Bennis, Warren G.: Generous Company 11 Thomas G. Cummings Contents Introduction ...................................................................................... 184 Influences and Motivations: From Scholar to Administrator and Back ........................ 184 On Becoming a Scholar ...................................................................... 185 On Becoming a University Leader .......................................................... 187 On Returning to Scholarship ................................................................ 189 Key Contributions: Foundations for Developing Groups, Organizations, and Leaders ....... 190 Group Dynamics ............................................................................. 190 Planned Change and Organization Development ........................................... 191 Democracy ................................................................................... 192 Leadership .................................................................................... 193 New Insights: Rethinking Organization Development and Change ........................... 194 Legacies and Unfinished Business: Actionable Knowledge for a Better World ............... 196 References ....................................................................................... 197 Abstract Warren G. Bennis was an intellectual pioneer in group dynamics, planned change and organization development, and leadership. He was both a scholar and uni- versity administrator with diverse interests in how the applied social sciences can serve the betterment of people, organizations, and society. Warren’ s research and writing laid the foundation for how we think about team development and the role of democratic forms of organizing in adapting to turbulent environments. His work on planned change and organization development helped to define these applied fields and point the way for their growth and progress. Warren’ s research on leadership transformed how we define leaders versus managers and how we understand what leaders do to develop people and organizations. It showed that the core of leadership is creating trustworthy relationships with self and others. T. G. Cummings (*) USC Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: tcummings@marshall.usc.edu © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. B. Szabla (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38324-4_2 183