The new book by Amanda Goodall presents a powerful argument for why expertise really matters, and how leaders who deeply understand their industry and organization make all the difference for its success and the happiness of people who work there.
SABEW is the world’s largest and oldest organization of business and financial journalists established in 1964.
“Even in our first year with this new category, the judges were impressed by the quality and vibrancy of books about management and leadership. The winner, Amanda Goodall’s Credible, is a deeply-researched and passionately-argued case for selecting corporate leaders who are experts in their chosen fields rather than hubristic MBAs who think they can run any organization.”
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.
I also write for media outlets (e.g. the FT) and our research is regularly featured in the global media. A major focus right now is the release of a book titled “Credible” which covers all the expert leadership research and is targeted towards a general business audience.
I have given over 100 talks and keynote lectures in many different counties. I work with a number of scholars although my main co-author is Agnes Bäker at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Includes pieces I have written for the media (e.g. the FT) or practitioner outlets (e.g. HBR digital)
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Includes all the articles I have written for academic journals in management or health care
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To explain the effects of leaders on productivity, I use, where possible, so-called longitudinal data. That is data that runs over many years. The reason is that we are trying to discover what causes what
Amanda Goodall
