Faculty Research Spotlight: Dr. Jared Law-Penrose

Leaders and managers play a critical role in the overall engagement and performance of employees. However, in light of the massive changes in the workplace and society at large the relationship between leaders and their employees has become more complex. The research that Dr. Jared Law-Penrose conducts focuses on the ways in which leaders can help maintain a positive and engaged workforce. In a recently published article he and his coauthors explored the impact of leader’s daily affective states on aspects of employee engagement. This study found that a leader’s emotional state has a measurable impact on employee performance. In other studies, Dr. Law-Penrose has looked at the impact of small behavioral changes by leaders and the associated increase in employee engagement. Specifically, when leaders are trained to ask questions about their employees’ lives outside of work and engage in other supportive behaviors, there is evidence that employees perform at a higher level on the job.

While much of Dr.Law-Penrose’s research is conducted in the workplace, it has implications for the way he approaches the classroom as well. For example, if you show up to the beginning of one of his classes you will likely be greeted with the refrain “Great day to be alive! Great day to be here! Where else would you rather be?” followed with a few minute discussion with his students where he shares about his weekend and invites students to give an update on their lives outside of class. While not all of the students respond, it helps to create a welcoming environment where students feel connected and ready to engage with the course material. These brief interpersonal interactions are a direct result of his research on leader and employee interactions.

About Jared Law-Penrose

Dr. Jared Law-Penrose is an Assistant Professor of Management, Leadership, and Human Resource Management in the Madden School of Business at Le Moyne College. He joined the faculty at Le Moyne in the Fall of 2019. He holds a Ph.D. from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources and a bachelor’s degree in Communication from Messiah College. He is a former Boren Scholar to Nizhniy Novgorod Russia and prior to academia spent four years working as a strategic planner and congressional liaison for the Naval Supply Systems Command Headquarters and the Defense Logistics Agency. He and his partner, Melissa, have two children. On the weekends you can find him running some of the local trails around Syracuse or in the winter building a backyard luge track with his kids.

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Contact Dr. Law-Penrose
Management and Leadership at Le Moyne College
Madden School of Business