Despite this fact, judicial administration research has ignored systematic study of successful trial court leaders and leadership teams and organizational arrangements that breed effective leaders. As a result we fail to study, much less understand, the most basic aspects of effective judicial administration and successful judicial reform. Four concepts -- organizational performance, leadership effectiveness, qualitative and quantitative measures and application -- provide the underpinning of a selective review of the relevant management and judicial administration literature. To build an empirically based, reliable understanding of judicial leadership excellence, we must begin from study of State trial court leaders and leadership teams who have been successful in one of two ways: either (1) consistently maintaining acceptable case processing times, thus preventing excessive delay, or (2) significantly reducing delay. Following this initial step, we would have a better understanding of the relationship between leadership and organizational performance, the characteristics of effective leaders and leadership teams and robust effectiveness criteria beyond case disposition times. (Publisher abstract)