Heifetz Will No Longer Teach Popular But Controversial HKS Leadership Course

For the past four decades, Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Ronald A. Heifetz has been the face of the school’s widely popular classes on leadership.

But this year, Heifetz will no longer be teaching his flagship course.

Management, Leadership, and Decision Sciences 202: “Leadership From the Inside Out: The Capacity to Lead and Stay Alive — Self, Identity, and Freedom” is part of a series of internationally celebrated courses, developed by Heifetz, that are collectively known as the HKS Adaptive Leadership classes.

In the wake of a Crimson investigation that found another course in the Adaptive Leadership series — which featured intense and personal conversations and required students to sign confidentiality agreements — had left some students feeling emotionally distressed, former HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf canceled “Leadership From the Inside Out” in late spring 2024.

After students launched a partially successful campaign demanding the school bring back the course and reinstate Heifetz as the lead instructor, HKS brought the course back for spring 2025 — but with two adjunct lecturers at the helm.

In a statement to The Crimson, an HKS spokesperson did not offer an explanation for why Heifetz will no longer teach the course, but wrote that it would be offered in a new, pedagogically improved format.

While Heifetz’s version of MLD-202 lasted more than 8 hours per day for 10 consecutive days during the January term, the revamped course will last for six weeks in Spring 2025 and meet for a total of 15 hours — less than one-fifth of the original course length.

Heifetz declined to comment on the end of his teaching involvement in MLD-202, but told students who took the course in January that he would not teach it again, according to a source in attendance.

Still, according to several students who spoke with Heifetz after the Kennedy School’s decision, Heifetz has privately expressed that he would teach MLD-202 if allowed to do so.

The student-led effort in support of Heifetz began over the summer, when a group of students who took MLD-202 in January met with former HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf and Academic Dean for Teaching and Curriculum Suzanne Cooper at least two times to urge the school to reconsider its decision to cancel the course.

Achraf Aouadi, an alum of MLD-202 who attended some of the meetings with Elmendorf and Cooper, said while the two administrators admitted the course was popular among many students, they also said some students have had unfavorable experiences with MLD-202.

According to Aouadi, Cooper said during one of the meetings that there was no formal investigation into Heifetz that prevented him from teaching MLD-202 and he would remain on the school’s faculty.

But on the school’s 2024-2025 course catalog, Heifetz is not slated to teach any classes — which some students believed to be a sign that the Kennedy School wanted to force Heifetz from its ranks.

“My own conclusion is that the Kennedy School is trying to push Ron Heifetz out without being accused of it,” Aouadi said. “So they’re somehow coming up with replacements, and now they find themselves improvising.”

A Kennedy School spokesperson did not comment on this specific allegation.

In August, 126 students who had taken the course signed a petition addressed to newly-appointed Kennedy School Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein and other top HKS administrators calling on the school to offer MLD-202 again and reinstate Heifetz as the course’s instructor.

“Please trust in your students and listen to us,” the students wrote in the petition, which was obtained by The Crimson. “Depriving new students of this unique course would mean they would miss out on its invaluable offerings.”

Following the petition, the Kennedy School added 100 seats to MLD-202, bringing the total course capacity to 150. An HKS spokesperson wrote that “given the strong student demand, we will be offering three sections of MLD-202 in the spring semester with spots for 150 students.”

“The Kennedy School values the teaching of adaptive leadership and we know that many students have had highly positive and beneficial learning experiences in these courses,” the spokesperson added.

While Heifetz will not be teaching MLD-202 on campus, he is currently working with the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning to organize an online version of MLD-202 and MLD-201 — the subject of The Crimson’s 2023 investigation — according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person also added that Heifetz will receive royalties from any students who enroll in the virtual courses.

MLD-202 is not the only Heifetz course to be canceled by the Kennedy School.

Heifetz has also previously taught another course on leadership — MLD-204 — which specifically focused on leadership in the context of racism, sexism, and anti-Black racism. But in fall 2023, MLD-204 was also quietly removed from the school’s course offerings.

In MLD-204’s last run in fall 2022, some Black and female students felt picked on while taking the course, according to a student who took the course that cycle.

It is unclear whether student complaints about Heifetz’s teaching in MLD-204 factored into the school’s decision to cancel the course. Heifetz declined to comment about the complaints.

The turmoil around Heifetz and Adaptive Leadership marks the latest in a years-long battle to secure a stable future for leadership courses at the Kennedy School.

In 2013, several students criticized the Kennedy School’s decision to not promote Dean Williams — who taught MLD-202 at the time — and raised concerns about whether MLD-202 could survive if Williams were to leave the school.

“There is a possibility that MLD-202 will not be taught,” former HKS Dean David T. Ellwood told students at the time.

Though MLD-202 will not be returning to its original format with Heifetz as the main instructor this fall, students said they plan to keep up their efforts.

“There’s just very strong support for Heifetz among all the alumni,” said Ryan T. Prior, a first-year HKS student involved with the petition to reinstate the course. “They really feel very attached to him, and I think rightfully so.”

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.