A frequently cited idea, both in practice as well as in academia, is that people are an organization’s greatest asset (e.g., Bradley and McDonald, 2011). Beyond the humanistic and moral ideal that places the value of individuals above the institutes that are supposed to serve them, this idea reflects the hypothesis – subject to empirical testing – that investing in human beings is important in creating welfare (for organizations and individuals alike). For the past decades, social scientists have strived to lend credence to the importance of investing in human beings in the workplace, with mixed success. Specifically, in this special issue, we highlight two welldeveloped streams of research: HRM and Leadership. Whereas Leadership is typically focused on understanding the personal and interpersonal dynamics of how individuals influence each other towards collective goals (Northouse, 2015), HRM looks at the systems and processes in an organization that attempt to influence people in a systematic way, usually on a larger scale (Lievens, 2015). In essence, both Leadership and HRM are engaged in what we can broadly term people management, albeit from different angles.1 Despite clear overlap in goals, the fields of Leadership and HRM have developed largely separately, each taking important strides in developing the knowledge on how to effectively manage or influence people in an organizational context. At the same time, both are also not without limitations or critique, and we discuss some of their strengths and weaknesses here. On the one hand, a strength of the leadership literature is that across several reviews of the literature it has demonstrated clear links between leader behaviors and relevant outcomes, most notably follower motivation and performance (DeRue and Myers, 2014; Epitropaki, Kark, Mainemelis, and Lord, 2017). In other words, leadership matters in organizations.