Lynn A. Isabella
Frank M. Sands Sr. (M.B.A. ’63) Associate Professor Emerita of Business Administration
Academic Area
Areas of Expertise
Education: B.S., Tufts University; Ed.M., Harvard University; MBA, DBA, Boston University
Frank M. Sands Sr. (M.B.A. ’63) Associate Professor Emerita of Business Administration Lynn Isabella taught courses in organizational behavior, leadership and change, and team interaction at the University of Virginia Darden School's MBA, Global Executive MBA, Executive MBA and Executive Education programs. She is the co-author of three books, Alliance Competence, Leader and Teams: The Winning Partnership and The Portable MBA, 5th edition. Isabella has published numerous articles in the areas of leadership and change, career management, strategic alliances and partnerships. She has also researched and authored many original case studies focused on U.S./international companies and problems that present themselves in these situations.
As a management consultant, she has extensive international experience with companies worldwide, helping them develop their global leadership talent and organizational effectiveness. She regularly works with companies in central and Eastern Europe through IEDC-Bled School of Management in Slovenia and has extensive experience in Latin and South America, China, Africa and Western Europe.
As a certified executive coach, Professor Isabella helps managers and executives achieve their highest leadership potential in order to do the best work of their careers and inspire others to do the same.
As a researcher, she focuses on questions of leading change as a middle manager, developing one's collaborative leadership abilities, understanding the mindsets that shape individual careers and propel organizational change. Before joining the Darden faculty in 1990, she was on the faculty of the Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University and taught at Harvard Business School.
Lynn A. Isabella's Ideas to Action Posts
Selected Publications
A. Gerstrom and Lynn A. Isabella. "Understanding Bankruptcy: How Organizational Members Narrate Their Bank Going Bankrupt," forthcoming, Illness, Crisis and Loss.
L.A. Isabella. "Leading Change from the Middle," in Eades, Isabella, Laseter, Rodriguez, Simko, and Skurnik, The Portable MBA, 5th edition, New York: Wiley, May 2010.
L.A. Isabella. "Managing People," in Eades, Isabella, Laseter, Rodriguez, Simko, and Skurnik, The Portable MBA, 5th edition, New York: Wiley, May 2010.
L.A. Isabella. "Managing Teams," in Eades, Isabella, Laseter, Rodriguez, Simko, and Skurnik, The Portable MBA, 5th edition, New York: Wiley, May 2010.
A. E. Mills, D. T. Chen, M. V. Rorty, and L. A. Isabella. "Viewing Trading Zones Developed to Advance Health as Complex Adaptive Systems," in Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise: Creating New Kinds of Collaboration (Inside Technology), Michael E. Gorman, The MIT Press, November 2010.
Kaveh Naficy and Lynn. Isabella. "How Executive Coaching Can Fuel Professional-and Personal-Growth," OD Practitioner, Vol. 40, No. 1, January 2008.
Selected Books
Eades, Kenneth M., Lynn A. Isabella, Timothy M. Laseter, Peter L. Rodriguez, Paul J. Simko, and Ian Skurnik. The Portable MBA, 5 th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
Case Studies
Advancing knowledge through research that shapes business, Darden professors are recognized thought leaders in their fields. They are not only master case method teachers, they also author many of the cases used in Darden classrooms and around the world.
Lynn A. Isabella's cases are available in the Darden Business Publishing website.