`Back to school': How CM Revanth, like any other student did homework at Harvard Kennedy School for executive program

Cambridge: Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy completed the executive program, `Leadership for the 21st Century: Chaos, Conflict and Courage’ at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

He has become the first sitting Indian chief minister to complete the course and get a certificate from an Ivy League Institution.

The course and curriculum

The course was chaired by Professor Tim O’Brien and is not a traditional lecture-based course. It is a high-intensity "adaptive leadership" laboratory designed for senior officials navigating politically charged environments.

Key Course Pillars:

Leadership vs. Authority: Distinguishing between formal power and the ability to mobilize people to tackle "adaptive challenges" that have no easy technical fixes.

A framework for jumping between active work and gaining a systemic perspective on the conflict.

Reviewing global historical and contemporary governance crises to identify why leaders succeed or fail in moments of chaos.

Small, diverse peer groups where Reddy worked alongside leaders from 20+ countries to diagnose personal leadership challenges and received candid feedback.

The Daily Grind: 7 AM to 6 PM

While the university area was in deep snow and there was snow storm, the grind for the students was grueling, and the schedules began from 7 am.

* The course duration was from January 25 to January 30, 2026.

* The environment of the classroom was simulations and peer-group discussions.

* Revanth Reddy, like every other student, had daily homework, case study submissions, and project presentations.

* There were 62 senior leaders from 5 continents in the course.

After receiving his certificate in a ceremony, the chief minister enters the final phase of the program.

The "last day" is dedicated to a final revision and class discussion, where the cohort synthesizes a week’s worth of insights into a personal "Action Plan" to be implemented in their home countries. "The program is intended to push senior leaders to think seriously about their deepest assumptions and most strongly held values," states the HKS program description. "It challenges participants to look deeper than quick-fix, short-term solutions."

As Reddy prepares to return to Hyderabad in the first week of February, the eyes of the state will be on how these "Harvard Lessons" translate into the "Telangana Realities”.