Professor in the Practice of Leadership and Management

Tom Kolditz was appointed professor in the practice of leadership, effective July 1, 2012. He is working with fellow faculty to enhance leader development at the Yale School of Management. His experience as a leader development expert spans four decades in the public, private, and social sectors.

A retired brigadier general, Tom led the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, for 12 years, where he was responsible for teaching, research, and outreach activities in management, leader development science, psychology, and sociology. A highly experienced global leader, General Kolditz has more than 26 years in leader roles on four continents. His career has focused both on leading organizations and studying leadership and leadership policy across sectors. He served for two years as a leadership and human resources policy analyst in the Pentagon, and a year as a concept developer in the Center for Army Leadership, and was the founding director of the West Point Leadership Center. He was instrumental in the design and formation of the Thayer Leader Development Group, and is the managing member of Saxon Castle LLC, a leader development consultancy.

General Kolditz is an internationally recognized expert on crisis leadership and leadership in extreme contexts and in the development of programs to inculcate leadership and leader development in everything from project teams to large organizations. He has published extensively across a diverse array of academic and leadership trade journals, and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of several academic journals. He is a fellow in the American Psychological Association and is a member of the Academy of Management. In 2007, while still on active duty, Tom was appointed a visiting professor at the Yale School of Management, where he designed a crisis leadership course and taught it in the school's MBA curriculum for three years.

His most recent book, In Extremis Leadership: Leading as if Your Life Depended on It, was based on more than 100 interviews taken on the ground in Iraq during combat operations. He has been named as a leadership Thought Leader by the Leader to Leader Institute and as a Top Leader Development Professional by Leadership Excellence. In 2009, he was named to the Council of Senior Advisors, Future of Executive Development Forum.

Selected Books
In Extremis Leadership: Leading as if Your Life Depended on It, Jossey Bass, 2007

Selected Articles
"Leadership When It Matters Most: Lessons On Influence From In Extremis Contexts" (with A. Karrasch and A. Levine) in P. Sweeney and M. Matthews, eds., Leading in Dangerous Situations: A Handbook for the Military, Emergency Services, and First Responders, Naval Institute Press, 2011.

"Military Leadership" (with A. Donigian) in R. Couter, ed., Political and Civic Leadership: A Sage Reference Handbook, Sage Publications, 2010.

"Leadership in Dangerous Multinational Contexts" (with A. Vogelaar and C. van den Berg) in J. Soeters ed., Managing Military Environments, Lynn Rienner, 2009.

Consultancies
General Electric
AARP

Education
PhD University of Missouri, 1985
MSS U.S. Army War College, 2000
MMAS Command and General Staff College, 1993
MA University of Missouri 1981
BA Vanderbilt University, 1978