With Extra Help, Business Leaders Can Enter Public Sector

To the editors:



Hats off to The Crimson for identifying a very important (and often-neglected) trend in both the private and public sectors today: the convergence of business and public leadership (“HBS Attracts Washington-Bound,” news, Dec. 20). This convergence is critical because many of the most complex and pressing public policy problems and opportunities fall at the intersection of these sectors, and their solution will require cross-sector convergence.

The article addressed one critical question for convergence to happen: Where do public leaders begin their careers—at a school of business or government?

A second question, critical for convergence to continue, is: How do leaders move between the two sectors over their careers? According to numbers reported in the article, only 2.2 percent of Harvard Business School (HBS) graduates will begin in public service. But over 80 percent of HBS’ alumni will hold positions in nonprofit organizations at some point in their lives. These individuals will move in and out of different sectors over the course of their careers.

With funding from the Center for Public Leadership (CPL) and the Ash Institute for Innovations in Democratic Governance at the Kennedy School, we have conducted, with Public Service Professor David R. Gergen, and with research assistance from others, an in-depth field study of business leaders’ experiences transitioning into public leadership roles. We have interviewed over 40 accomplished politicians including U.S. senators, governors, and mayors of large U.S. cities who had successful business careers and later entered public service.

Our data confirm the strong desire among business leaders to contribute as public leaders over the course of their careers. Our study also finds that, unfortunately, individuals report having had almost no support in making their transition. Respondents, when they first ventured to cross from leadership in the private sector to leadership in the public sector, felt they had to figure out much on their own. Our research addresses this need, with the goal of identifying the success strategies to ease the transition for future leaders.

Educational choices are very important, and the innovations underway in graduate education at Harvard—for example, the Zuckerman and Reynolds Fellowships—are vital. But individual students at the College, and at all of the graduate schools, should know, too, that they will have exciting opportunities over the full course of their careers, not just at the outset, to lead across sectors.



TODD L. PITTINSKY

ALEXANDRA S. MESSITER ’08

Cambridge, Mass.

December 20, 2005



The writers are an assistant professor at the CPL and a research assistant, respectively.