The Leadership and Happiness Laboratory

Arthur C. Brooks is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses on leadership, happiness, and social entrepreneurship. He is also a columnist at The Atlantic, where he writes the popular weekly “How to Build a Life” column. Brooks is the author of many academic articles and 13 books, including the 2023 #1 New York Times bestseller Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, and the 2022 #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. He speaks to audiences all around the world about human happiness, and works to raise well-being within private companies, universities, public agencies, and community organizations.

Brooks began his career as a classical French hornist, leaving college at 19, touring and recording with the Annapolis Brass Quintet and later, the City Orchestra of Barcelona. In his late twenties, while still performing, he returned to school, earning a BA through distance learning at Thomas Edison State University, and then an MA in economics from Florida Atlantic University. At 31, he left music and earned an MPhil and PhD in public policy analysis from the Rand Graduate School, during which time he worked as an analyst for the Rand Corporation’s Project Air Force, performing military operations research analysis.

Brooks then spent the next 10 years as a university professor, becoming a full professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in his seventh year out of graduate school and occupying the Louis A. Bantle Chair in Business and Government. During this decade, Brooks taught economics and nonprofit management, and published 60 peer-reviewed articles and several books, including the textbook Social Entrepreneurship (2008).

In 2009, Brooks became the 11th president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, DC, one of the world’s most influential think tanks. Under his leadership, the Institute more than doubled its annual revenues, deepened its outreach to leaders across the ideological spectrum, and expanded its research portfolio to include work on poverty, happiness, and human potential. During this period, he was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 World’s Greatest Leaders” and was awarded seven honorary doctorates.

Originally from Seattle, Brooks currently lives outside Boston, with his wife Ester Munt-Brooks, who is a native of Barcelona. They have three adult children: Joaquim (25), Carlos (23), and Marina (20).

Press

• At Harvard Kennedy School conference, experts ask serious questions about the public value of happiness - Harvard Kennedy School
• Happy? Want to learn to be? - The Harvard Gazette
• What the Tibetan parliament-in-exile can teach the West about sustaining a democracy under threat (and how to resupply its meaning) - Center for Public Leadership 

Harvard Business School

Our Harvard Business School course, Leadership and Happiness, has been covered in the media and around campus. In 2021 Professor Brooks and Harvard Business School students spoke with His Holiness the Dalai Lama from his home in Dharamsala. You can read about their conversation in The Harvard Gazette and watch the session below.

HarvardX

As an extension of our effort to make the science of happiness more accessible to a global audience, we partnered with HarvardX to create a free online course available to the public. Managing Happiness will introduce you to the scientific essentials and psychological strategies to help you create a meaningful life with lasting habits. 

Connect with the Leadership and Happiness Lab on:

• LinkedIn
• The Happiness Abstract newsletter
• YouTube