Developing Leadership
Questions Business Schools Don't Ask
- Christopher Mabey - Middlesex University Business School, UK
- Wolfgang Mayrhofer - WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
What kind of a leader do you want to become?
The role of business schools in developing future managers and leaders has long been scrutinised and critiqued. This has been exacerbated by the recent financial crisis and many books have been written that condemn business schools for producing leaders who graduate without the ability to respond to the changing world around them, innovate, or act in a responsible way.
By way of remedy this provocative book takes the critique and debate further, proposing a number of ethical and spiritual resources including Heiggarian philosophy, classical Greek philosophy, and the Maori notion of wairua. It explores existing teaching practices and suggests ways that business schools can:
- Encourage a greater understanding of different world views
- Introduce different perspectives such as the arts, philosophy and spirituality
- Encourage the practice of responsible and ethical leadership
- Nurture innovation and creativity.
Developing Leadership is accompanied by filmed seminars exploring the central debates, and interviews with the expert team of contributors.
'A rare thing, this book gives more than the label promises. The title is about "questions", yet each chapter gives us answers to why important issues are not addressed in business schools – and what to do about it. This is a manifesto for reform, and the next big question is what will you, reader, do about it?' - Professor Jonathan Gosling, Director, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter, UK, and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership Development, INSEAD, France
The 20 essays, along with their end-of-section commentaries, uniquely challenge the traditional paradigmatic curriculum; they also provide from an insider’s viewpoint profound debate of the status quo and eclectic alternative pedagogies that complement and integrate ethics and moral authority as important attributes of business and leadership education. An important addition to all leadership collections. Highly recommended.
