Center for Leadership Science to focus on building next generation of leaders

How do you leverage scientific evidence to train the next generation of leaders? Can research support the advancement of women and underrepresented groups in business and industry? Answers to these questions and more are the goals of UNC Charlotte’s Center for Leadership Science which launched in March.

Housed in the Belk College of Business, the center will use research, teaching and community engagement to serve as a hub of excellence – rooted in scientific rigor and focused on building the next generation of inclusive leaders.

“The Belk College of Business has a strong reputation for its strength in leadership science, leveraging our research to cultivate the next generation of leaders,” said Dean Jennifer Troyer. “The center will support expansion of this work using a science-based approach to understanding what makes strong leaders, creating tools to cultivate leaders of the future, and disseminating researchers’ work to students and the business community.”

The center will be co-directed by George Banks, chair and professor in the Department of Management, and Janaki Gooty, director of the MBA program and professor of management, with additional support from Scott Tonidandel, professor of management, and Nikki Strah, assistant professor of management, Belk College of Business; Steven Rogelberg, Chancellor’s Professor and professor of management, Belk College of Business, and professor of psychology, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences; and Jill Yavorsky, assistant professor of sociology, College of LIberal Arts & Sciences. Each of the faculty members hold appointments in the University’s organizational science program as well. The center will also be supported by Wenwen Dou, associate professor of computer science, College of Computing and Informatics.

As UNC Charlotte grows, long time collaborators Banks and Gooty are looking forward to how the Center for Leadership Science will change the scientific world’s accessibility and the leaders in it.

“What excites us most about the center is our ability to take cutting edge, leadership science and make it accessible to our students, stakeholders and the community,” said the duo. “Charlotte’s mission as a University is to be a leading research institution and to make education accessible. This center is designed to accomplish just that.”

For more information, please connect with co-directors George Banks and Janaki Gooty.