Author: Greg Dorchak

Administrator of the Management, Leadership, and Decision Sciences Area at the Harvard Kennedy School.

MLD-352: The Leadership System: Leaders, Followers, Contexts with Barbara Kellerman

Greg Dorchak

History attests that leadership has never been just about single individuals perched at the top of the greasy pole. It has always been more complex a process than the leader-centric leadership literature would seem to suggest,” says Barbara Kellerman, the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership. In her Fall 2020 course MLD-352: The Leadership System: Leaders, Followers, Contexts, Kellerman and her students explore that notion by examining the interconnected dynamics that followers and context play in the story and success (or failure) of a leader.  Through her many years of reading and writing on leadership Kellerman has developed a novel framework to help students analyze situations in which leaders (and followers) find themselves, and to understand what roles they can, should, and (perhaps) should not play. “This is not in any conventional sense a ‘how to’ course. Rather it is an intellectual journey into the heart of leadership,” explains Kellerman. Portrait photo of Barbara Kellerman

Drawing on a breadth of thought from Confucius and Machiavelli to James MacGregor Burns, and examples from Nazi Germany to modern leaders like Angela Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, this course covers concepts of the leadership “industry,” our ideas about authority, the dynamics of contextual change, and varieties of leadership, good and bad. Harvard students can view a video course preview with Kellerman.

Learn more about Barbara’s approach:

View a (~10min) video with Barbara describing her 2012 book The End of Leadership and summarizing her view of the Leadership System and the Leadership Industry.

Read her regular blog on current events and issues of leadership in the news, or explore her latest books Leaders who Lust (Cambridge Univ. Press)  Professionalizing Leadership (Oxford Univ. Press).

Listen to a Leadership Perspectives Webinar from the International Leadership Association about about how and why leadership and followership have changed over time, especially in the last forty years. She also raises questions about leadership as both a scholarly pursuit and a set of practical skills including: Does the industry do what it claims to do—grow leaders? Are leaders as all-important as we think they are? What about followers? Isn’t teaching good followership as important now as teaching good leadership?

MLD-352 will be offered at the Harvard Kennedy School in Fall of 2020.  Kellerman’s other course MLD-349M: Bad Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Contexts will be offered in Spring of 2021, respectively. For questions about these courses, or any other leadership courses in the MLD curriculum, email Greg Dorchak, MLD Area Administrator.

Building Coalitions to Change Policy and Empower People: The William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice

Greg Dorchak

Conceived in 2018, at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice advances the social justice and civil rights legacy of William Monroe Trotter. The Trotter collaborative, directed by Cornell William Brooks
fosters research on excellence in social justice and collaboration with local and national level organizations operating in the spheres of public interest and policy, as well as in the areas of community engagement and government. The collaborative conducts and employs applied research that supports efforts to promote advocacy, citizen activism, and impactful, non-partisan policy solutions to civil rights and social justice issues. Through this pedagogy, the Trotter Collaborative meaningfully addresses local and national civil rights challenges.William Monroe Trotter paintingLearn more about the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative by reading here, listening to, or watching, The Avant Guardian podcast, or following the Collaborative’s work in the news.

Judith E. Heumann delivers the 2019 Gustav Pollak Lecture

Greg Dorchak

Appearing Tuesday night in the JFK Jr. Forum at the Harvard Kennedy School, Disability rights activist Judith E. Heumann called for private and public institutions to include the perspectives of disabled individuals in discussions about diversity and equality.  Hosted by the MLD Area and the Institute of Politics, Heumann delivered the Gustav Pollak endowed lecture in moderated discussion with MLD Area Chair and HKS Senior Lecturer Hannah Riley Bowles. Harvard Kennedy School graduate Sara Minkara, who introduced Heumann at the event, highlighted the activist’s influence on policymakers around the world.

Heumann has a long career as both an activist and organizer, but also working within multiple presidential administrations and with the World Bank. She brought a unique historical perspective to the long fight to enact legislation promoting disability rights in the U.S. and worldwide, and spoke persuasively about the ongoing need to enforce the laws and spread awareness that true inclusion remains a critical, but still far off, goal.  View the complete event on the IOP Forum webpage.

Judith Heumann and Hannah Riley Bowles on stage @ JFK Jr. Forum
Judith Heumann and Hannah Riley Bowles on stage @ JFK Jr. Forum (Photo Credit: Martha Stewart)

Congratulations to Jennifer Lerner and Hannah Riley Bowles

Greg Dorchak

The Deans of the Harvard Kennedy School recently announced two honorary title designations for MLD Area faculty members. Warm congratulations to our two colleagues!

Jennifer S. Lerner will become the Thornton F. Bradshaw Professor in Public Management at Harvard Kennedy School.

The chair is named in honor of Thornton F. Bradshaw, president of the Atlantic-Richfield Company, chairman of RCA, the MacArthur Foundation and the Aspen Institute. A graduate of Harvard University, Bradshaw served the university in various capacities, including as a member of the Board of Overseers and member of the visiting committee for Harvard Kennedy School. Jenn Lerner is a social psychologist known for her research on emotion, judgment and decision making. She is the co-founder of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, chairs the Leadership Decision Making executive education program at Harvard Kennedy School and serves as the first chief decision scientist of the United States Navy. She helped develop a framework to predict the effects of emotions on judgment and choice, such as the perceptions of risk, economic decisions, and attributions of responsibility. She is the author of numerous academic articles and her work has also been featured in major news outlets. Jenn teaches courses on decision making, leadership and social psychology at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Hannah Riley Bowles will become the Roy E. Larsen Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School.

This chair is named in honor of Roy E. Larsen, the long-time publisher of Time, Inc. A graduate of Harvard University, Larsen served his alma mater as a member of the Board of Overseers, and as a benefactor of Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, among other leadership roles at the university. Hannah Riley Bowles, an organizational behavior scholar, is known for research on women’s leadership and the role of gender in negotiation. She serves as area chair of Management, Leadership and Decision Sciences, co-directs the Women and Public Policy Program and chairs the Women and Power executive education program at Harvard Kennedy School. Her work focuses on negotiation as a micro-mechanism of inequality and women’s leadership advancement, examining both situational barriers and individual strategies. She is the author of numerous academic articles and her work has also been featured in major news outlets. Hannah teaches courses on management, leadership, negotiation and gender at HKS.