The Science of Charismatic Leadership with George Banks
In this episode, join host Ben Tepper and guest George Banks as they explore the science behind charismatic leadership, emphasizing how effective leaders inspire and mobilize others through practice and evidence-based techniques. He also discusses how emerging tools like artificial intelligence and virtual reality are transforming the way leadership skills are taught and developed.
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Host, Ben Tepper:
"...if you were to identify one big thing that you would want students to come away from a class with you, what would that one big takeaway be?"
Guest, George Banks:
"I don't know if this is too superficial or too high, too abstract, but I mean, my general sense is like, I think everyone can be an effective leader. Leadership for me is something that that takes practice, right? It's like anything else you do in your life. If you want to be a better musician or an athlete, you've got to practice it. And I think people that are very good, whether it's at public speaking or running a meeting or communicating a vision to others, it's something that, you know. Yeah...sure, some people are maybe more naturally good at it, but like any other activity, we all get better with practice. And so particularly for students that are in earlier career stages...I do think the more that you kind of get yourself repetitions getting into leadership. Enacting leadership behaviors, the better you're going to be at being a leader, and so that's one of the things that we're seeing in the leadership literature is we're starting to study people who just because they don't have the job title of leader like boss doesn't mean they can't lead and have social influence in a positive way."
Dr. George Banks is a Professor in the Department of Management at UNC Charlotte. He currently serves as co-director of the Center for Leadership Science, co-director of the Charlotte AI Institute as well as Chair of the Board of Directors at the Center for Open Science. Dr. Banks also acts as Editor-in-Chief at The Leadership Quarterly. ‘Dr. Banks’ ‘
His research focuses on data science approaches to studying leader behavior, ethics and research methods and statistics. His work has been funded by the Army Research Institute, the National Science Foundation as well as private industry. Dr. Banks has been the lead PI or co-PI on approximately $2.6 million in external grants since 2019 and over 80 journal publications. In 2022, he was the winner of Charlotte Business Journal’s 40 under 40 Award. Dr. Banks has consulted with small and large organizations, such as the Missile Defense Agency, Patent and Trade Office as well as the Forest Service. He regularly volunteers to provide training in the Charlotte community, such as the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce’s Emerging Business Leaders.
