is to narrow that gap with principles from science in leadership, management and human resource management. Each of the 21 short chapters includes research based lessons on a principle, reflection exercises to enhance understanding of the principles and writing exercises to enhance application of the principle. The reader is challenged to consider and articulate personal convictions on everything from ethics, to leadership styles to the legal aspects of human resource management. This narrowing the gap process is appropriate for anyone in organizational life from the budding manager to the seasoned executive. Quote from Chapter 1 The reason it is so important to maintain focus on the scientific aspect of management is that the commercial aspect creates so-called best practices that are grounded in nothing but a good writer s imagination with no evidence that ANY con-cepts in the book actually work. A recent book titled The Halo Effect does an effective job of criticizing commercial lea-dership books (e.g., books like Primal Leadership, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Good to Great, First Break All the Rules, Built to Last, etc...) as being far too simplified to actually do any good. When these books say the equivalent of here is my eight step plan that will make you a great leader they ignore the overwhelming complexity in leading people in organizations. Thus, when people actually use the information in the books, they get frustrated from a lack of results (that the book promised) and give up. The truth is there is no eight step plan to being suc-cessful in leading people. It takes discipline, intelligence, com-munication skills, vision skills and the ability to execute strategies and accomplish objectives through people who are selfish, greedy and often a pain in the neck to work with. The scientific principles in this book are not a fool proof plan to excellent leadership; they ARE principles and techniques grounded in years of legitimate research and published through the grueling peer review process in scientific journals. So what? Who cares where they are published? It is true that good ideas can be published anywhere (or not at all) but what you get from scientific journals is authors who adhere to the scientific process which is how knowledge is created. Thus, the principles in this workbook were created through a rigorous process and have generally withstood the test of time and criticism resulting in genuine best practices for leaders.

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