Leadership

Leadership is a featured research topic and an initiative at Harvard Business School.

As our world grows increasingly global, intricate, and ever-changing, the role of leaders is becoming more and more complex and critical to business success. In the 1950s and 1960s, Fritz Roethlisberger and Elton Mayo's contributions to the "Hawthorne effect," and work by Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch on organizational integration, sparked the field of Organizational Behavior. Early work by Michael Beer on leading organizational change, Rosabeth Kanter on innovation for productivity, John Kotter on power and influence, and Michael Tushman on innovation management helped shape today's understanding of organizational transformation. With an interest in Leadership that spans our academic units, our approach to research is collaborative and multi-disciplinary. We leverage a wide range of research methodologies – from onsite field research to surveys, experiments, and extensive longitudinal studies.

Featured Works

Chapter | The Rise of HR | 2015
Leave No Slice of Genius Behind: Selecting and Developing Tomorrow's Leaders of Innovation
Linda A. Hill
More than ever, leaders of nearly every kind of organization view their human resources teams as essential to institutional well-being and long-term growth and sustainability. That's the central and animating theme of "The Rise of HR: Wisdom from 73 Thought Leaders," a new anthology published by the HR Certification Institute. Professor Hill's essay addresses the question of how to develop leadership talent capable of building and sustaining organizations that can innovate time and again to address the challenges we face as a global community.
Keywords: innovation; human resources; talent management; talent development and retention; leadership; Innovation Leadership; Human Resources; Talent and Talent Management; Leadership; Leadership Development;

Citation:
Hill, Linda A. "Leave No Slice of Genius Behind: Selecting and Developing Tomorrow's Leaders of Innovation." In The Rise of HR: Wisdom from 73 Thought Leaders, edited by Dave Ulrich, William A. Schiemann, and Libby Sartain, 233–240. Alexandria, VA: HR Certification Institute, 2015. View Details
Cite View Details Read Now Related
Article | JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association
Professionalism, Fiduciary Duty, and Health-Related Business Leadership
Joshua D. Margolis
Expanding fiduciary duty to leaders of health-related businesses can help leaders meet the challenges of caring for not only the corporation and shareholders but also the patients and medical professionals. How should leaders of health-related businesses weigh the demand for efficiency and profit alongside the care of patients and the professional development of physicians? How might physicians approach these leadership roles to withstand the pressures that can divert behavior away from the espoused purposes and ethical standards of medicine?

Citation:
Margolis, Joshua D. "Professionalism, Fiduciary Duty, and Health-Related Business Leadership." JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association 313, no. 18 (May 12, 2015): 1819–1820. View Details
Cite View Details Find at Harvard Purchase Related
Article | Harvard Business Review | July–August 2014
How the Other Fukushima Plant Survived
Ranjay Gulati, Charles Casto and Charlotte Krontiris
In March 2011, Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was devastated by three reactor explosions and two core meltdowns in the days following a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami that produced waves as high as 17 meters. The world is familiar with Daiichi's fate; less well known is the crisis at its sister plant, Daini, about 10 kilometers to the south. As a result of nature's onslaught, three of Daini's four reactors lacked sufficient power to achieve cooldown. To prevent the disaster experienced up north, the site superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, and his team had to connect them to the plant's surviving power sources. In a volatile environment, Masuda and Daini's hundreds of employees responded to each unexpected event in turn. Luck played a part, but so did smart leadership and sensemaking. Until the last reactor went into cold shutdown, Masuda's team took nothing for granted. With each new problem they encountered, it recalibrated, iteratively creating continuity and restoring order. Daini survived the crisis without an explosion or a meltdown.

Citation:
Gulati, Ranjay, Charles Casto, and Charlotte Krontiris. "How the Other Fukushima Plant Survived." Harvard Business Review 92, nos. 7/8 (July–August 2014): 111–115. View Details
Cite View Details Find at Harvard Related
Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018
Do Managers Matter? A Natural Experiment from 42 R&D Labs in India
Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna and Christos A. Makridis
This paper exploits a natural experiment in the entry of new lab managers across India’s 42 public R&D labs between 1995 and 2006 to study the complementarity between lab managers and incentive schemes. While scientists were provided with stronger incentives to patent and license from multinational companies in 1994, the “old generation” of lab managers disagreed with these aims and failed to adequately support scientists’ efforts. First, we show that the introduction of new lab managers aligned with the national R&D reforms is associated with a 58% rise in patenting and 75% rise in licensing revenues from multinationals. Second, using additional information on each scientist in these labs, we examine how their research productivity changed in response to different managers. Notably, we find that the entry of new lab managers is associated with improved research productivity: 15.6% higher h-indices, 11.7% more coauthors, 12.7% more research articles, and 25.1% more citations per scientist. Moreover, using natural language processing (NLP) techniques on the set of research abstracts produced among these scientists, we find that overall mood and sentiment increased by 9.4% following the first managerial change. Our results highlight the important complementarities between incentives and management practices, especially in developing countries. A back-of-the-envelope calculation that suggests India could save on 9–24% of its R&D and related subsidy expenditures under the entry of new generation lab managers.
Keywords: incentives; innovation; management; productivity; Research and Development; Patents; Leadership; State Ownership; Research and Development; Innovation and Management; Performance Productivity; India;

