Leadership in a Crisis
Ron Heifetz is a world-renown professor, author, and authority on the topic of leadership. One of his books, “Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change,” has been instrumental to Chanda’s approach to leadership. Chanda connected with Ron to talk about the self-care practices leaders need to establish, the disparities and opportunities that crises reveal, and the work white people need to do in order to pursue racial justice.
Ron Heifetz
Ronald Heifetz is among the world’s foremost authorities on the practice and teaching of leadership. He speaks extensively and advises heads of governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations across the globe. In 2016, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia highlighted Ron’s advice in his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture.
Ron founded the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School where he has taught for nearly four decades. Ron played a pioneering role in establishing leadership as an area of study and education in the United States and at Harvard. His research addresses two challenges: developing a conceptual foundation for the analysis and practice of leadership; and developing transformative methods for leadership education, training, and consultation.
Ron co-developed the adaptive leadership framework with Riley Sinder and Marty Linsky to provide a basis for leadership research and practice. His first book, “Leadership Without Easy Answers,” is a classic in the field and one of the 10 most assigned course books at Harvard and Duke Universities. Ron co-authored the best-selling “Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change” with Marty Linsky, which serves as one of the primary go-to books for practitioners across sectors. He then co-authored the field book, “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing your Organization and the World” with Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky.
