John Adair

John Eric Adair (18 May 1934 – 1 November 2025) was a British academic who was a leadership theorist and author of more than 40 books (translated into 18 languages) on business, military and other leadership.

Adair was born in Luton and educated at St Paul's School before undertaking his national service as a second lieutenant in the Scots Guards from 1953 to 1955. Unusually, he served as adjutant of a Bedouin regiment in the Arab Legion and was briefly in command of the garrison of Jerusalem in the front line. He also studied at Hull Nautical College (where he qualified as an Arctic trawler deckhand in 1955) and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959. He later obtained a doctorate from King's College London in 1966 and a BLitt degree from Jesus College, Oxford, in 1971. He became a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1966. After working as a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst from 1961 to 1967, he later worked for the Industrial Society before becoming professor of leadership studies at the University of Surrey in 1979, a post he held until 1984. He was a visiting professor at the University of Exeter from 1990 to 2000. He was a fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust, where he regularly spoke on leadership development programmes. From 2006, he was honorary professor of leadership at the China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong. In 2009, he was appointed chair of leadership studies at the United Nations System Staff College in Turin. He was president of Adair International.^{[citation needed]}

Adair died on 1 November 2025, at the age of 91.