Skip to main content

Monica C. Higgins

Monica Higgins

Faculty Info

Kathleen McCartney Professor of Education Leadership

(On Leave 2024-2025)

Degrees

A.B., Dartmouth College
M.A., Psychology, Harvard University
M.B.A., Amos Tuck School of Business Administration
Ph.D., Harvard University, (1995)

Vitae/CV

Monica Higgins CV-10-25-24.pdf

Areas of Expertise

Monica Higgins

Visit my.Harvard

Email

monica_higgins@gse.harvard.edu

Personal Site

A608 Productions

Office

Gutman 425

Faculty Coordinator

Kit Von Campe

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 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, she 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, 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. 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 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.

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 she leads. Here, along with colleagues from HGSE, HBS, and HKS, she 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. Her latest research in this area focuses on sources of funding and strategic opportunities for nonprofit education organizations.

She 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, 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. Additionally, she teaches in and is on the faculty board of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative.

Before academia, Higgins held marketing and organizational consulting positions at American Express Travel Related Services, BankBoston, Bain & Company, and Harbridge House. 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.

  • Kumar, A., & Higgins, M.C. (2024). (De)constructing the disruption: Enacted sensemaking and sensegiving in institutionally plural fields. Journal of Organizational Sociology
  • Weiner, J., and Higgins, M.C. (2023). Education Lead(her)ship: Advancing women in K-12 administration. Cambridge, Harvard Education Press
  • Higgins, M.C., Riza, S., Weiner, J., & Liu, H. (2022). When is Psychological Safety Helpful in Organizations? A Longitudinal Study. Academy of Management Discoveries Journal, 8(1), 1-26.
  • Dobrow, S., & Higgins, M.C. (2019). The dynamics of developmental networks. Academy of Management Discoveries Journal, 5(3), 221-250.
  • Weiner, J., & Higgins, J. (2017). Where the two shall meet: Exploring the relationship between teacher culture and student culture. Journal of Education Change, 18(1): 21-48.
  • Edmondson, A.C.,* Higgins, M.C., Singer, S.J. and Weiner, J. (2016). Understanding psychological safety in healthcare and education organizations: A comparative perspective. Research in Human Development. [* Authorship alphabetical]
  • Johnson, S.M., Marietta, G., Higgins, M.C., Mapp, K.L., & Grossman, A. (2015). Achieving coherence in district improvement: Managing the relationship between the central office and schools. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.
  • Higgins, M.C., Weiner, J., & Young, L.A. (2012). Implementation teams: A new lever for organizational change. [Special Issue: The Changing Ecology of Teams], Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(3): 366-388.
  • Higgins, M.C. (January/February, 2012). Knowing how to help: Building teacher self-efficacy is trickier than it seems. Principal Magazine.
  • Higgins, M., Dobrow, S. R., & Roloff, K. S. (2010). Optimism and the boundaryless career: The role of developmental relationships. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(5), 749-769.
  • With Rick Hess. "Learning to succeed at scale." Journal of School Choice. 3(1), 8-24, (2009).
  • Higgins, M.C., Young, L.A., Weiner, J., & Wlodarczyk, S. (2009). Leading teams of leaders: What helps team member learning? Phi Delta Kappan, 91(4).
  • Marina Lee at Meumona (A,B). With Marcia Russell. HGSE Case, (2008).
  • Tiffany Cheng at Dignitas (A,B). With Lissa Young and Bristol Charrow. HGSE Case, (2008).
  • Work is Good: Branding the Employability Mission. With Lynda Applegate and Susan Saltrick. HBS Case 809-028, (2008).
  • With Kathy Kram. "A new mindset on mentoring: Creating developmental networks at work." In Business Insights, a joint publication by the Wall Street Journal and the MIT Sloan Management Review, (2008).
  • With Shasha Dobrow and Dawn Chandler. "Never quite good enough: The paradox of sticky developmental relationships for elite university graduates." Special Interdisciplinary Issue on Mentoring, Journal of Vocational Behavior 72: 207-224, (2008).
