Michael Thompson
Michael Thompson is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and formally
an adjunct professor at Kellogg School of Management. He works with future executives
in the MBA Program. His expertise is executive and business coaching, and he focuses
on teaching coaching and leadership skills, including his specialty—emotional intelligence
skill sets in the workplace.
Thompson has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. His work includes transformational
leadership training and skills building. He is currently teaching the leadership
course in the organizational behavioral program at Northwestern University; a guest
lecturer at the De Paul University School of New Learning, and he just joined the
adjunct faculty at Argosy University, teaching organizational behavior in the Masters
and Ph.D. programs.
Thompson is a noted speaker, having appeared on several television and radio programs.
His theme of "shift happens" is designed to help U.S. businesses compete in the
global economy by using new skills and new ways of thinking about international
business. He also is a noted author of articles about emotional intelligence and
its use in the workplace. His work has been published in such diverse journals as
the Legal Management Association journal; American Hospital Association human resources
journal; German/American Chamber of Commerce Journal; and Illinois CPA financial
management journal.
His clients include companies such as Navigant Consulting, RTC Inc., Mitsubishi
USA, McDonald's Corp., Grosvenor Capital Management, the Million Dollar Round Table
Association and First Nonprofit Insurance Co. Thompson volunteers as a career coach
at the Career Transition Center associated with Old St. Pat's on the west side of
Chicago, where he uses a variety of programs to help unemployed men and women make
transformational decisions about their lives and careers. Thompson's philosophy
about leadership and transformation can be summed up in a quote from Rollo May:
"Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response and in that
pause … choose!"