Lessons of Educating Tomorrow’s Business Leaders

Regaining public trust, surviving the recession, harnessing the talents of a diverse workforce, managing globalization, addressing resource limitations, and leveraging advances in science and technology. These challenges demand that we recast our concept of what makes for effective business leadership. Leadership is best viewed not as the role of a single person, but as a process that is spread throughout the organization and considers a wide range of stakeholders. The dimensions aligned with this distributed leadership model include tenacity, judgment, communication skills, sensitivity to trends, emotional intelligence, the capacity to learn, moral virtue, humility, and the ability to create environments that inspire others. Various approaches for learning these dimensions are available beyond formal education, including self-directed learning, dialogue with others, and company-sponsored avenues. These methods are adapted to different learning styles, schedules, purposes, circumstances, and life stages, and can be made widely accessible to those who choose to improve themselves.