Abraham Zaleznik papers

Abraham Zaleznik was a professor at Harvard Business School. His research and teaching interests included leadership, management, and social psychology. Zaleznik was born in Philadelphia on January 30, 1924. He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, but his studies were cut short when he enlisted in the Navy in 1942. He was sent to the Navy's V12 program at Alma College in Michigan and received an economics degree in 1945. In 1947, he received his MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and later his doctorate in commercial science. He served as a research assistant while earning his doctorate.

Zaleznik began teaching at Harvard Business School in 1948. He later enrolled in the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute in 1960 due to a desire to understand the underlying forces and motives of people's behavior in the workplace. He was certified as a clinical psychoanalyst by the American Psychoanalytic Association in 1971 and led a private practice in Boston for 20 years. In 1967, Zaleznik was appointed the Cahners-Rabb professor of social psychology of management, a role he held until 1983 when he was appointed the Konosuke Matsushita professor of leadership. He retired from the active faculty in 1990, but continued to write, consult, and teach. He served on corporate boards and as director of numerous companies including King Ranch, Timberland, and American Greetings.

Zaleznik's research focused on the psychoanalysis of leadership and management within business organizations. At HBS, he taught the MBA elective courses Social Psychology of Management and Psychodynamics of Leadership. He wrote 16 books and authored more than 40 articles during his more than four-decade association with HBS. Zaleznik died in 2011.