Tom Cronin, McHugh Professor of American Institutions and Leadership here at Colorado College, recently won the 2013 Outstanding Leadership Book Award for his recent book “Leadership Matters: Unleashing the Power of Paradox.”
Cronin co-wrote the book with Michael Genovese, Director of the Institute for Leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Cronin said that he feels “honored” to have received the award. “We’ve been informed that the book won the award, but I think it actually occurs on Oct. 31,” Cronin said. Genovese and Cronin will receive the award at the International Leadership Association Conference in Montreal, Quebec.
Cronin said the book “surveys definitions of leadership, realities of leadership, [and] paradoxes of leadership” in a variety of contexts, including “the notion of what the classics teach us about leadership, and what we learn from business, politics, and from psychology, and even from Hollywood about leadership.”
Cronin said inspiration for the book was drawn from a leadership seminar he has been teaching for a number of years, saying, “In fact, the book in a way evolved out of my teaching that course for many years.”
Genovese and Cronin have worked together previously, Cronin said. “He’s a good friend of mine, and he and I do a fair amount of writing. We were delighted [to receive the award]. He kind of predicted it would win some sort of award,” Cronin said. “Writing is hard and it’s nice when some group acknowledges your book.”
Along with receiving the award in Montreal later this month, Cronin said the pair will “actually be presenting some papers on a panel separate from this awards thing but at the same conference.”
Students who take classes later this year with Cronin may also get the opportunity to read the award-winning tome.
“I’ll probably use it in Block 7 [because] most of what I know about leadership is in there; so it’s fun to be able to assign it and then rather than lecturing about it, we can discuss it and pull it apart,” Cronin said.
Cronin is also appreciative of the help from students in the creation of the book, saying, “I have to give credit to the students that have been in my courses over the years for the leadership seminar because I learned a heck of a lot from students.”
He also appreciates the academic environment that helped foster the book, saying, “One of the great parts of Colorado College is that so many of our courses are discussion-based, where we discuss great books or important readings.”
Charles Simon
Staff Writer