John Hawkins

John Hawkins, Founder and President of Leadership Edge Incorporated, helps university students and organizational leaders across America wrestle with the issue of developing a leadership lifestyle. John believes that this is essential for effective, long-term leadership of today's chaotic organizations and corporations.

Providing seminars and presentations for corporations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Capitol Broadcasting, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the U.S. Department of Commerce, American Express and GlaxoSmithKline, John stays in touch with the type of leadership that is currently needed. John currently serves as a Business Ethics Consultant for the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. In this position, he has worked with managers and employees of media, accounting, real estate, food services and pharmaceutical companies in the areas of ethics and cultural change. Through his affiliation with the Kenan Institute, John has also collaborated in training design and delivery with the Center of Leadership and Ethics at the Fuqua School of Business and with Duke Corporate Education. He is a member of the Duke Corporate Education Global Learning Resource Network and through this association has served as an executive coach for Fuqua's Advanced Management Program.

In 2004 and 2005, John collaborated in the design and delivery of four leadership training programs for business managers, governmental leaders and emerging leaders in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. These training events were hosted by the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics and the United States Embassy.

John earned degrees from Wake Forest University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His professional development includes completion of the Master Class for Leadership Educators at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He has been published in numerous journals and publications including: Executive Excellence, Personal Excellence, The New York Times, Bottom Line Business, Student Leader Magazine, The Journal of the Service Industry Association and The Journal of Leadership and Management in Engineering.

John's book Leadership As A Lifestyle: The Path to Personal Integrity and Positive Influence was published in October 2001 by Executive Excellence Publishing. This book provides practical and insightful guidance for leaders in how to have principled interpersonal influence with those they lead. A Chinese edition of this book was published in 2003.

John has served as a founding member of the Duke University Interfraternity Council Board of Advisors. In that capacity, he designed and facilitated leadership development programs for the Duke fraternity system. In the Spring of 2000, John was awarded the William J. Maschke Award as a result of the impact of his leadership development programs.

More important than any of the above, John has been married to his wife Janet for 32 years and is the father of Laura, Gary and Will. It has been in their family that John has learned the most practical lessons on leadership.