association recognized Michael as the top sociologist in the world under the age of 35.

Michael has been a consultant to the George H. Gallup International Institute, where he directed several national surveys on a range of related topics.

The paths to leadership are complex and can include early personal and career experiences, character-building, people skills, physical stamina, motivation, strategic thinking and much much more. Now, Michael Lindsay offers a clear understanding of these difficult-to-navigate factors and how they can develop and enhance the leaders of tomorrow.

He speaks with intelligence and clear insight on how aspiring leaders can maximize their own development opportunities and how companies can cultivate strong leadership from within.

Credentials

• Founding Director, Rice University’s Program for the Study of Leadership
• Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rice University
• Rice Scholar, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
• Author, Faith in the Halls of Power (a Publishers Weekly “Best Book of 2007”)
• Outstanding Teacher Award, Princeton University
• Ph. D., sociology, Princeton University
• Postgraduate Diploma, Oxford University
• BA, summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Baylor University