Monica C. Higgins

Monica Higgins joined the Harvard faculty in 1995 and is the Kathleen McCartney Professor of Education Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) where her research and teaching focus on the areas of leadership development and organizational change. Prior to joining HGSE, she spent eleven years as a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School (HBS) in the Organizational Behavior Unit. Her book, Career Imprints: Creating Leaders Across an Industry (2005) focuses on the leadership development of executives in the biotechnology industry. In education, Professor Higgins studies the effectiveness of senior leadership teams in large urban school districts across the United States and the conditions that enhance organizational learning in public school systems. As a long-time member of the Public Education Leadership Project, a joint initiative between HBS and HGSE, Professor Higgins co-authored a book with her colleagues on managing central office-school relationships called, Achieving Coherence in District Improvement; this book is based upon their work with large urban districts over a ten-year time period.

Professor Higgins also works with entrepreneurial education organizations to help them navigate the constraints and opportunities they face in the education reform movement. Central to this work is HGSE’s Scaling for Impact initiative, which Professor Higgins leads. Here, along with colleagues from HGSE, HBS, and HKS, Professor Higgins is engaged in research and teaching that focus on helping entrepreneurial teams both within and outside of traditional district structures scale their work for even greater social impact.

Most recently, Higgins has published a book with lead co-author, Jennie Weiner, on women in leadership in K-12 education, called Education Lead(her)ship: Advancing Women in K-12 Administration. This Harvard Education Press book was released in October of 2023. The book is designed for practitioners, with case studies and research to support and inform a new approach to addressing gender discrimination in education.

Professor Higgins served as an appointee for Education Secretary Arne Duncan of the Obama Administration from 2009-2016 and currently sits on several boards in the nonprofit education field. At Harvard, Professor Higgins teaches in the areas of leadership and organizational change, entrepreneurship, teams, and strategic human resources management. She has also taught in leadership programs for The Broad Foundation and for New Leaders for New Schools.

Before academia, Professor Higgins held organizational consulting positions at Bain & Company and Harbridge House. Professor Higgins earned her A.B. in policy studies with a focus in organizational behavior from Dartmouth College, her M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, her M.A. in psychology from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. in organizational behavior jointly from the Harvard Business School and the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.