MLD Shopping Event – Inspiration, Thanks, and Presentation

Thanks to the over 125 students who attended last night’s MLD Area Welcome and Shopping Event.  As Jim Bildner eloquently put it, “Our Theory of Change is YOU,” and you have the MLD Faculty inspired for the year ahead!

Please find below (linked for download) the presentation from the program. We welcome further questions by email to greg_dorchak@hks.harvard.edu
Continue to watch our site for updates on the many courses, programs, and initiatives introduced last night. Again, thanks and welcome!

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Management, Leadership and Decision Sciences (MLD) Area Course Shopping and Welcome Event

Dana Born and students at shopping nightCome and join your classmates and MLD Area faculty to learn more about course offerings in Management, Leadership, and Decision Sciences and about the MLD Certificate program. The MLD Area offers elective courses in four broad categories: Leadership; Negotiation & Decision Sciences; Strategic Management; and Organizing for Social Change. This event will be useful to students interested in how MLD coursework can assist in their public service endeavors and enhance their leadership potential.
August 29th, 6:00 to 8:00 PM
Location: HKS, Starr Auditorium, Belfer 2nd flo
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(Please arrive early! Food and drinks will be provided starting at 5:45pm)

Williams’s New Book Offers Guidance for Boundary Spanning Leaders

Photo of Dean WilliamsLeaders today—whether in corporations or associations, nonprofits or nations—face massive, messy, multidimensional problems. No one person or group can possibly solve them—they require the broadest possible cooperation. However, in his recent book Leadership for a Fractured World (2015, Berrett-Koehler Publishers), HKS MLD Area scholar Dean Williams argues that our leadership models are still essentially tribal: individuals with formal authority leading in the interest of their own group. Williams goes on to outline an approach that enables leaders to transcend internal and external boundaries and help people to collaborate, even people over whom they technically have no power.

Drawing on what he’s learned from years of working in countries and organizations around the world, Williams shows leaders how to approach the delicate and creative work of boundary spanning, whether those boundaries are cultural, organizational, political, geographic, religious, or structural. Sometimes leaders themselves have to be the ones who cross the boundaries between groups. Other times, a leader’s job is to build relational bridges between divided groups or even to completely break down the boundaries that block collaborative problem solving. By thinking about power and authority in a different way, leaders will become genuine change agents, able to heal wounds, resolve conflicts, and bring a fractured world together.

The book features a forward by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Book Cover of Leadership for a Fractured World by Dean Williams

2016 Ash Innovations Applications Open

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School has kicked off the application process for its prestigious Innovations in American Government Award.  For the second straight year, the Ash Center is also funding a second innovation award, the Roy and Lila Ash Innovations Award for Public Engagement in Government, to better highlight the work of public engagement and participation programs, policies, and initiatives from around the country.

The Innovations in American Government Awards are heralded as the premier public-sector honor in the nation and are given to programs that serve as examples of creative and effective government at its best. The Ash Center will once again be awarding two $100,000 top prizes, for the Innovations in American Government Award and the Roy and Lila Ash Innovations Award for Public Engagement in Government. All units of government—federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial—within the United States and their partners are eligible to apply.
Applicants for both awards will be judged on the standard Innovations in American Government Awards criteria of novelty, effectiveness, significance, and transferability. Programs seeking the Roy and Lila Ash award will also be judged on their impact on public engagement and participation. Specifically, the Ash Center seeks to recognize government-led innovations that demonstrate enhanced public engagement and participation.  Find out more here.  Application deadline is April 15, 2016.

Your Body Chemistry and Professional Status – New Research from HKS MLD Professor Jennifer Lerner

Power and professional status are often associated with myriad environmental factors including education and upbringing, but a new research study provides compelling fresh evidence linking professional status attainment with the interaction of two biological hormones.

“Testosterone, Cortisol and Attained Status” is co-authored by five leading academics in the field of bio-behavioral science, including Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Professor Jennifer Lerner.

The paper is forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  

Complete story here:  http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/articles/body-chemistry-and-professional-status