Leadership Legend

Ronald A. Heifetz, founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is renowned worldwide for his seminal work on the practice and teaching of leadership. His research at Harvard focuses on how to build adaptive capacity in societies, businesses, and nonprofits. His courses on leadership and authority are among the most popular in the University, and his widely acclaimed book, Leadership Without Easy Answers (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1994) has been translated into many languages and is currently in its twelfth printing. His new book, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading, written with Marty Linsky, was published in May 2002 by Harvard Business School Press.

Heifetz is a principal in Cambridge Leadership Associates (cambridge-leadership.com). He speaks and consults extensively in the U.S. and abroad with leaders in business, government, and nonprofit organizations.

A graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Medical School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Heifetz is both a physician and a cellist, having studied with the Russian virtuoso, Gregor Piatigorsky.