In The Science of Leadership: Nine Ways to Expand Your Impact (July 15, 2025; Berrett-Koehler Publishers), executive coaches Jeffrey Hull, Ph.D., and Margaret Moore, MBA, have synthesized the findings from more than 15,000 scientific studies and articles across 22 countries into nine easy-to-understand leadership capacities. This Q&A explores some of the multiple management and leadership issues addressed in the book and what sets it apart.
Jeffrey Hull, PhD, has focused on leadership for over 30 years, as an HR leader with multiple corporations, cofounder of a leadership development consultancy, nonprofit executive director, and coach to leaders across the globe. He brings years of translating science into leadership as a consultant, psychologist, and teacher at New York University and Harvard Medical School.
Margaret Moore, MBA, blends leadership, coaching, and science, including thirty years in C-suite roles, co-leading four successful start-ups in biotechnology and coaching, and two decades of professional coaching and coach training. For 25 years, she has been a prolific translator of science into coaching, training, and leadership practice.
Q. How is The Science of Leadership different from other leadership books?
Typically, leadership researchers focus on studying one leadership topic like authentic leadership, positive leadership, or humility in leadership. Or leadership experts develop their own frameworks around a singular topic, sometimes with a specific audience in mind, using research that best supports their concepts.
In The Science of Leadership, we reviewed hundreds of top studies and critiques published recently in the most respected journals (summarizing 15,000+ studies and papers) on a wide variety of leadership topics and models. Aiming to create the simplest framework to support leaders at all levels, we captured and synthesized a full breadth of leadership topics into nine capacities. These capacities serve as the fundamentals for leaders to master, just like the best musicians start with classical training.
Backed by stories from our real-life coaching experiences, we take the reader on a personal journey with us from examining the inner self to outer landscapes, such as a team, organization, or system. In the end, we want to help executives and aspiring leaders alike expand their impact on those they influence and lead.
Q. How has your extensive coaching experience shaped The Science of Leadership?
Leadership and coaching are two sides of the same coin, both focused on improving others' performance and growth. In our professional lives, we are accustomed to playing both roles. Where leadership is a more directive approach (setting the direction), coaching is a more facilitative approach (client sets the direction).
For more than two decades, we've gathered and translated the science that underpins coaching. Now, we're doing the same for leadership. Along the way, we've seen how the two rest on the same fundamentals.
With thousands of hours of coaching experience, we've become intimately familiar with the challenges leaders face today on the frontlines. By uniquely blending science translation and practical application with real-life case studies, we've assembled the science of leadership for everyday leaders to address the behaviors, attitudes, and perspectives that bring new capacities to life. As we say: research made real.
Q. What is a 'leadership shadow'? Why is this important to understand?
A leadership shadow is a leader's darker side, contrasting with the sunny side of upbeat confidence, optimism, and inspiration. The shadow side shows up as overdrive (e.g. hubris, overconfidence, arrogance, work addiction) or underdrive (withdrawal, avoidance). These shadow states are fuelled by discomfort of two general types - fear or anxiety (chaos) or anger or impatience (rigidity).
The first capacity we call "conscious leadership," upon which all of the capacities in the book rests, starts by focusing on self-objectivity. As the real-life stories we share demonstrate, the leader's journey towards expanding capacities for positive impact begins with an honest review of both strengths and shadows.
Once you are aware of the shadow side of your reactions to the world, you can engage in practices to outgrow and integrate shadows, transforming them into positive states. Through a mindful process we describe (self-awareness, self-regulation, self-transcendence or integration), leaders can turn their shadows into strength.
Q.Why might some leaders struggle to move from an "I" to a "We" mindset?
The "We" mindset becomes easier with psychological growth and maturity because you are not so caught up in your own head with your own stresses and strains and ego needs. You have more mental and emotional bandwidth for others, the organization, and beyond. You can't open your heart and mind to others if it's chock-full of self-concerns.
Under stress, it's harder to shift to "We" and feel compassion and connection to the "We." In burnout, our ability to be in a "We" mindset takes a big hit.
All this to say, the stronger, more resourced, and more peaceful you become, especially in turmoil, the easier it is to orient toward the "We." With inner resources of self-awareness, balance, self-compassion, a quiet ego, and a strong sense of collaborative support (both within and outside the organization), leaders can better weather the storms of disruption and feel less isolated and alone. Building the inner capacities that we describe (research, stories, practices) in the first five
chapters becomes a strong foundation for the shift to a "We" oriented mindset and actions.
Q. What is "psychological capital," and where does it come from?
Psychological capital comes from the field of positive psychology. It includes psychological resources that made it through the scientific gate - they are clearly defined, can be measured, and can be measurably improved through defined interventions.
We reorganized the researchers' top four resources (HERO - hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism) into a new framework with five overlapping resources based upon our frontline experience - agency (drives hope), competence (efficacy), positive emotions/experiences, optimism, and meaning. All of these five support resilience which we cover in agile leadership. Bouncing forward from adversity is an act of agility supported by psychological capital.
We focus on psychological capital and not "human capital" because we want to avoid the tendency of leaders to lump humans into economic categories of capital or resources. People have resources, they are not resources. We focus on leadership that attunes to the humanity in people and helps people develop psychological resources, elevating and expanding their potential.
Q. What has been the greatest shift you've seen in leadership in the last five years? What do you attribute to causing this shift?
Five years ago when the pandemic started, we completed an Institute of Coaching study on the future of leadership and coaching. The study identified some key leadership trends including a prioritizing of workforce well-being in order to get support for agile disruption and pivoting in strategy and operations. Leaders also shifted their values upward from self-enhancement and self-preservation to self-transcendence and benevolence.
Five years later, organizations vary widely on prioritizing well-being and benevolence as the fuel for peak performance, even though the workforce wants more balance, more purpose, and more participation in leadership processes. Some organizations have reverted back, some have brought some of the pandemic practices forward, some are forever transformed.
And while this focus on well-being is likely the biggest shift we've seen since the pandemic, it is also true that organizations–and leaders–have been immensely impacted by the emergence of virtual work, the rise of a multi-generational (five generations in one workplace) and multicultural (truly a networked globe) employment landscape. The fact is that being a leader is more complex than ever before. VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) is no longer a passing phase but the norm.
The new level of complexity leaders face means we need a diverse repertoire of science-based capacities which we can mix and match, adapting to meet each moment. Bringing this diversity to life in an easy-to-apply way–that is the goal of our book.
Q. What is one behavior or practice every leader, regardless of experience or role, should adopt immediately?
There is no one behavior or practice that a leader should choose above all else – to maximize the likelihood of positive results. It takes a combination of behaviors and practices to be effective in a particular time and place, a particular context. All behaviors/practices have their time and place, and their optimal dose ranges from a little to a lot.
That said, our book starts with conscious leadership for a reason: all the development towards influencing others in a positive and effective manner starts with knowing oneself, one's strengths, one's shadows, and then transforming one's shadows into a quiet ego. That leads us then to one practice that integrates all of them: pausing to reflect, select, and flex to the optimal mix of capacities for this moment.