2025 Award Recipient
Dr. John Antonakis
Professor of Organizational Behavior
Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne
John Antonakis is of Swiss, Greek, and South-African nationality. He is Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His research is focused on charisma, predictors of leadership, research methods, and applied statistics.
Professor Antonakis is former Editor in Chief of The Leadership Quarterly. He is a fellow of the Academy of Management, the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology as well as the Association for Psychological Science and an elected member of the Society for Organizational Behavior. He has received many best paper awards as well as other accolades: Highly Cited Scientist in Business and Economics by the Web of Science Group, in the world’s top 2% of scientists in Business and Management for career impact (for 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023) by PLOS Biology.
He has published in prestigious academic journals including general science journals such as Science, Human Nature Behavior, top field journals like Psychological Science, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Management, and Harvard Business Review, as well as methods oriented journals including Psychological Methods, Organizational Research Methods, and Behavior Research Methods among others. His edited book, The Nature of Leadership (with David V. Day) has been very influential. He has been awarded or directed research funds totaling over Sfr. 2.80 million (about $3.10 million).
John’s work has been covered by very prestigious media outlets like New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, NEWSWEEK, Daily Mail, BBC News, Forbes, The New Yorker, Business Insider, Fast Company and many hundreds of other news sources, including TV and Radio.
Each year NLS honors a scholar with the Eminent Leadership Scholar Award. This award recognizes a senior scholar whose work best reflects the mission of NLS to advance interdisciplinary dialogue and discussion regarding the study and practice of leadership.
Eligibility
- The nominee must have completed his or her PhD (or finished his or her training/education) at least 20 years ago.
- The nominee should have an outstanding body of work that has made a substantial and original contribution to the field of leadership studies
- The nominee should have contributed to the discipline in ways that complement his or her scholarship (e.g., editorial board service, service as an elected representative for the Academy or other professional organizations, mentoring of outstanding students in the field).
- Eminent Leadership Scholar Award committee members and previous winners of this award are not eligible.
Application Process
- Self-nominations are not accepted.
- A 1 page single spaced letter describing the nominee’s career evolution providing a strong case for his/her contribution to the leadership field. This can include some of the following points:
- Number of years since receiving the PhD (must be at least 20 years).
- Important and novel research questions in the area of leadership addressed.
- Integrated leadership-related career progression.
- Leadership-related publications in top-tier journals.
- Overall citations and other indices of research productivity.
- Publications with students.
- Service to the field
(e.g., editorial board memberships, conference leadership positions).
- Teaching accomplishments in the area of leadership.
- Work addressing the research-practice gap.
- The nominee’s curriculum vita.
- Materials must be emailed to: networkleadershipscholars@gmail.com
Committee Membership
The NLS board, in conjunction with the Chair, invites committee members with the intent of ensuring a representative committee (in terms of seniority, interdisciplinarity, multiple nationalities, and sex). The role of the Chair is to guide the Committee through its decision and work with the incoming NLS Awards Coordinator (Brett Neely, networkleadershipscholars@gmail.com) in organizing the process.
Tentative Deadlines and Timeline
- Materials due mid March of the award year
- Award winner will be notified by July of the award year
- Award will be conferred at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting of the award year.
Previous Award Winners
| 2006 | Bernard M. Bass & Edwin A. Fleishman |
| 2007 | Robert J. House |
| 2008 | James G. (Jerry) Hunt |
| 2009 | Robert G. Lord |
| 2010 | Francis J. Yammarino |
| 2011 | Gary Yukl |
| 2012 | Boas Shamir |
| 2013 | Bruce J. Avolio |
| 2014 | Alice H. Eagly |
| 2015 | Robert C. Liden |
| 2016 | Michael D. Mumford |
| 2017 | Edwin P. Hollander |
| 2018 | Joanne B. Ciulla |
| 2019 | Linda K. Treviño |
| 2020 | David A. Waldman |
| 2021 | Leanne Atwater |
| 2022 | William Gardner |
| 2023 | Terri Scandura & Mary Uhl-Bien |
| 2024 | David Day |
This award is selected by an award committee, which is independent of the NLS leadership team. Committee members are selected by the committee chair with support by the NLS liaison group. Committee members are selected with the intent of ensuring a representative committee in terms of seniority, interdisciplinarity, nationality, and sex. The role of the chair is to guide the committee through its decision and work with the NLS liaison in organizing the process. The committee independently reviews the nominations and votes the candidates in rank order. The committee then discusses the top ranked candidate(s) and arrives at a decision.