Citation:
Choudhury, Prithwiraj, Tarun Khanna, and Christos A. Makridis. "Do Managers Matter? A Natural Experiment from 42 R&D Labs in India." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 14-077, February 2014. (Revised June 2018.) View Details
Cite View Details Read Now Related
Article | Harvard Business Review | October 2014
The Transparency Trap
Ethan Bernstein
To get people to be more creative and productive, managers increase transparency with open workspaces and access to real-time data. But less transparent work environments can yield more-transparent employees. Employees perform better when they can try out new ideas and approaches within certain zones of privacy. Organizations allow them to do that by drawing four types of boundaries: around teams of people (zones of attention), between feedback and evaluation (zones of judgment), between decision rights and improvement rights (zones of slack), and for set periods of experimentation (zones of time). By balancing transparency and privacy, organizations can encourage just the right amount of "deviance" to foster innovative behavior and boost productivity.

Citation:
Bernstein, Ethan. "The Transparency Trap." Harvard Business Review 92, no. 10 (October 2014): 58–66. View Details
Cite View Details Find at Harvard Related
Module Note | March 2015
Power and Influence in Society
Julie Battilana
This module aims to help students understand how power and influence are employed, both to reproduce the status quo and to effect change in society. It first helps them to understand why, more often than not, power is used to reproduce the existing way individuals and organizations operate in society. It then highlights what it takes to implement societal change. This includes a wide variety of initiatives ranging from attempts to change individuals' and organizations' behaviors in a given industry or sector, to efforts to change behaviors throughout a country, region, or even the world. Addressing the issue of power and influence in society in an MBA classroom is critical, especially at a time like now, when the relationship between business and society is attracting increasing attention, and when business leaders are increasingly expected to contribute not only to financial value creation, but also to social value creation. In this context, it is important to prepare business school students to lead not just in their organizations, but more broadly in society. Meeting this aspiration requires equipping them with knowledge and tools that will enable them to understand what it takes to have a positive impact in the world. In line with this objective, this module note focuses on how leaders who are not part of government or other public agencies can spark, organize, and/or guide action to bring about change at the societal level.

Citation:
Battilana, Julie. "Power and Influence in Society." Harvard Business School Module Note 415-055, March 2015. View Details
Cite View Details Purchase Related

Recent Publications

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019
Corporate Purpose and Firm Ownership
Claudine Gartenberg and George Serafeim
Analyzing data from approximately 1.5 million employees across 1,100 established public and private US companies, we find that the strength of employee beliefs about their firm’s purpose is lower in public companies. This difference is most pronounced within the salaried middle and hourly ranks, rather than senior executives. Among public companies, purpose becomes progressively lower with more concentrated shareholders, especially among firms with high hedge fund ownership. These patterns can be partly explained by differences in CEO backgrounds and compensation: public firms, particularly those with strong shareholders, choose outsider CEOs at higher rates and pay them more relative to their employees. Our analyses suggest that these results are not driven solely by sorting effects, but appear attributable in part to the impact that firm owners have on their employees. In summary, shareholders appear to influence the strength of corporate purpose deep within organizations via the leadership and corporate practices they enable at the top.
Keywords: purpose; corporate purpose; culture; corporate culture; public and private organizations; hedge fund; executive pay; Organizational Culture; Mission and Purpose; Employees; Attitudes; Ownership; Leadership; Executive Compensation;

