New Research Shows As Leadership Responsibility Increases, Stress Declines

24 September 2012

CAMBRIDGE—A unique laboratory study shows that leaders with more leadership responsibility in fact experience lower stress levels (as measured by stress hormone (i.e., cortisol) levels) than peers who have less responsibility.

The results of the study will appear in this week's Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research team, led by Jennifer Lerner, professor of public policy and management at Harvard Kennedy School, engaged senior leaders from the public and private sectors who volunteered to serve as participants in a wide-ranging investigation on leadership and stress—a first of its kind. The leaders included military officers, government officials, nonprofit administrators, and business leaders from the United States and around the world.

[The study's full text and supporting data are available for free download.]

"There is a strong theme in the literature on leadership that the higher people rise in leadership positions, the more stress they have to manage," Lerner observes. "But when we studied people who actually hold positions of leadership, we found that they tended to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol compared to non-leaders."

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Les and Abigail Wexner Support Leadership Studies at Harvard Kennedy School with $3 Million Gift to Center for Public Leadership

29 August 2012

Cambridge, MA—Leslie and Abigail Wexner, founding and sustaining donors of the Center for Public Leadership (CPL) at Harvard's Kennedy School, announced today an additional gift of $3 million to the Center. Their gift, an extension of the couple's longtime commitment to inspiring, preparing, and connecting tomorrow's global leaders, brings the Wexners' total commitment to the Center and HKS to more than $42 million.

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HKS Initiative to Prepare Future Latino Leaders Grows in Diversity and Support

12 June 2012

70% of this year’s participants are the first in their families to attend college

Cambridge, MA—The Center for Public Leadership (CPL) at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) announced today that the third installment of its Latino Leadership Initiative (LLI) will comprise the most diverse group of students to date, more than 70% of whom are the first in their families to attend college. The number of participants in the initiative, the number of participating universities, and the number of financial sponsors have also grown.

Launched in 2010, LLI is a weeklong program that prepares rising college seniors for the opportunities and challenges they will face in the coming decades. On June 23, Harvard will welcome to campus 41 students who were chosen from a highly selective application process. The participating schools are Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles); University of California, Merced; Texas A&M International University; the University of Houston; the University of Massachusetts–Boston; the University of Texas–Pan American; Miami Dade College; and, for the first time, the City University of New York's Macaulay Honors College.

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Americans’ Confidence in Leaders Hits New Low

22 December 2011

Cambridge, MA—Not only in politics but across the board in eight different sectors of national life, Americans have lost confidence in their leaders over the past year. Overall, some 77% say that the country now has a crisis in leadership and confidence levels have fallen to the lowest levels recorded in recent times.

Those are among the key findings of a nation-wide poll, the National Leadership Index (NLI), released today by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and Merriman River Group. The survey is the seventh annual measurement of public attitudes toward 13 different sectors of American life, ranging from business and non-profits to politics and religion.

"It is understandable that in these hard times, when so much frustration and anger is directed at Washington and Wall Street, Americans would be down on the performance of their leaders. But the levels of unhappiness have reached a point where they threaten the coherence and stability of our society," said David Gergen, professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership.

"Fortunately," he continued, "Americans still like to believe that our problems can be solved through better leaders. But we don’t have much time—these results should be a fire bell in the night for leaders in every walk of life."

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Announcing the 2011 Top American Leaders

06 December 2011

Cambridge, MA—The Center for Public Leadership (CPL) and Washington Post Live honored their first selection of Top American Leaders at a sold-out forum yesterday in Washington, D.C. The group was chosen by a committee of esteemed leadership experts and practitioners, convened by CPL, representing government, business, academic, and nonprofit institutions.

This year’s honorees include:

• Sheila Bair, Senior Advisor, Pew Charitable Trust; former Chairwoman, FDIC
• Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey
• Jared Cohen, Director of Google Ideas
• Freeman Hrabowski, President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Michael Kaiser, President, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
• Nicholas Kristof, Columnist, the New York Times
• Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Prize-winning Professor of Chemistry and Physics, California Institute of Technology.

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