Leading People

Today’s principals are charged with a wide array of responsibilities – from generating better student outcomes, to recruiting, managing, and retaining high-quality faculty and staff, to cultivating collaboration and collective learning. 

Offered as a course within the Certificate in School Management and Leadership (CSML), Leading People provides school leaders with the skills needed to manage and motivate staff, foster continuous improvement, and build leadership capabilities among individuals, groups, and teams throughout the school.

Leading People participants will:

• Implement specific strategies to cultivate a skilled and motivated staff, ensure staff members are aligned with the school’s vision and objectives, and build shared ownership around these goals.
• Learn how to distribute leadership among staff and across the school community to increase productivity, collaboration, and empowerment.
• Establish a supportive school culture where systems and structures enable all adults to become engaged learners and gain expertise through collective learning and continuous improvement.
• Understand the school leader’s role in communicating institutional goals to community stakeholders and identify strategies that can help foster greater buy-in for these goals.

Course Syllabus & Calendar

View modules and deadlines for upcoming editions of this course. The syllabus and calendars are downloadable. 

• Leading People Course Syllabus
• October 2022
• February 2023

​​​​​​​Faculty

Mary Grassa O'Neill, CSML Faculty Co-Chair, Senior Lecturer on Education; Faculty Director, School Leadership, HGSE

Monique Burns Thompson, CSML Faculty Co-Chair, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, HBS

Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, HBS

David Fubini, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, HBS

Monica Higgins, Kathleen McCartney Professor of Education Leadership, HGSE

Deborah Jewell-Sherman, Gregory R Anrig Professor of Practice in Educational Leadership, HGSE

Susan Moore Johnson, Jerome T. Murphy Research Professor in Education, HGSE

The course also features engaging case studies of the following practitioners:

• Dr. Todd Boucher, Principal, Popps Ferry Elementary School in Biloxi, MS
• Ryan Huppert, Principal, City High-Middle School in Grand Rapids, MI
• Dr. Joey Jones, Principal, Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville, MD
• Dr. Araceli Montoya, Principal, Wildflower Accelerated Academy in Goodyear, AZ
• Dr. William Healy, Orthopedic Surgeon and Former Chairman of Orthopedics at Beth Israel Lahey Health in Burlington, MA
• Dr. Michael Thompson, Senior Orthopedic Surgeon at Beth Israel Lahey Health in Burlington, MA