  • “A contingency perspective on developmental networks,” In Dutton, J. and Ragins, B.R. (Eds.), Exploring Positive Relationships at Work: Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: 207-224, (2007).
  • With Dawn Chandler and Kathy E. Kram. “Boundary spanning of developmental networks: A social network perspective on mentoring,” In Ragins, B.R. and Kram, K.E. (Eds.), The Handbook of Mentoring at Work: Theory, Research, and Practice, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, (2007).
  • With James R. Dillon. “Career patterns and organizational performance,” In Peiperl, M. and Gunz, H. (Eds.), Handbook of Career Studies, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications: 422-436, (2007).
  • With Jerry Kim. “Where do alliances come from? The role of upper echelons in alliance formation.” Research Policy, 3(4): 499-514, (2007).
  • “We’re Here to Help (Not!)” In Maruca, R. (Ed.), What Managers Say, What Employees Hear: Connecting with Your Front Line (So They’ll Connect with Customers), Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers: 65-72, (2006).
  • With Jonathon Cummings. “Relational instability at the core: Support dynamics in developmental networks.” Social Networks, 28: 38–55, (2006).
  • With Ranjay Gulati. “Stacking the deck: The effects of top management team composition on investor decision-making.” Strategic Management Journal, 27(1): 1–25, (2006).
  • With Shasa Dobrow. “Developmental networks and professional identity: A longitudinal study.” Special Issue on Mentoring, Career Development International, 10(6/7): 567–587, (2005).
  • Career Imprints: Creating Leaders Across an Industry. Warren Bennis’s Leadership Development Series, Jossey-Bass Publishers/A Wiley Company. (April, 2005).
  • “Career imprinting and leadership development: Theory and practice.” In Chowdhury, S. (Ed.), Next Generation Business Handbook. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley: 91–105, (2004).
  • With Ranjay Gulati. “Which ties matter when? The contingent effects of interorganizational partnerships on IPO Success.” Strategic Management Journal, 24(2):127–144, (2003).
  • With Ranjay Gulati. “Getting off to a good start: The effects of upper echelon affiliations on underwriter prestige.” Organization Science, 14(3): 244–263, (2003).
  • “Careers creating industries: Some early evidence from the biotechnology industry.” In Peiperl, M.B., Arthur, M.B., and Anand, N. (Eds.), Career Creativity: Explorations in the Remaking ofWork, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press: 280–297, (2002).
  • “Follow the leader? The effects of social influence on employer choice.” Group and Organization Management. Special Issue of Careers in the 21st Century, Summer(3): 255–282, (2001).
  • “When is helping helpful? Effects of evaluation and intervention timing on individual task performance.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 37(3): 280–298, (2001).
  • With David A. Thomas. “Constellations and careers: Toward understanding the effects of multiple developmental relationships.” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22(3): 223–247, (2001).
  • “Changing careers: The effects of social context.” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22(6): 595–618, (2001).
  • With Kathy E. Kram. “Reconceptualizing mentoring at work: A developmental network perspective.” Academy of Management Review, 26(2): 264–288, (2001).
  • With Lloyd Trotter, Steven L. Ablon, Stuart Pearson, and Mohan Mohan. “What should C.J. do?” (comment on case entitled, “Too old to learn?”, by Diane L. Coutu). Harvard Business Review, 78(6): 43–52, (2000).
  • “The more, the merrier? Multiple developmental relationships and work satisfaction.” Journal of Management Development, 19(4): 277–296, (2000).
  • With Nitin Nohria. “The side-kick effect: Mentoring relationships and the development of social capital.” In Leenders, R. and Gabbay, S. (Eds.), Corporate Social Capital and Liability. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers: 161–179, (1999).
  • With David A. Thomas. “Mentoring and the boundaryless career: Lessons from the minority experience.” In Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D.M. (Eds.), The Boundaryless Career: A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era. New York: Oxford University Press: 268–281, (1996).

