The Science of Leadership: Nine Ways to Expand Your Impact
Jeffrey Hull and Margaret Moore
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (July 2025)
The art and science of developing high-impact leaders
Whatever its size and nature may be, every organization needs high-impact leaders at all levels and within all areas of the given enterprise.
The last time I checked, Amazon sells more than 60,000 titles in the general category of business leadership. What differentiates The Science of Leadership from many (if not most) of them?
Jeffrey Hull and Margaret Moore explain: “We’ve reviewed hundreds of scientific articles on leadership, particularly those published recently in the most respected journals. The articles we cite in the book were produced by at least several hundred researchers. All together, their articles cited and analyzed more than fifteen thousand scientific articles or related articles.
“Leadership research is a global endeavor; we summarized studies conducted by researchers collaborating across twenty-two countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North America, and Western Europe.” (See list on Page 2.)
For you and other readers, they have “organized, synthesized, and translated this scientific literature into nine leadership capacities. Our ability to simplify leadership science for everyday leaders is based on our decades of hands-on roles as leaders, leadership coaches and trainers, and translators of science into practice.”
They provide an abundance of information, insights, and counsel in The Science of Leadership. What specifically can this material help you and countless others to accomplish?
HOW TO
o See more clearly, including yourself and your circumstances
o Be your best self in all that you say and do
o Be more flexible and adaptable but always authentic
o Cultivate and nourish any/all relationships more effectively
o Remain positive and optimistic while leveraging whatever drives well-being
o Nourish compassion for yourself as well as for others
o Increase the impact of your leadership with effective communication, cooperation, and (especially) collaboration
o Lead with a commitment to serve others and their best interests
o Sustain transformation of your organization by everyone involved, especially you
o Develop a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective game plan that accommodates self-oriented capacities, other-oriented capacities, and system-oriented capacities (organization/team orientation)
Hull and Moore are among those who take “self-help” literally, and so should you. In The Science of Leadership, they generously share a wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and street smarts. The material is essentially worthless, however, unless and until YOU absorb and digest it with meticulous care, then apply it effectively so that it has maximum impact.
Long ago, I realized that all organizations need high-impact leadership at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise.
For your thoughtful consideration, here is my favorite passage on leadership in Lao-tse’s Tao Te Ching:
“Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know.
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.”
* * *
Here are two suggestions while you are reading The Science of Leadership: First, highlight key passages. Also, perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, the leadership self-assessment (see TABLE 1-1 on Page 9-10), and action steps (preferably with deadlines). Pay special attention to the summaries that conclude Chapters 1-9 and “The Discussion and Study Guide” that focuses on key points and suggests applications. (Pages 203-230) All by itself, the material in this “Guide” is worth far more than the cost of this book.
These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will expedite frequent reviews of key material later.