One of the benefits of being in London is easy access to all the great newspapers — what a range from The Times to the Guardian to the European edition of the Wall Street Journal — and, of course, the Financial Times with its distinctive salmon colour.
Yesterday, there was a bonus in the FT. It was their Business Education Mag with the Executive education rankings for 2010. http://www.ft.com/businesseducation
While these rankings are always interesting, I was more taken by two one-page articles:
COMMENT by Della Bradshaw (Editor of B-School Rankings) about academic versus practitioner research (a topic that comes up frequently in my b-school visits) and,
ON MANAGEMENT, a column by FT business columnist Stefan Stern titled: A new way to lead: It is time to let go of the failed paradigm of the narrow, transactional leadership style — and business schools need to make some major changes.
Stephan’s article cites the advent of the “Advanced Leadership Initiative” at Harvard — asking the questions: a) does this mean that b-schools don’t or can’t deliver on leadership skills? and b) that you need 20+ years of experience to be ready for “advanced leadership”?
He then makes the point that the “popular conception” of leadership for the last few decades has been derived from the celebrity version — celebrity CEOs and political leaders (witness the recent and current political leadership issues in the UK) instead of leaders who actually make change through empowering their colleagues:
Leadership without willing followers is vain, in every sense. It only has value and legitimacy if it is rooted in a healthy organisational context, in a business where employees are working towards a common goal.
But here is the exciting bit for me — What are the implications for business schools?
The answer is obvious. A grasp of finance, strategy, marketing and all those other exciting “big picture” subjects only forms part of a serious leader’s education. Those sometimes neglected or disdained topics — organisational development and behaviour, communications, team dynamics — that are often rejected as insubstantial turn out to be crucial to success as a leader. (MQ bolding)
It certainly is obvious to me that the business student needs a wide range of skills to be a leader — and that those skills now, more than ever, rest with learning how to work with others, how to collaborate, how to communicate, how to think very broadly and creatively. This is not to say that the business basics are necessary. Of course they are — but here is an opportunity to provide our students with key leadership skills which they are going to need if we want them to lead us in the “next” economy.
Am having fun with the DAVOS mantra (rethink, redesign, rebuild) and adding more “re’s” — rebalance and refresh. In the case of business education, it does seem like there is an opportunity now to rethink what b-schools are delivering (given the rapidly changing business context), to rebalance the curriculum (thinking about leadership in the new carbon economy), and to refresh how we teach and learn. I am meeting colleagues in the UK b-schools who very much are acting upon this — but we need more momentum and possibly a global network to push these changes faster and further. More on that later.
Stefan ends by noting that we can’t force business schools to change form the outside (aside from the concept of competitive advantage for those that move quickly to change their offerings).
Schools will have to be brave, intellectually and commercially, and make some big changes. In other words they are going to have to show some leadership.