Self-leadership: The Definitive Guide to Personal Excellence

Dr. Christopher P. Neck is currently a Professor of Management at Arizona State University, where he held the title “University Master Teacher.” From 1994 to 2009, he was part of the Pamplin College of Business faculty at Virginia Tech. He received his Ph.D. in Management from Arizona State University and his M.B.A. from Louisiana State University. Neck is author and/or coauthor of thirty books including Self-Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Personal Excellence (1^st Edition, 2017, Sage Publishers; 2^nd Edition, 2019); Get a Kick Out of Life: Expect the Best of Your Body, Mind, and Soul at Any Age (2017, Clovercroft Publishing); Fit To Lead: The Proven 8-week Solution for Shaping Up Your Body, Your Mind, and Your Career (2004, St. Martin′s Press; 2012, Carpenter’s Sons Publishing); Mastering Self-Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence, 6^th edition (2013, Pearson); The Wisdom of Solomon at Work (2001, Berrett-Koehler); For Team Members Only: Making Your Workplace Team Productive and Hassle-Free (1997, Amacom Books); and Medicine for the Mind: Healing Words to Help You Soar, 4^th Edition (Wiley, 2012).  Neck is also the coauthor of the principles of management textbook, Management: A Balanced Approach to the 21^st Century (Wiley: 2013, Wiley: 2017-2^nd Edition, Sage: 2021-3^rd Edition); an introductory to entrepreneurship textbook, Entrepreneurship, (Sage, 2017; 2^nd edition, 2020; 3^rd edition, 2023); an introductory to organizational behavior textbook, Organizational Behavior (1^st Edition-Sage, 2017; 2^nd Edition-Sage, 2019; 3^rd Edition-Sage, 2023), and an Introduction to Business textbook (Introduction to Business, Sage, 2022).  In total, his textbooks have been adopted by 800 colleges/universities and used by over 120,000 students.

Dr. Neck’s research specialties include employee/executive fitness, self-leadership, leadership, group decision-making processes, and self-managing teams. He has over 150 publications in the form of books, chapters, and articles in various journals. Some of the outlets in which Neck’s work has appeared include The Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, The Journal of Organizational Behavior, The Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, The Journal of Managerial Psychology, Executive Excellence, Human Relations, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Journal of Leadership Studies, Educational Leadership, and The Commercial Law Journal.

Dr. Neck is the Deputy Editor of the journal, the Journal of Leadership and Management. Due to Neck’s expertise in management, he has been cited in numerous national publications including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Houston Chronicle, and the Chicago Tribune.

Dr. Neck was recently voted as a semi-finalist (out of 140 nominations) for the prestigious international 2020 Baylor University Cherry Award for Great Teaching.   He finished in the top six of all nominations.  Neck was also the recipient of the 2007 Business Week Favorite Professor Award”. He is featured on www.businessweek.com as one of the approximately twenty professors from across the world receiving this award. 

Dr. Jeffery D. Houghton completed his PhD in management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) and is currently a professor of management at West Virginia University. Dr. Houghton has taught college-level business courses at Virginia Tech, Abilene Christian University (TX), Lipscomb University (TN), The International University (Vienna, Austria), and the U.S. Justice Department Federal Bureau of Prisons. Prior to pursuing a full-time career in academics, he worked in the banking industry as a loan officer and branch manager.

A member of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, Dr. Houghton’s research specialties include human behavior, motivation, personality, leadership, and self-leadership. Dr. Houghton has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and books, and his work has been cited more than 9,000 times in academic journals. He currently teaches undergraduate, masters, and doctoral level courses in management, OB, and leadership. Dr. Houghton was named the 2013 Beta Gamma Sigma Professor of the Year for the John Chambers College of Business and Economics, awarded annually to one faculty member within the college as selected by a vote of the student members of Beta Gamma Sigma, and he received the 2008 Outstanding Teaching Award for the John Chambers College of Business and Economics, awarded annually to one faculty member for outstanding teaching.

Charles C. Manz, Ph.D. is a speaker, consultant, and bestselling author of over 200 articles and scholarly papers and more than 20 books including Mastering Self-Leadership, 6^th ed.; The New SuperLeadership; Share, Don’t Take the Lead; The Power of Failure; Fit to Lead; Business Without Bosses; The Leadership Wisdom of Jesus, 3^rd ed.; Foreword Magazine best book-of-the-year Gold Award winner Emotional Discipline; Stybel-Peabody National Book prize winning SuperLeadership, and the forthcoming Self-Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Personal Excellence. His work has been featured on radio and television and in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, U.S. News & World Report, Success, Psychology Today, Fast Company and several other national publications. He is the Nirenberg Chaired Professor of Leadership in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Formerly a Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School his clients have included 3M, Ford, Xerox, General Motors, P&G, American Express, the Mayo Clinic, Banc One, the U.S. and Canadian governments, and many others.