Director

Lily Blocker, PhD

(formerly Lily Cushenbery, PhD)

Dr. Lily Blocker is a tenured Associate Professor of Management at Stony Brook University and the director of the Leadership & Creativity Research Lab. She also serves as the Co-Director of the MBA Program in the College of Business.

Her research in leadership, innovation, and conflict applies science-based approaches to practical organizational problems. Her work focuses on 1) the process by which leaders overcome failures and 2) the dynamics of innovative teams. Her primary research examines the consequences of leader mistakes and mistake recovery on leader-follower relationships. Her innovation research focuses on team member influence and climate. Dr. Blocker’s research has been published in a variety of top peer reviewed research journals, including Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, The Leadership Quarterly, Advances in Developing Human Resources, Human Resource Management Review, and The Journal of Creative Behavior. Her research has also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Fast Company, Business Insider, Inc, and Pacific Standard Magazine.

Dr. Blocker is an award-winning teacher in the Stony Brook University MBA program and teaches the core course Leadership, Teams, and Communications. She has taught hundreds of professionals in corporate, non-profit, and university environments. She has also taught internationally in Seoul, South Korea to managers and executives.

In addition to her academic work, Dr. Blocker leads workshops, consulting engagements, and has leadership positions on non-profit boards. Her consulting clients include the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Del Monte Foods, Brookhaven National Labs, PNC Bank, Gold Coast Bank, Stony Brook Medicine. Dr. Blocker was previously Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, part of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Dr. Blocker was also elected President of METRO, the New York Metropolitan Association of Applied Psychology.

Prior to joining Stony Brook, Dr. Blocker was a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Terrorism. In this role, she was leading a research team examining the process of terrorist deradicalization for a grant from the Office of Naval Research and working with domestic and international government defense agencies. Dr. Blocker received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Penn State University and a B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Fresno.

 

TEACHING

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award winner, 2019 and 2021

Stony Brook MBA courses:

  • MBA Core Course: Leadership, Teams, and Communications (2013-present) 
  • Organizational Behavior (2016-present)

Stony Brook Masters in Technology Management program in Seoul, South Korea:

  • Organizational Behavior (2014-present)
  • Technology & Entrepreneurship (2016-present)
  • Leadership, Teams, and Communications (2017-present)
  • Industry Project Capstone Course (2014)

Stony Brook Corporate Education programs:

  • Women in STEM Leadership program (2018-present)
  • Leadership (2014-2017)
  • Conflict Management (2014)

Global Summer Institute Certificate Program: Leadership Skills (2018-present)

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

Hetrick, A. L., Blocker, L. D., Fairchild, J., Hunter, S. T. (2020). To Apologize or Justify: Leader Responses to Task and Relational Mistakes. Basic and Applied Social Psychology.https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2020.1828083

Allen, J. A., Taylor, J., Murray, R. M., Kilcullen, M., Cushenbery, L, Gevers, J., Larson, L., Ioku, T., Maupin, C., Perry, S., Park, S., Rosen, M., Fry, T., McLeod, P., Harris, A., Fosler, K. (2020). Mitigating Violence Against First Responder Teams: Results and Ideas From the Hackmanathon. Small Group Research, 51(3), 375-401.

London, M., Bear, J., Cushenbery, L., & Sherman, G. i2018). Leader Support for Gender Equity: Understanding Prosocial Goal Orientation, Leadership Motivation, and Power Sharing. Human Resource Management Review. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2018.08.002

Bear, J., Cushenbery, L., London, M., & Sherman, G. (2017). Performance Feedback and the Gender Gap in Leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(6), 721-740. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.02.003

Hunter, S. T., Cushenbery, L., & Jayne, B. (2017). Why dual leaders will drive innovation: A conservation of resources solution to the paradox of exploration and exploitation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38, 1183-1195. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2195

Humphrey, S. E., Aime, F., Cushenbery, L., Fairchild, J., & Hill, A. (2017). Team conflict dynamics: Implications of a dyadic view of conflict for team performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 142, 58-70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2017.08.002

Gutworth, M., Cushenbery, L., & Hunter, S. (2016). Creativity for Deliberate Harm: Malevolent Creativity and Social Information Processing Theory. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 0, 1-18. DOI: 10.1002/jocb.155

Hunter, S. T., & Cushenbery, L. (2015). Is being a jerk necessary for originality? Examining the role of disagreeableness in the sharing and utilization of original ideas. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30, 621-639. DOI: 10.1007/s10869-014-9386-1

