Dr. Gill Hickman's career has involved both academic and administrative appointments. Her expertise is in management, with an underpinning of organization theory, organization behavior, and human resource management. As an inaugural faculty member of the Jepson School, Dr. Hickman participated in the early structuring and formation of the program, a role for which her background as dean in the School of Health at California State University, acting associate dean in the School of Community and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, and professor of public administration had prepared her.

In the classroom, she focuses on theories and models of leadership, leadership in organizations, leading change, and leadership in a diverse society.

She is engaged in research in several areas including invisible leadership (leadership of the common purpose), leadership during personal crisis, and leadership in socially active businesses. Her research in the business sector focuses on companies that are meeting the challenge of balancing change, profitability, and social action, and, therefore, she is able to help practitioners and scholars learn more about how “leadership” functions in this business context.

In the course of studying how individuals in leadership roles handle personal crisis, Dr. Hickman has interviewed business, government, and nonprofit leaders about crises ranging from work-family conflicts to personal illness and the death of a loved one. She and a colleague are currently conducting survey research on this topic for publication.

She has worked on projects for regional governments in South Africa at the University of the Western Cape and taught at the prestigious Salzburg Seminar in Austria. As a consultant in the public and private sector, Dr. Hickman is sought after for her work in organizational leadership and change as well as invisible leadership and is frequently invited to present these topics to corporate and conference audiences internationally.

She is a former board member of the International Leadership Association and member of several other professional, scholarly, and community organizations. Dr. Hickman is the recipient of several awards, including the University of Richmond Distinguished Educator Award.