Lee G. Bolman

Updated at: May 21, 2007, 2:03 a.m.

Lee Bolman, Ph.D. is an author, scholar, consultant and lecturer who currently holds the Marion H. Bloch Missouri Chair in Leadership at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He has written many books on leadership and organizations with co-author Terrence Deal, Ph.D., including Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (1991, 1997, third edition expected 2003); Leading with Soul: An Uncommon Journey of Spirit (1995; second edition, 2001); Reframing the Path to School Leadership (2002); Escape from Cluelessness: A Guide for the Organizationally-Challenged (2000); Becoming a Teacher Leader (1994); and Modern Approaches to Understanding and Managing Organizations (1984). Bolman and Deal's books have been translated into 10 languages. Bolman consults and lectures worldwide to corporations, public agencies, universities and schools.

A native New Yorker, Bolman was born in Brooklyn to parents who were products of Peoria, Illinois. Geographic alternation between the East Coast and Midwest was a regular theme early in his life — he lived in eight towns and five different states before heading to New Haven, Connecticut to attend Yale University.

After earning a B.A. in History, Bolman spent a year at Yale Law School working for the Yale Law Journal and a venerable Boston law firm. However, law was not his passion, and he opted to teach. Having taken a course in organizational behavior as a senior in college, Bolman decided to earn his Ph.D., at his Alma mater, in a newly developed organizational behavior program. After earning his degree, Bolman taught at the business school at Carnegie-Mellon University for five years before relocating to Boston and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he taught for more than 20 years. It was at Harvard where he met his long-time writing partner, Terrence Deal.


Related Books

Modern Approaches to Understanding and Managing Organizations