Expert Leadership Research

I am a Professor of Leadership at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass), at City, University of London.

My research looks at the relationship between leaders and managers, and organisational performance. It shows, across all kinds of work settings, that leaders who have a deep understanding of the core business – ‘expert leaders’ – create higher organisational performance. Being a good manager alone is not a sufficient condition. Generalist leaders are associated with lower overall performance.

Our findings suggest this happens because bosses and line managers who have ‘walked-the-walk’ create the right work environment that leads to higher employee job satisfaction, and lower intentions to quit. In short, expert bosses are more competent, and they know how to develop and support their teams.