Thought Leaders and Researchers: Steve Farber’s Leadership Influencers

On his interview on yesterday’s episode of Smashing the Plateau, Steve Farber discussed his concept of “Extreme Leadership”—those leaders who make a genuine difference within their organization, and beyond it. Here, he provides a list of the leaders and thinkers who have influenced him and his work:

1. Tom Peters (www.tompeters.com; @tom_peters)

Steve, who was once the VP of Tom Peters Company, describes Peters as the “greatest management thought leader of our day,” adding that “Peters and his audacious approach to things—his willingness to change, his willingness to really shake things up—really had a big influence on me.”

2. Jim Kouzes (www.leadershipchallenge.com; @jim_kouzes)

“Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner are co-authors of a book called The Leadership Challenge, which I highly recommend. Jim was the president of [Tom Peters Company], and I was the vice president, and his work deeply influences my own. His work with The Leadership Challenge, and my helping people to apply his research, really deeply informed my work, and I consider myself to be one of his evangelists, as it were.”

3. Terry Pearce (www.terrypearce.com)

“Author of Leading Out Lead. A significant mentor in my formative years. His work on leadership authenticity is foundational to my perspective and practice of the subject.”

4. Dr. Alan Daly (http://www-tep.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/daly.html)

“Chair of the Education Studies department at UC San Diego. Alan is a leading edge researcher in Social Network Theory, and we are collaborating on a number of projects.

“He’s doing incredible work in social network mapping. He’s really at the forefront; he’s looking at the actual dynamics in organizational cultures. So on the one hand you see the org chart—the org chart doesn’t really tell you what’s going on in the organizations. It’s the networks of the various relationships in the organization, and he has a methodology for taking a picture—for actually looking at the maps within an organization. And it’s gotten me to think about the implications for changing a culture. His work is really quite phenomenal.”

5. Neville Billimoria (soulfoodfriday.wordpress.com)

“A philosopher, social connector, scholar, and marketing pro, Neville is my essential collaborator and conduit to San Diego and beyond.”