
Monique Burns Thompson
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration

School leaders are key change agents for their schools and are tasked with improving practice while navigating an increasingly challenging school environment. Driving change requires a strong foundation of knowledge and skills to effectively manage improvement and lead successful schools. Leading Change is designed to equip school leaders with the skills they need to drive school change and help diverse stakeholders establish priorities and improve practice.
School leaders are responsible for setting the vision and goals and aligning strategy and resources to drive improvement in their schools, while navigating an increasingly challenging school environment. Leading Schools is designed to equip school leaders with the skills they need to identify existing challenges, incorporate and support innovation, and take a strategic problem-solving approach to planning and driving school improvement.
Today’s principals are charged with a wide array of responsibilities – from generating better student outcomes, to recruiting, managing, and retaining high-quality faculty and staff, to cultivating collaboration and collective learning. Leading People provides school leaders with the skills needed to manage and motivate staff, foster continuous improvement, and build leadership capabilities among individuals, groups, and teams throughout the school.
Monique Burns Thompson is an accomplished social entrepreneur who returns to HBS (class of 1993) and brings her twenty years of successful start-up and organizational leadership experience to her research and teaching at HBS. She has led as a co-founder, President, and Chief Curriculum Officer focusing specifically on building organizations and systems, developing leaders, and closely aligning programs and products with marketplace need. Burns Thompson currently teaches Authentic Leader Development (ALD) and Organizational Behavior (LEAD) in the MBA program. In addition, she teachers several courses in Executive Education, including Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA) for the Program in Leadership Development (PLD) and is a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative where she teaches ALD. She also enjoys contributing to multiple executive programs that focus specifically on social sector leaders including the Strategic Perspective in Nonprofit Management (SPNM), UpSwell, and The Public Education Leadership Project (PELP). Burns Thompson received The Greenhill Award for her work as the faculty co-lead in a collaboration with the Harvard Graduate School of Education to develop and deliver the Certificate for School Management and Leadership (CSML): designed to provide preK-12 school leaders with frameworks, skills, and knowledge to drive change and lead high performing schools. This entrepreneurial venture launched in 2018, using HBS Online, and has had over 35,000 participants.
Prior to HBS, Burns Thompson was the co-founder and President of Teach Plus, a national non-profit that trains excellent, experienced teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their profession and their students’ success. Teach Plus trained over 30,000 teacher leaders during its founding years and those leaders have introduced groundbreaking policies at the district, state, and federal level, and partnered with districts to use teacher instructional leadership to turn around failing schools.
Burns Thompson was also co-founder, President, and Chief Curriculum Officer of what Fast Company Magazine has called “one of the top ten companies changing the world,” New Leaders for New Schools. Her primary focus was the development, management and delivery of a world class training curriculum that focuses on giving new principals concrete skills in instructional and managerial leadership. New Leaders is now the largest recruiter and trainer of school leaders in the US.
When not an entrepreneur, Burns Thompson has spent her time working inside districts and the charter sector with leaders who are focused on change. This included as a consultant with The McKenzie Group in Washington, DC, being the Special Assistant to the Superintendent of the Philadelphia Public School District and leading the implementation of a $45 million productivity and efficiency program, leading the long-range planning process for a $765 million building maintenance report, and negotiating a ground-breaking contract with the National Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers Local 1201.
Burns Thompson earned her Bachelor's Degree from Dartmouth College, her MBA from Harvard Business School, and her Master’s and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
- Featured Work
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Certificate in School Management and Leadership is an innovative collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Business School, powered by HBS Online. CSML is designed to provide preK-12 school leaders at all stages of their careers with frameworks, skills, and knowledge to drive change and to lead high performing schools. CSML will comprise four distinct yet interrelated courses, which may be taken individually or completed together to earn a comprehensive certificate. Together, these courses address topics most vital to leading successful schools.
School leaders are key change agents for their schools and are tasked with improving practice while navigating an increasingly challenging school environment. Driving change requires a strong foundation of knowledge and skills to effectively manage improvement and lead successful schools. Leading Change is designed to equip school leaders with the skills they need to drive school change and help diverse stakeholders establish priorities and improve practice.
School leaders are responsible for setting the vision and goals and aligning strategy and resources to drive improvement in their schools, while navigating an increasingly challenging school environment. Leading Schools is designed to equip school leaders with the skills they need to identify existing challenges, incorporate and support innovation, and take a strategic problem-solving approach to planning and driving school improvement.
Today’s principals are charged with a wide array of responsibilities – from generating better student outcomes, to recruiting, managing, and retaining high-quality faculty and staff, to cultivating collaboration and collective learning. Leading People provides school leaders with the skills needed to manage and motivate staff, foster continuous improvement, and build leadership capabilities among individuals, groups, and teams throughout the school.
Leading Learning is organized into four modules focused on developing the school structures, systems, supports, and culture that lead to excellent teaching and learning in every classroom, for every student. - Cases and Teaching Materials
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- Thompson, Monique Burns, and Julia Kelley. "FIELD Immersion 2022: Birmingham, Alabama." Harvard Business School Background Note 422-074, June 2022. View Details
- Awards & Honors
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Received the 2021 Greenhill Award for Outstanding Service to the HBS Community for creating and developing/growing the Certificate in School Management and Leadership (CSML).
- In The News
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