Leadership for Purposeful Change: Creating Public Value

  • Free to audit
  • Paid certificate
  • Course certificate
  • Beginner
  • 7 weeks
Provider
Harvard
Cost
Free to audit
Certificate
Paid, $209
Level
Beginner
Duration
7 weeks
Effort
2–3 hrs/week
Format
Self-paced
Language
English
Subjects
Management
Source
Harvard Online
Last verified
14 Sep 2026

Free access to the material ends after the course length; graded work and the certificate are paid.

Leadership for Purposeful Change: Creating Public Value is a Harvard Kennedy School course on public leadership. It uses an integrated analytic framework built around three elements of producing a publicly valued result: understanding the specific conditions you hope to improve, developing the operational capacity needed to act, and securing the public support and financial resources to launch and sustain the effort at the right scale. Case studies show real public leaders challenging the status quo, and you are asked to analyse their thinking and actions with the course's frameworks.

The outcome is an actionable public value proposition for your own position, with performance indicators and attention to the values and ethical questions at stake, drawing on thinking from both the private and public sectors. It is self-paced, seven weeks long at 2 to 3 hours per week, and rated introductory. Harvard lists the course as free to audit on edX, with a verified certificate for $209.

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What you’ll learn

  • Analyse problems and opportunities for collective action with an integrated framework
  • Create an actionable public value proposition
  • Identify the values at stake and performance indicators for an initiative
  • Assess the viability of a public-value model
  • Examine the moral and ethical challenges of public leadership

Who it’s for

Public servants, nonprofit leaders and anyone proposing an initiative that needs public support and resources.

Source: Harvard Online (opens in a new tab) · Verified · Report a change

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