Michael Useem Faculty Profile

Michael Useem
The William and Jacalyn Egan Professor; Professor of Management
Director, Center for Leadership and Change Management

PhD, Harvard University, 1970; MA, Harvard University, 1966; BS, University of Michigan, 1964

Research Areas
Leadership, decision making, and governance; corporate change and restructuring

Recent Consulting
Numerous programs on leadership, decision making, governance, and change with companies and organizations in the private, public, and non-profit sectors in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, including Abbott, American Express, Cargill, CEO Academy, Cisco, Coca-Cola, DuPont, Estee Lauder, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lehman, Intel, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, New York Times, Northrop Grumman, Petrobras, Pew Charitable Trusts, Samsung, Sprint, 3M, Toyota, Tyco, Verizon, United Nations, U.S. Government, and World Economic Forum

Current Projects
Decision making in leadership; leadership development; Indian leadership and governance; global leadership; leading organizational change and restructuring; leadership during periods of challenge, stress, and uncertainty; lateral and upward leadership.

Academic Positions Held
Wharton: 1990-present (William and Jacalyn Egan Professor, 1997-present; Director, Center for Leadership and Change Management, 1996-present).

Career and Recent Professional Awards; Teaching Awards
Helen Kardon Moss Anvil Award for Teaching Excellence in the Graduate Division, 1992; Graduate Division Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1992-01, 2004; Miller-Sherrerd MBA Core Teaching Award, 1993-2000, 2003-2007; MBA for Executives Program Teaching Award, 2000, 2001, 2003-2007

Professional Leadership 2005-2009
Articles on leadership and decision making appearing in Administrative Science Quarterly, California Management Review, Chicago Tribune, Fast Company, Fortune, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Sloan Management Review, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal; editor, Wharton Leadership Digest

Representative Publications
The Go Point: When It’s Time to Decide. New York: Crown Business/Random House, October, 2006.

“How Well-Run Boards Make Decisions,” Harvard Business Review, November, 2006.

“Developing Leaders for Decision Making Under Duress: Wildland Firefighters in the South Canyon Fire and Its Aftermath,” with James Cook and Larry Sutton, Academy of Management Learning and Education, December, 2005, pp. 461-485.

The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All. New York: Random House, 1998.

Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers are Changing the Face of Corporate America. New York: Basic Books/HarperCollins, 1996.