William Gentry
ABOUT ME

William A. (Bill) Gentry, Ph.D. is a leadership researcher, with a specialty of researching and helping new leaders. Currently, he is the Director of Career and Professional Development at High Point University where he is responsible for partnering with employers to create internship opportunities for current High Point University students, and employment opportunities or grad school placement upon their graduation. As a researcher and practitioner, Dr. Gentry examines what leaders, notably first-time managers, can do to be successful and avoid derailment, and how organizations can build a healthy leadership pipeline by focusing on first-time, frontline and entry-level managers and supervisors. As a keynote speaker for conferences and events, he informs and inspires leaders, particularly entry- and first-level supervisors and managers who are leading for the first time to be their best. During his career, Dr. Gentry has amassed more than 70 academic presentations and has published more than 40 academic articles in the areas of first-time managers and new leaders, leader character and integrity, mentoring, derailment, organizational politics and political skill, communication, and empathy. In addition, he and his research has been featured in more than 50 Internet and news outlets including Forbes.com, the Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Harvard Business Review, Chief Learning Officer, ChiefExecutive.net, Toastmasters, and TrainingIndustry.com. He wrote the cover article to the July 2017 edition of TD Magazine focusing on first-time managers and new leaders (From Me to We). Dr. Gentry has also used his passion for research and developing first-time managers to write the highly acclaimed book Be the Boss Everyone Wants to Work For: A Guide for New Leaders (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). Before coming to High Point University, Bill worked for more than a decade at the Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked global provider of executive education and leadership development as a researcher, trainer, and manager. Bill graduated summa cum laude from Emory University, and earned his M.S and Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from the University of Georgia. He, his wife Courtney, and young daughter live in High Point, North Carolina.