Selected media mentions: Pacific standard magazine, Fortune Magazine, Business Insider, Inc.com, Yahoo Finance, Daily Mail, Fastcompany.com, msn.com, bigthink.com, Ozy Magazine, The week magazine, Human Resource Executive Online, sciencedaily.com, RedOrbit.com, Business-standard.com, Psychcentral.com, Phys.org, Ninemsn.com,Firstpost.com, Darpanmagazine.com, Trebuchet-magazine.com, Psypost.com, Culturalite.com, Focusnews.com, Science_2.0.com, Lifesciencelog.com,Science newsline.com, The news report.com, Technology.org

Cushenbery, L., & Gabriel, A. (2014). Reappraising the Brain Drain: Collaboration as a Catalyst for Innovation in I-O Research. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 7(3),347-351.DOI: 10.1111/iops.12161

Gill, P., Horgan, J., Hunter, S. T., & Cushenbery, L. (2013). Malevolent creativity in terrorist organizations. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 47(2), 125-151. DOI: 10.1002/jocb.28

Hunter, S. T., Cushenbery, L., & Friedrich, T. M. (2012). Hiring an innovative workforce: A necessary yet uniquely challenging endeavor. Human Resource Management Review, 22(4), 303-322. DOI: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2012.01.001

Hunter, S. T., Cushenbery, L., Fairchild, J. L., & Boatman, J.(2012).Partnerships in leading for innovation: A dyadic model of collective leadership.Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 5(4), 424-428. DOI: 10.1111/j.1754-9434.2012.01474.x

Hunter, S. T., & Cushenbery, L. (2011). Leading for innovation: Direct and indirect influences. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 13(3), 248-263. DOI: 10.1177/1523422311424263

Hunter, S. T., Cushenbery, L., Thoroughgood, C. N., Johnson, J. E., & Ligon, G. S (2011). First and ten leadership: A historiometric investigation of the CIP leadership model. The Leadership Quarterly, 22,70-91. DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.12.008

Cushenbery, L., & Lovelace, J. (2011). Industrial-Organizational Psychology’s contribution to the fight against terrorism. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 49, 55-59. Link.

Cushenbery, L. (2011). Managing an undergraduate research lab. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 48, 118-121. Link.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Gill, P., Braddock, K., Zolghadriha, S., Rottweiler B., & Cushenbery, L. (2019). IS Propaganda as a Precedent? Learning, Emulation and Imitation Amongst Other Extremist Groups after IS. Islamic State’s Propaganda: Where it comes from, how it works, where it leads.

Hunter, S. T., Allen, J., Heinen, R., & Cushenbery, L.(2018). Proposing a Multiple Pathway Approach to leading innovation:  Single and dual leader approaches.  In R. Reiter-Palmon and J. Kaufman (Eds.). Individual creativity in the workplace(pp. 269-288). London: Academic Press.

Cushenbery, L.,Thomas, J., & Norova, S. (2017). Terrorism: Implications for Organizations. In Steven G. Rogelberg (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483386874.n545

Heinen, R., Leone, S. A., Fairchild, J. A., Cushenbery, L., Hunter, S. T. (2015). Tools for the Process: Technology to Support Creativity and Innovation. In D. Harrison (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Digital Media and Creative Technologies(pp. 374). Hershey, PA: IGI Global Books.

Hunter, S. T., Cushenbery, L.,Ginther, N., & Fairchild, J. A. (2013). Leadership, innovation, and technology: The evolution of the creative process. In S. Hemlin (Ed.) Creativity and Leadership in Science Technology and Innovation(pp. 81-110). New York: Routledge.

Jacobs, R. R., Cushenbery, L., & Grabarek, P. E. (2011). Assessments for selection and promotion of police officers. In J. Kitaeff, (Ed.) Handbook of Police Psychology(pp. 193-210). New York: Routledge.

Fairchild, J. A., Cassidy, S., Cushenbery, L., & Hunter, S. T. (2011). The impact of technology on process-models of creativity.In A. Mesquita (Ed.) Technology for Creativity and Innovation: Tools, Techniques, and Applications(pp. 26-51). Hershey, PA: IGI Global Books.

Hunter, S. T., Tate, B. W., Dzieweczynski, J., & Cushenbery, L. (2010). A multilevel consideration of leader errors. In B. Schyns and T. Hasboro (Eds.) When leadership goes wrong: Destructive leadership, mistakes and ethical failures(pp. 405-443). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

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