David M. Sluss, Ph.D. scholarly works and educational pursuits focus on how high potential professionals become agile, adaptive, & analytical leaders through creating personalized and productive work relationships. He builds on his academic research on relational identity and identification (Sluss & Ashforth, 2007, Academy of Management Review). He focuses on ‘new leader’ development, leader transitions, and how leaders build resilience in the face of adversity. He takes a diagnostic and behavioral approach to facilitating leadership development.

His research on relational identity and identification has explored processes across different contexts: telemarketing newcomers, technical professionals, contingent workers, and nomadic professionals. He has published research in the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Organization Science. He is currently serving on the editorial boards for Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Business & Psychology, and Organizational Psychology Review (where he was previously a founding Associate Editor). He has also served as Special Issue Associate Editor for Academy of Management Review.

He works with organizations throughout the U.S., Latin America, and Europe. Fluent in Spanish, he has worked in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. A partial list includes: Abbott Laboratories (U.S. and Puerto Rico), Argos (Colombia), Baxter Pharmaceuticals (Belgium), Cisco Systems, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Google, IBM (U.S. & Ireland), McKesson, Rohlig (Germany), SCTE, Simpson Industries (Mexico), OSCE, A1 (Austria), and Verbund (Austria).

Prior to his doctoral studies, he was Vice President and Partner at PathWise (a boutique management training consultancy). He designed and facilitated "real-life" application workshops on topics such as leadership, performance coaching, problem solving/decision making, and project management for clients within the technology and pharmaceutical sectors.

Relevant Research

• Zhong, Y., Sluss, D. M., & Badura, K. L. (2024). Subordinate-to-supervisor relational identification: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001169

• Sluss, D. M., Cooper, D., Morrell, D. L., & Thompson, B. S. (2022). It’s not all just tit-for-tat: the impact of relational identification on subordinate’s attitudes and interpersonal citizenship behavior. Journal of Management & Organization, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2021.61