About the Authors

Allan Cohen


At Babson College in Wellesley MA since 1982, Cohen is Distinguished Professor in Global Leadership, now in residence at the San Francisco campus. He has served two years as the interim dean of the graduate school, and previously completed seven years as vice president of academic affairs and dean of faculty. His career has been devoted to increasing the leadership and management skills of practicing and aspiring managers, and building innovative academic organizations. A consultant on organizational change and leadership for companies as large as GE, IBM and Lafarge, and as entrepreneurial as Access Technology and Menon and Menon Diesel Engines, he helped found the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, and has also lived/worked in the Philippines, England and Holland, and consulted in China, Brazil, Venezuela, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Singapore, and Dubai. At the University of New Hampshire, he was the J.R. Carter Professor of Management and helped build the Whittemore School of Business and Economics. Throughout his career he has directed and taught in executive development programs for thousands of managers.

Dr. Cohen is coauthor of numerous books widely used by managers: best seller Managing for Excellence, the award-winning Alternative Work Arrangements; Power Up: Transforming Organizations through Shared Leadership; Influence without Authority; Influencing Up; and he edited The Portable MBA in Management. His latest is Entrepreneurship in Every Generation: How Successful Family Businesses Develop Their Next Leaders .

Areas of expertise include leadership and influence, changes in organizations, educational methods, management and organizational behavior, cross-functional teams, family business, management development for international work, negotiations, corporate entrepreneurship and strategic change. He has served on the Boards of several non-profits in social services and education.

Cohen holds an AB cum laude from Amherst College, MBA with honors and DBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business.

David Bradford
David L. Bradford


David Bradford is the Eugene O’Kelly II Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Leadership. He received his PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan and taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before coming to Stanford in 1969.

His research interests have led to six books, numerous articles, three training programs and a MOOC on leadership, team performance, and the influence process. He also has consulted and conducted executive programs to a variety of organizations in the for-profit and not-for-profit sector, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Cisco Systems, Levi Strauss & Co., Roche Pharmaceutical, Raychem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In addition, Dr. Bradford has been involved with educational innovation at the college level. He was the founder of The Organizational Behavior Teaching Society and the first editor of their journal. He received the Exemplar of Excellence in Education award from The University of Phoenix. Dr. Bradford is on the editorial board of The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, The Journal of Management Education, and The Academy of Management Learning and Education.