  • Morning Star Teaching Award, Harvard Graduate School of Education (2009)
  • Paper presentation in symposium awarded Best Symposium in the Careers Division of the Academy of Management Conference. (2007)
  • Best Symposium in the Careers Division, Academy of Management Conference (2006)
  • Best Paper Proceedings (with J. Kim), Academy of Management Conference (2005)
  • Best Symposium in the Careers Division (with S. Dobrow), Academy of Management Conference (2004)
  • Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award Nominee, Harvard Business School (2004)
  • Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award Nominee, Harvard Business School (2003)
  • William A. Owens Scholarly Achievement Award Nominee (with K.E. Kram), Academy of Management (2003)
  • Best Paper in the Careers Division, Academy of Management Conference (1998)
  • Distinction for General Exams in Social Psychology, Harvard University (1995)
  • Edward Tuck Scholar, Tuck Business School, Dartmouth College (1990)
  • Graduate with Distinction, Tuck Business School, Dartmouth College (1990)
  • Phi Beta Kappa, Summa cum laude, High Honors in Policy Studies, Dartmouth College (1986)

  • Member, American Educational Research Association (AERA),(2008-present)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Career Development International ,(2003-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Academy of Management Review,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Administrative Science Quarterly,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Journal of Applied Psychology,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Journal of Applied Social Psychology,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Journal of Research Policy,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Organization Science,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Organization Studies,(1995-present)
  • Ad hoc Reviewer, Strategic Management Journal,(1995-present)
  • Member, American Psychological Association,(1995-present)
  • Member, Careers Division, Academy of Management,(1995-present)
  • Member, European Groups and Organizational Studies,(1995-present)
  • Member, Organization & Management Theory Division, Academy of Management,(1995-present)
  • Member, Organizational Behavior Division, Academy of Management,(1995-present)
  • Previous Member, International Network of Social Network Analysis,(1995-present)
  • Previous Member, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology,(1995-present)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Organizational Behavior,(2001-2014)
  • Member, Curriculum Spine Subcommittee, Harvard Business School Models of Success Committee,(2004-2006)
  • Member, Advisory Committee, Harvard Business School Career Services,(2003-2006)
  • Moderator/Speaker, Harvard Medical School Biotechnology Club,(2002-2006)
  • Panelist & Instructor, START program, Harvard Business School,(1995-2006)
  • Member, Editorial Board, Academy of Management Journal,(2000-2004)