Citation:
Gartenberg, Claudine, and George Serafeim. "Corporate Purpose and Firm Ownership." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-024, August 2019. View Details
Cite View Details SSRN Read Now Related
Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2019
Teaming Up To Win The Rail Deal At GE (A)
Amy Edmondson, Ranjay Gulati and Rachna Tahilyani
In 2012, Nalin Jain, then head of GE aviation for South Asia, was given the added responsibility for GE’s transportation business in India, including bidding for a $2.5 billion contract to manufacture, service and maintain 1,000 diesel locomotives for state owned Indian Railways (IR). The deal, which would have been “the largest deal on the planet” for the transportation business, had been under discussion for six years, and many within GE had given up hope that it would materialize, but Jain persisted. In February 2015, when IR requested companies to submit a financial bid in six months, Jain quickly built an autonomous team, sequestered from the rest of GE, with people from multiple businesses and functions. His team overcame internal resistance from people at headquarters and stiff competition to help GE win the deal by a narrow margin. Jain was then tasked with executing the deal. As many of his earlier team members had moved on, Jain hired new people and built a new diverse yet integrated team for execution, with members able to put aside their many differences, look beyond their functional silos, and focus on the project deliverables. However, 2017 brought a series of challenges. GE changed India’s organization structure, making India business leaders report only to their respective global business leaders instead of reporting to both their business leaders and the India country leader. Jain’s mandate was expanded to include the entire international operations of GE’s transportation business. And, sub-optimal company performance forced GE to announce cost cuts of $2 billion. In the face of this turmoil, Jain wonders, “Have I created an agile team that can succeed in GE’s matrix environment and deal with the internal challenges? Do the team members have the maturity and motivation required for the project to succeed?”
Keywords: Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Human Capital; Leadership Style; Leading Change; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Rail Industry; Transportation Industry; United States; India;

Citation:
Edmondson, Amy, Ranjay Gulati, and Rachna Tahilyani. "Teaming Up To Win The Rail Deal At GE (A)." Harvard Business School Case 420-058, September 2019. View Details
Cite View Details Educators Related
Article | MIT Sloan Management Review
Improving the Rhythm of Your Collaboration
Ethan S. Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer
In this article, we summarize our research on the value of intermittency for complex problem solving at work and give practical advice on how organizations can improve the rhythm of their people's collaboration. Executives have been counseled to be collaborative leaders and to set the example at the top that they want to see in the rest of the organization. They have taken this message seriously, transparently devoting more and more of their days to in-person and online collaboration. By role modeling such ubiquitous use of collaboration technology, business leaders have helped define an era of always-on collaboration. It is now time to role model a more sustainable, productive rhythm (i.e., patterns of sound _and_ silence) of collaboration.
Keywords: problem solving; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Online Technology; Leadership;

Citation:
Bernstein, Ethan S., Jesse Shore, and David Lazer. "Improving the Rhythm of Your Collaboration." MIT Sloan Management Review 61, no. 1 (Fall 2019). View Details
Cite View Details Find at Harvard Register to Read Related
Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2019
Simón Cohen at Henco: Sustaining 'High Performance, Happy People'
Francesca Gino, Jeff Steiner, Arianna Camacho and Paul Green
Keywords: work/life balance; growth strategy; corporate culture; motivation; values; Authentic Leadership Development; Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Motivation and Incentives; Values and Beliefs; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry;

Citation:
Gino, Francesca, Jeff Steiner, Arianna Camacho, and Paul Green. "Simón Cohen at Henco: Sustaining 'High Performance, Happy People'." Harvard Business School Case 920-005, August 2019. View Details
Cite View Details Educators Related
Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2019
BlueVine Capital: Growth Factors
Marco Di Maggio and Nathaniel Schwalb
The start-up BlueVine Capital Inc. (BlueVine) used data and technology to help finance small businesses via factoring and lines of credit. The case explains the small business financing market in mid-2010s, how CEO Eyal Lifshitz identified the opportunity for BlueVine, and how he built the company through its first five years of operations. Through the case, Lifshitz and his team discover insights about their small business customers that inspire them to change their product portfolio. In December 2018, Lifshitz must decide which new products to launch next.
Keywords: Business Startups; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Innovation Leadership; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry;

Citation:
Di Maggio, Marco, and Nathaniel Schwalb. "BlueVine Capital: Growth Factors." Harvard Business School Case 220-006, August 2019. View Details
Cite View Details Educators Related
Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2019
Bjarke Ingels Group
Boris Groysberg and Aldo Sesia
Danish-born Bjarke Ingels is regarded as a giant in the field of architecture. He started his firm – the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) – in 2005 in Copenhagen. Fourteen years later, the firm has additional offices in New York City, London, and Barcelona and employs over 500 people. BIG is known for what Ingels calls “hedonistic sustainability,” and its designs include a waste-to-energy treatment plant replete with a ski slope, and a multi-storied residential building where residents can bike to their apartments. In 2019, the firm is experiencing growth pains. Demands on Ingels and the firm’s infrastructure are intensifying. Ingels and BIG’s CEO Sheela Maini Søgaard, along with the firm’s other partners, know the firm needs to adapt – organizationally and operationally – to be successful in the future. The case study provides background on Ingels, the creation and evolution of BIG, and the challenges the firm and its leadership face.
Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Design; Growth Management; Leadership; Organizational Culture; Talent and Talent Management; Urban Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Construction Industry; Service Industry; Real Estate Industry; Denmark; Spain; United Kingdom; United States; New York (city, NY);

