School: Penn State Great Valley, where he is a professor of management and organization, and director of the Master of Leadership Development program.
Achievement: Sosik, who has taught at Penn State Great Valley since 1995, recently authored his second book, Leading with Character: Stories of Valor and Virtue and the Principles They Teach. It's available for purchase at amazon.com.
Question: What was the driving force behind writing Leading with Character? Any particular inspiration?
Answer: We were starting a new master's program in leadership development at Penn State Great Valley, and it was very popular with the MBA students. The time was right, and so, working with my colleagues, we developed a curriculum.
The first class in that curriculum is "Leadership across the Lifespan," and talks a lot about character strengths, not focusing on what's wrong with you, but focusing on the strengths that people have, in terms of what's the absolute best in humanity.
When I looked into books for it, I couldn't find anything on transformational leadership, and decided that, after talking to colleagues at other schools, that I was going to need to write that book.
Q: What is transformational leadership?
A: It's about promoting positive changes in people, teams, and organizations. It says that a leader has to be active as a positive role model, has to inspire, to challenge people to think out of the box and be creative, and to do a lot of coaching and mentoring.
With all of this talk in the business world about authenticity, if you look at all the phoniness in Enron and so forth, there's been a call by business people to look at authentic forms of leadership, being true to yourself and true to others.
Q: Can you give an example of a leader you highlight in the book, and a principle he or she exhibits?A: I use Warren Buffett to talk about principles of being prudent. Warren Buffett is very successful in his investments, and he does that by being very careful and thorough. He also exhibits modesty and self-control; he lives in the same home he bought in Omaha, Neb., 50 years ago.
Q: Whom in your book would the public probably not expect to read about as a leader?A: Mr. Rogers [Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood]. The most important stage of character development is in those early years, and children can have leaders. If you look at Fred Rogers and the leadership he reflected for all of those children in their early years, he was definitely a leader. He was interested in making kids feel good about who they are and what they can achieve.
Q: I noticed that you have Joe Namath in there. Do you mention that he is the most overrated quarterback in NFL history? Because, you know, 173 career touchdowns, 220 interceptions . . . he just is.
A: These people, even though we highlight them as examples of character, they have their good points and bad points. Namath, in the '60s, did a great job of working through bigotry in the locker room to bring the Jets together in a more cohesive way. He had a real strong work ethic, too, which came from his Eastern European background.
There's an issue of courage with Namath, too, because his knees were in horrible shape even when he came to the Jets. Even though, as we know, he fought his demons with the alcohol and so forth.
Super Bowl III, that game was of mythic proportion, what it stood for with the AFL versus the NFL. The AFL was antiestablishment; when he was on the field, he wasn't just playing for the Jets. Plus with all of the social events going on in the '60s that were antiestablishment, all of that played into the hype.
- Will Hobson
