Leadership Best Practices
When evaluating how world-class companies pull ahead of the competition in challenging business conditions, experts consistently pinpoint one differentiating factor: strong leadership. In response, Harvard Business School (HBS) offers Leadership Best Practices—an Executive Education program that provides new strategies for enhancing best leadership practices. From innovative tools and tactics to groundbreaking research and findings, you will discover new ways to implement these effective strategies and position your company for future success.
What You Can Expect
Through dynamic lectures, case studies, and small group interactions, you will be immersed in a transformational experience. By rethinking your approach to management, leadership, and leadership development, you will strengthen your individual capabilities.
Your Course of Study
In five stimulating modules, HBS faculty present landmark research on leveraging leadership for competitive advantage. You will explore how to deliver superior value, link strategies with operations, create a sense of urgency, engage in moral leadership, and sustain organizational performance.
Who Is Right for the Program
Created for executives with significant corporate management responsibilities, this leadership development program is targeted to chief operating officers, chief administrative officers, senior vice presidents, general managers, senior human resources officers, and divisional directors or leaders.
The Leadership Initiative
The Leadership Initiative at Harvard Business School was created as a catalyst to achieve the School's mission: "…to educate leaders who make a difference in the world." Since its inception, HBS has been committed to shaping business leaders with the integrity and capacity to build world-class organizations. Today, the Leadership Initiative seeks to ensure that HBS remains at the forefront of leadership research and development for the 21st century and beyond.
| Fee: | $10,500 |
View other leadership programs
The program fee covers tuition, books, case materials, accommodations, and most meals.
Programs, dates, fees, and faculty are subject to change.
In accordance with Harvard University policy, Harvard Business School does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex or sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political beliefs, veteran status, or disability in admission to, access to, treatment in, or employment in its programs and activities.
What You Can Expect
Incorporating a powerful mix of lectures, case studies, class discussions, small group interactions, and informal gatherings, the program provides an important opportunity for you to:
- Gain early access to groundbreaking research on leadership
- Examine and compare leadership best practices across a range of complex organizations
- Build relationships with other industry leaders to foster ongoing peer collaboration, learning, and support
- Strengthen your individual capabilities and strategically advance your organization by rethinking your approach to management, leadership, and leadership development
- Find ways to translate research theory into practical application
- Develop an action plan with innovative concepts and best practices that yields measurable results and sustained impact in your workplace
How Will My Organization Benefit?
Executive Education programs at Harvard Business School are a significant investment for both you and your organization. Going far beyond the basic transmission of skills and theories, each leadership development program provides applicable lessons in the classroom that can be implemented successfully within your organization. You will acquire a fresh perspective on global business from our groundbreaking curriculum, world-renowned faculty, and an accomplished group of elite peers from around the world.
"This intellectually challenging and invigorating program is an excellent opportunity to benchmark your leadership skills and style, as you gain exposure to high-level thinking and best practices from one of the world's leading executive education providers. I have applied the lessons learned to improve our partnership selection, elevate our thinking with regard to strategy and direction, and lead change within our large organization."
Stephen Gillespie [Partner], Allen & Overy LLP
Your Course of Study
The Balanced Scorecard
Noted author Robert S. Kaplan will lead a discussion on a best-practice case study of the Balanced Scorecard in action. In addition, Kaplan will present his recent work on integrating strategy maps, scorecards, and other management tools into a closed-loop system that links strategy and operations. The talk is based on his latest (Jan. 2008) HBR article, "Mastering the Management System," and his recent Balanced Scorecard book, The Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business School Press, 2008). Key topics include:
- Adopting a new strategy and organizational structure
- Creating a strategy map and choosing Balanced Scorecard metrics
- Communicating strategy
- Aligning organizational units for synergies
- Linking strategy and operations
- Reviewing and adapting the strategy
High Performance from Within
Based on his extensive research in factory workshops and service organizations, Michel Anteby—author of the recent book Moral Gray Zones: Side Productions, Identity, and Regulation in an Aeronautic Plant—will lead a discussion on how formal and informal practices can sustain organizational performance and employee engagement. Key topics include:
- Fostering performance from within the organization
- Aligning culture and key organizational components
- Addressing size, scale, and complexity
- Maintaining the organization's unique qualities
Leadership that Inspires Change
Amy C. Edmondson is Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at HBS, and is the author of the book Organizational Learning and Competitive Advantage and the Harvard Business Review article, "The Competitive Imperative of Learning." In this session, she will explore the challenge of managing large-scale change in underperforming organizations. Topics to be addressed include:
- Leadership skills, mindset and actions that inspire others to help create positive change in the organization
- Aligning culture, strategy, and structure in a large-scale change effort
The Moral Leader
Sandra Sucher—author of The Moral Leader: Challenges, Tools, and Insights; Teaching the Moral Leader: A Literature-Based Leadership Course; and other Harvard Business School course materials—will explore provocative questions about the fundamental moral challenges facing successful leaders. Sucher's inquisitive and interactive style will draw you into examining the essence of moral leadership, and provide you with lessons from historical leaders who faced compelling challenges, including U.S. President Harry S. Truman and the atomic bomb, as well as Washington Post Katharine Graham and the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Key topics include:
- The ways in which leaders make decisions
- How the decision-making process works
- The capabilities that allow leaders to handle moral challenges
The Ownership Quotient: Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage
W. Earl Sasser—author or coauthor of numerous books and Harvard Business Review (HBR) articles, including "Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work"—explores how world-class companies deliver superior value by consistently delighting their customers, employees, and shareholders. Key topics include:
- The Ownership opportunity
- Building ownership into your business strategy
- Increasing your customer ownership quotient (OQ) by putting customers to work
- Boosting your employee OQ
- Shaping an ownership culture
Strategy, Development and Leadership
Joseph L. Bower, author of the award winning book The CEO Within: How Inside Outsiders Are Key to CEO Succession and the popular Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, "How Everyday Decisions Make or Unmake Your Strategy" provides an integrated framework for developing top management leadership and managing succession. The session will show how the fundamental building blocks of the firm—recruitment, the organization, the systems for measurement and resource allocation, and the reward/incentive systems—are managed to shape strategy. The challenge is to manage these processes so that executives with the potential develop into great leaders.
