Dr. Gustafson was a founding Advisory Council member of the Center for Values-Driven Leadership, helped to co-create the Ph.D./D.B.A. Program, and formally joined the Center as the Leadership Scholar-in-Residence in 2009. Prior to joining Benedictine, Gus was responsible for Strategic Leadership Research & Development and Organizational Transformation at U.S. Cellular, where he received many awards for his pioneering work in leadership development and organizational change. Gus also served for five years as Executive Minister & Chief Transformation Officer at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines, Iowa (the largest and fastest growing Lutheran church in the world).
Gus has over 30 years of successful organization development, sales, marketing, operations, leadership development, channel management and executive leadership experience in public, private and non-profit organizations. He consults and speaks globally on a variety of topics and has been an invited Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Keynote Speaker and/or Leadership Consultant on six continents. Gus currently serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Leadership Studies and the International Journal of Servant-Leadership, is Chair of the Business Leadership Division of the International Leadership Association, former Editor-in-Chief of the Organization Development Journal, and was the 2010, 2011 & 2012 recipient of the prestigious Global Strategic Leader Award given by the World HRD Congress.
Research interests: Servant leadership; leadership authenticity; legacy-driven leadership; culture transformation; high-performing teams; human flourishing.