Jeremy D. Meuser was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs. After completing a bachelors’ in computer engineering at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, Ann Arbor, he began a career in information technology (IT), which followed from 3 successful internships at Fortune 500 IT companies. He was the director of IT for the Orchard Lake Schools, taught high school and college level IT industry certification courses, and was a founding partner for an IT limited liability corporation in the State of Michigan. He was exposed to Organizational Behavior (OB) through a class at Wayne State University, and worked on course staff for the 7 subsequent semesters. This experience shifted his focus from machines in the organization to the people who comprise the organization. After completing a certificate in spirituality from Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, and a degree in philosophy and 3 years of the program of priestly formation at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, MI, he discerned to devote his life to the study of the impact of leadership on individuals in organizations. Jeremy was attracted to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) because of Dr. Robert C. Liden’s career investigating leader‐member exchange (LMX) and his more recent interest in servant leadership. Industry experience and reflection during study at Sacred Heart Major Seminary motivated a genuine concern for the well‐being of the individual in the workplace, and a belief that the leader can be a source of positive experiences that contribute to that well‐being. Jeremy was a proactive research contributor in the OB/HR PhD program at UIC, where he completed his PhD in 2016. Jeremy’s research program focuses on leadership and the impact of leadership upon the individuals who experience it. Servant leadership, differential leader treatment (leader‐member exchange and idiosyncratic deals), and employee identification are his primary areas of interest. His work on servant leadership has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, The Leadership Quarterly, and The Oxford Handbook of Leadership in Organizations. While at UIC, Jeremy has taught courses in leadership, leadership development, introduction to business, organizational behavior, organizational theory, and global business. Servant leadership is more than a research subject, but rather a lifestyle for Jeremy. He served the department at UIC through the formation and leadership of a subject pool – a process that required years of planning. The subject pool has been an asset to the department: over 18 studies have been run with over 1000 participants in only a year of operation alone. Further, Jeremy has presented to the department on statistical methods, journal article writing, has volunteered to lead doctoral seminars, and often contributes his experience as a senior student to the younger students. He has active collaborations with Bob Liden, Sandy Wayne, Don Kluemper, and several current students and graduates of the management PhD program at UIC – many of these involve servant leadership. Jeremy looks forward to a long and fruitful career researching and presenting on the topic of servant leadership.
Posted in: 2017