Citation:
Groysberg, Boris, and Aldo Sesia. "Bjarke Ingels Group." Harvard Business School Case 420-026, July 2019. View Details
Cite View Details Educators Related
Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2019
Peabody Essex Museum: What Next?
V. Kasturi Rangan and Jeffrey F. Rayport
• The case describes the 25-year transformation of Peabody Essex Museum, which was created in 1993 by the merger of two sub-scale predecessor cultural institutions, operating since 1799, in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan Monroe, its founding CEO, began a process of building the institution, which, when he arrived, had a budget of $3 million and an endowment of $23 million in 1993, as compared to a budget of $33 million and an endowment of $650 million in 2018. Monroe made changes in practically every aspect of the museum’s operations as PEM broke into the ranks of the top 15 museums in the U.S. All of this was happening at a time when museums in general had lost some 20% in visitation as a result of significant shifts in population demographics and what they understood by “cultural experience.” As Dan Monroe handed off the reins of an institution that had successfully run counter to trend to his successor in 2019, the trustees of the museum and its new CEO faced the challenge of how to keep the positive momentum going – and how potentially to reinvent PEM again for a rapidly changing world.
Keywords: museums; Strategy; Leadership; Transformation; Innovation Leadership; Strategic Planning;

Citation:
Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Jeffrey F. Rayport. "Peabody Essex Museum: What Next?" Harvard Business School Case 520-009, July 2019. View Details
Cite View Details Educators Related
Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2019
Backstage at Boston Ballet
David G. Fubini, Begum Agca Okutgen and Julia Kelley
At the beginning of her second year with Boston Ballet, Executive Director Meredith "Max" Hodges got some bad news—a developer had purchased one of Boston Ballet's school locations and was planning to terminate Boston Ballet's lease. Hodges had already overseen a number of improvements during her first year with Boston Ballet and had several major projects planned for her second year, including a major website overhaul and a revamped performance schedule. However, without a new school location, Boston Ballet's revenue would take a hit. Given Boston Ballet's limited resources and the urgency of the terminated school lease, how should Hodges reprioritize her plans for the upcoming year?
Keywords: Arts; Buildings and Facilities; Decision Making; Theater Entertainment; Leadership; Business or Company Management; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Problems and Challenges; Nonprofit Organizations; Strategy; Marketing; Price; Fine Arts Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Education Industry; United States; North America; Massachusetts; Boston; New England; Northeastern United States;

Citation:
Fubini, David G., Begum Agca Okutgen, and Julia Kelley. "Backstage at Boston Ballet." Harvard Business School Case 420-005, July 2019. View Details
Cite View Details Educators Related
Article | Harvard Business Review | July–August 2019
How to Scandal-Proof Your Company
Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim
Despite efforts to crack down on illegal activity, crimes like fraud, bribery, embezzlement, and money laundering are rampant in corporations. What steps can leaders take to fix this growing problem?
Keywords: Organizations; Crime and Corruption; Organizational Culture; Leadership; Ethics;

Citation:
Healy, Paul M., and George Serafeim. "How to Scandal-Proof Your Company." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 4 (July–August 2019): 42–50. View Details
Cite View Details Find at Harvard Register to Read Related
Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2019
Fangda Partners: A Step Ahead
Ashish Nanda and Lisa Rohrer
Elite Chinese law firm Fangda Partners has steered Alibaba and other Chinese and international clients through the complex legal, corporate, and regulatory challenges associated with executing international transactions. “Fangda has traveled a long distance in a short while,” reflects senior partner Jonathan Zhou, “but we have a long distance to traverse further. We have lofty aspirations.” Fangda Partners seeks to build on its growth and strong reputation to establish itself as a major, high-end law firm in the Chinese market. What needs to be accomplished and how should Zhou proceed?
Keywords: law firm; law firms; Growth; legal industry; regulation; professional services; Law; Leadership; Growth and Development; Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Legal Services Industry; China;

Citation:
Nanda, Ashish, and Lisa Rohrer. "Fangda Partners: A Step Ahead." Harvard Business School Case 719-406, June 2019. View Details
Cite View Details Educators Purchase Related

See all faculty publications on Leadership »

Faculty & Research

Featured Works

Authentic Leadership Development

Real Estate Programs

Initiatives & Projects

Faculty

HBS Working Knowledge

Harvard Business Publishing