  • Entrepreneurial Leadership and Change at Multiple Levels
    In 2023, with Jennie Weiner, Professor Higgins wrote a book on the role of women in education called Education Lead(her)ship. This book combines Professor Higgins’ interest in studying change at multiple levels; it is at once a book about individual leaders and their career journeys and a book about systems and organizations that both constrain and open doors for women. This book also links to Professor Higgins’ cross-level interest in how change comes about through entrepreneurial behavior. She has been fascinated by the role that entrepreneurial behavior can play in bringing about change in education organizations and systems. To explore entrepreneurial leadership, Professor Higgins has written many case studies with students and colleagues on how leaders have scaled their entrepreneurial ventures for even greater social impact. She is currently writing a book to bring together the lessons she has learned from writing and teaching these case studies called Scaling for Impact in Education: A resource for educators.
  • Leadership and Organizational Change at the Organization and System Level
    At the organizational level, Professor Higgins has been fascinated by how the culture and climate of an organization such as a school can impact performance-based outcomes, such as student learning. Extending the work of colleague Amy Edmondson who first introduced the concept of “psychological safety” in her research in healthcare, Professor Higgins has investigated psychological safety in her research on school culture. Professor Higgins wrote a paper with Amy Edmondson and colleagues on parallels between the healthcare and education sectors on psychological safety. Recently, Professor Higgins and her colleagues published a paper based upon a study of over 20,000 teachers in an urban school district in the United States to explore the question, “when is psychological safety helpful?” This research shows that psychological safety alone may not be enough to produce positive outcomes. Instead, school cultures in which teachers feel accountable for producing positive results for students as well as psychologically safe at work can yield positive results. This study along with another study that examines teachers’ sense of psychological safety as well as student engagement demonstrates that the work environment of teachers is critical to any change effort aimed at producing better outcomes for kids in schools. This work has appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Discoveries, Journal of Human Development, and Journal of Education Change.At the system level, Professor Higgins has examined leadership and innovation in both healthcare and education. In the healthcare field, Professor Higgins’ book, Career Imprints: Creating Leaders Across an Industry, focused on the founders of the biotechnology industry. In this research, Professor Higgins introduced the idea of a “career imprint,” suggesting that leaders who begin their careers in strong-cultured organizations can pick up certain “career imprints” that can influence how they lead and manage later in their careers. Professor Higgins defines an organizational “career imprint” by four “C’s” – capabilities or well-honed skills, connections or preferred ways of working with others, cognition or mindsets about how to lead or manage, and confidence or certain kinds of self-efficacy at work. After analyzing thousands of career histories of biotechnology leaders, Professor Higgins showed how the entrepreneurial career imprint leaders picked up while working at Baxter Travenol influenced their careers and, specifically, their ability to launch new firms at the dawn of the biotechnology industry. Professor Higgins has applied this idea of a career imprint to leaders in education by studying Teach for America alumni. In addition, her work on system-level change with the Public Education Leadership Project, a joint initiative between Harvard Business School and Harvard Graduate School of Education, has examined the design choices of district level leaders as they lead change in school districts. In a ten-year study of large urban districts, Professor Higgins and her colleagues examined how education leaders designed systems, structure, strategies, and culture that were internally coherent and yet, often very different from one another. This work argues that system-level change is contingent upon internal coherence rather than any one preferred or “best” strategy for change. This work on district-level change resulted in a book called Achieving Coherence in District Improvement: Managing the relationship between the central office and schools.
  • Leadership and Organizational Change at the Individual and Team Level
    Professor Higgins’ research examines leadership and organizational change at four levels of analysis – the individual level, the team level, the organization level, and the system level. Over the years, Professor Higgins’ research has spanned many different sectors, but currently her research is centered on the education sector, especially in finding ways to bring about change in underserved communities. At the individual level, Professor Higgins has studied how leaders develop personally and professionally and, in particular, how they navigate their careers using the advice and mentoring they receive from others. Her research and that of her colleagues has reconceptualized the field of mentoring from one that focused on two people in a hierarchical relationship to one that focuses on the many different people that individuals rely on for mentoring support in their careers. With co-author Kathy Kram, Professor Higgins concretized this idea of having multiple mentoring relationships by introducing the concept of a “developmental network,” opening up an entirely new avenue of research. Scholars like Professor Higgins now look at the multiple relationships that influence how individuals change in the course of their careers and even how they think about their careers. This work suggests that rather than view careers as a solo activity, we need to consider how relationships influence leadership development and, therefore, be thoughtful and intentional about who we rely upon for support. Professor Higgins’ research on developmental networks has appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Discoveries, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Group and Organization Management, and Journal of Organizational Behavior.At the team level, Professor Higgins’ research investigates how organizational change is brought about through teams within organizations. In her research on leadership teams in education, Professor Higgins and her colleagues introduced the idea of an “implementation team” in education – that is, a function-specific team designed to implement a change initiative within a school system, such as a school district. This notion of teams as the key drivers of organizational change calls into question the commonly held assumption that people in positions of power and authority are necessarily the best-suited to implement change. Professor Higgins has brought this implementation team approach to her teaching and professional programs by having teams, rather than individual leaders, workshop a specific “problem of practice” when they come together at Harvard. In earlier research in the healthcare field, with co-author Ranjay Gulati, Professor Higgins examined the role that teams in biotechnology firms have played in bringing about change for their organizations. In both lines of research, the core idea is that organizations do not change themselves; rather, teams are the units of change that can be employed intentionally to further specific organizational goals. Articles on teams and organizational change have been published in journals such as Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Contact Information

Course Listings

Visit my.Harvard

Featured Articles

All articles