A Sense of Urgency
In his most recent work, A Sense of Urgency, best-selling author John P. Kotter discusses what a true sense of urgency is in an organization, why it is becoming an exceptionally important asset, and how you can create and sustain it within your organization. During this session, Kotter will walk through his fundamental eight-step framework for successful organizational change. He also will explore how to distinguish between constructive true urgency and destructive false urgency, and how to develop strategies for creating the right kind of urgency within your organization.
"Attending Leadership Best Practices at HBS was the fulfillment of a long-held ambition, and the impact has been profound. This program challenged my self-perceptions as a leader in a global corporation, delivered a broader perspective by pulling me out of my comfort zone, and prompted me to explore the challenges of leadership at a deeper level."
David Robertson [Sector Leader], IBM, Australia
Who Is Right for the Program
Leadership Best Practices is intended specifically for senior executives with significant corporate management responsibilities.
Typical participant titles include:
- Chief operating officer
- Chief administrative officer
- Senior vice president
- General manager
- Senior human resources officer
- Divisional director or leader
Visit the admissions section for details about our application process.
Past Participants Represented:
| Industries | Nationalities | ||||
| 5% | Chem/Pharm/Bio | 6% | Africa | ||
| 3% | Communications | 8% | Asia | ||
| 5% | Consumer Products | 6% | Australia/NZ | ||
| 18% | Financial | 30% | Europe | ||
| 5% | High Technology | 2% | Latin America | ||
| 7% | Manufacturing | 2% | Middle East | ||
| 12% | Nonprofit | 43% | North America | ||
| 2% | Other | 3% | Other | ||
| 9% | Other Services | ||||
| 16% | Professional Services | ||||
| 6% | Raw Materials/Energy | ||||
| 2% | Real Estate/Construction | ||||
| 4% | Retail Services | ||||
| 6% | Utilities/Telecommunications | ||||
Participating Companies Have Included:
|
Allied Irish Banks, plc |
Oracle Corporation |
"Leadership Best Practices was an excellent experience. I particularly appreciated the stimulating breakout sessions, which prompted us to look at leadership from multiple perspectives. With classmates from small, medium, and large companies, we also explored how leadership changes with organization size. The wide range of case studies and the group's diversity stimulated my creativity and challenged me to think about leadership in a different way."
Khaled Alnaseebi [Director, Group Organizational & Leadership Development], Zain, Bahrain
Meet the Program Faculty
Like all Harvard Business School Executive Education programs, Leadership for Senior Executives is developed and taught by a core faculty of HBS professors. Our faculty members are widely recognized for being skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors.
Through publishing, consulting, and teaching, they leverage their business expertise and field research to create new knowledge and enduring concepts that shape the practice of management. The result is a teaching team that exposes participants to multiple perspectives, challenging their thinking and encouraging new practices that result in superior business leadership. For more detailed biographies, click on each faculty name.
Michel Anteby, Assistant Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Organizational Behavior Unit.
Joseph L. Bower, Baker Foundation Professor of Business Administration. Member of the General Management Unit; and faculty chair of "The Corporate Leader: How Corporate Managers Contribute Value."
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management. Cohead of the Technology and Operations Management Unit.
Robert S. Kaplan, Baker Foundation Professor. Member of the Accounting and Management Unit; and faculty chair of "Driving Corporate Performance: Aligning Scorecards, Systems, and Strategy."
John P. Kotter, Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus.
W. Earl Sasser, Baker Foundation Professor. Member of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit; faculty chair of "Leadership Best Practices," and the original architect of the "Program for Leadership Development."
Sandra J. Sucher, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. Member of the Technology and Operations Management Unit.
"The faculty was a brilliantly selected group of academics and executives with real-world experience. In some segments, they took us on emotional, personal journeys—we didn't expect this and were affected profoundly by the faculty's authenticity and their courage in daring to go there."
David Robertson [Sector Leader], IBM, Australia