This highly readable and compelling book aids students and would-be leaders in a wide variety of fields to understand leadership and become effective leaders.

Leadership Intelligence builds on the authors’ national prize–winning Leadership Matters (2012) and their two earlier highly praised books, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency (1999–2023) and American Politics Film Festival (2025). Political scientists and leadership scholars Tom Cronin and Michael A. Genovese provide a guide for navigating the contradictions, ambiguities, and nuances of leadership. They clarify the realities and competing definitions of leadership. They examine what we learn about leadership intelligence from the classics, war, business, politics, and film. They also examine the problems of toxic and dysfunctional power wielding. Finally, they examine how leadership intelligence differs from IQ, Emotional Intelligence, and Artificial Intelligence yet combines these with creativity and an entrepreneurial mindset.

Leadership Intelligence is essential reading for students of leadership, especially undergraduate students and young people entering business, the military, and politics.

Thomas E. Cronin (Stanford University, PhD) was a longtime President of Whitman College and interim President of Colorado College. He is an award-winning political scientist, teacher, author, and leadership scholar. His recent books include Fireside Chats of a Retired College President (2025), Writing as a Performing Art (2022), and Imagining a Great Republic: Political Novels and the Idea of America (2018).

Michael A. Genovese (University of Southern California, PhD) is a longtime CNN commentator and President of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University, where he has taught for five decades. He has won multiple awards for his writing and teaching, including “The Career Distinguished Teaching Award” from the American Political Science Association. His recent books include The Modern Presidency: Six Debates That Define the Institution (2022) and Presidential Power and Nuclear Arms (2025).