On October 11, 2007, during the final stages of the production of the fourth edition of the Handbook of Leadership, Bernard M. Bass passed away. Bernie, who was 82 years old, was distinguished professor emeritus in the School of Management at Binghamton University (State University of New York) and a member of the academy of Senior Professionals at Eckerd College in Florida. He was also the founding director of the Center for Leadership Studies at Binghamton and founding editor of The Leadership Quarterly journal. In the seven decades after 1946, he published over 400 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports; plus 21 books and another ten books that he edited.
He was a consultant involved in executive development for many of the Fortune 500 companies and delivered lectures and workshops in over 40 countries. He also lectured and conducted workshops pro bono for wide variety of not-for-profit organizations, including religious organizations, hospitals, government agencies, and universities. His work has been cited thousands of times and he received millions of dollars in research grants. Translations of his work have appeared in French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Japanese.
In addition to authoring the Handbook of Leadership, Bernie focused for 25 years on research and applications to management development of transformational leadership. Bernie was honored with many awards for lifetime achievement by several professional organizations, including the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Eminent Leadership Scholar Award from the Leadership Network of the Academy of Management. A Festschrift in his honor was held in 2001.
He is survived by his wife, Ruth, who was instrumental in the completion of the Handbook of Leadership; his daughter Audie; his daughter Laurie and her husband, Steve; his son Robert and Robert’s wife Maryanne and their three daughters, Rebecca, Megan, and Lauren; his son Jonathan and Jonathan’s wife Patricia, with their three sons Joshua, Jeremy, and Jonathan Jr., and Jonathan Jr’s. wife Christie and their two children.
“Bernie was first and foremost a great scholar, scientist, and researcher—the greatest leadership scholar of the last 50 years—but he was also a generous, kind, and humorous human being. The field has lost a great scholar; I have lost a friend, colleague, and mentor.”
Francis J. Yammarino, Ph.D.
SUNY Distinguished Professor of Management
Director, Center for Leadership Studies
School of Management
State University of New York at Binghamton
“Bernie was a giant in advancing the field of leadership for over seven decades. He was also a close friend to many colleagues around the globe, a mentor of the highest caliber, and an extraordinary thinker. The field of leadership would not be as advanced as it is today without his enormous contributions to theory, research, and of course the Handbook of Leadership.”
Bruce Avolio, Ph.D.
Clifton Chair in Leadership
Director, Gallup Leadership Institute
Department of Management
College of Business
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
“For me, leadership is social influence, and therefore Bernie Bass was my leader. Without knowing it, he played a major role in my becoming a leadership scholar 20 years ago, the most significant and fruitful move in my professional life. In the 1980s, the field of leadership studies was half dead and badly needed invigoration. We were lucky that a scholar of Bernie’s caliber was around to provide the needed invigoration. He is perhaps the person most responsible for the thriving of the field in the last 25 years. He was truly a luminary.”
Boas Shamir, Ph.D.
Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences
The Hebrew University
Mount Scopus
Jerusalem, Israel
“Bernie was a fabulous mentor. The opportunity to work with him shaped my career in many positive ways. I continue 25 years later to pursue leadership research. This interest started with Bernie’s passion for transformational leadership.”
Leanne Atwater, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Management
School of Global Management and Leadership
Arizona State University
“I harbor most pleasant and appreciative memories of Bernie. His intellectual depth, the broadness of his interest in organizational issues, the strict scientific approach to the study and analysis of these problems have always struck me. Also, his organizational and editorial energy and care were conspicuous.”
Pieter J.D. Drenth, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor, Work and Organizational Psychology
Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
“Long before I met Bernie Bass, I was very aware of the fact that he had an enormous impact on my discipline of industrial/organizational psychology and on the particular area of leadership. His Handbook was really the “bible” for leadership scholars. It was the source for all things leadership, and it has always had a very special place on my bookshelf.”
Ronald Riggio, Ph.D.
Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology
Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute
Claremont McKenna College
“I currently teach a history of management thought class and we have people we study whom we call ‘giants.’ Bernie was certainly one of these and has served as a giant role model for my students and for me. His work on transformational leadership has transformed the field, and, I feel confident, has brought many young scholars into it. His work on the various Handbook revisions is the gold standard of the field ₊ I have also been impressed with the many other innovative contributions he made to the leadership, management, and psychology fields. He was always ahead of the curve. Along with these accomplishments, he has mentored a number of doctoral students and young professors who have gone on to make major contributions in their own right.”
Jerry Hunt, Ph.D.
Horn Professor of Management
Founding Director, Institute for Leadership Research
Texas Tech University
“To me, Bernie represents the model of a true scholar: interested in the content, thorough, clear. I’ve seen people attack relentlessly if their work is at all questioned—not Bernie. True scholar that he was, he was always more interested in furthering the development of the field than ‘defending his personal glory,’ if I can put it that way. He really has made a tremendous impact on our field.”
Deanne N. Den Hartog, Ph.D.
Professor of Organizational Behavior
University of Amsterdam Business School
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
“He opened a new and truly scientific way to look at what I was doing that has served me very well in my 40–year career in my field. To my way of thinking, that is the role of true scientist, scholar, and leader.”
Fred Dansereau, Ph.D.
Professor of Organization and Human Resources and
Associate Dean for Research
School of Management
State University of New York at Buffalo
“Of course the pinnacle of his career was the development of Transformational Leadership, including the articulation of the conceptual space and the development of measures to tap these concepts.”
Martin G. Evans, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto