Leadership Development in Management Education

It is possible to summarise the objective of leadership as “direction setting”. In a large organisation these two simple words encapsulate a host of intriguing problems, sometimes nearly impossible to resolve because they involve arts of persuasion, intuition, and sheer bravado just as much as sciences of analysis, synthesis and design. But this article is about leadership development in the context of management education, which provides us with a certain degree of purchase on the problems

How to be sanguine in Sarajevo: Leadership as transformation or tragedy?

Not all successful leadership is good leadership. As Peter Drucker once remarked, the 20th century produced three great leaders: Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Conversely, many leaders who fail to achieve their aims nonetheless deserve respect and praise. In fact we can probably learn more about how to do good by studying those who struggle for it in almost impossible circumstances. This is what we had in mind when we first took a group of company executives to Sarajevo in 1996, shortly after the signing the cease-fire known as the Dayton Accord. The context was a short course on leadership of change and continuity, conceived by one of the authors, co-ordinated by the other and commissioned by British Aerospace plc (now BAE Systems plc). Our aim was to study what happens when ‘transformation’ becomes an overwhelming reality. We learned a good deal about change, continuity and leadership; but we learned more about this radical approach to management education, which is the focus of this paper. We offer as a case-study one particular encounter drawn from over 10 years of engagement. In summer of 2004 three former Prime Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina met with a group of senior executives (mainly British and American) to reflect on this particular leadership role. The paper explores both the content and process of this ‘event’, with commentary on: a) the role of the individual leader, illuminated by the fact that we studied three people who have consecutively held the same post, within and impacting on the ’same’ context; b) the practice of reflection in this particular setting; that is, how to be reflective and to draw lessons from experiences riddled with the presence of evil; c) the design and ethics of leadership development programmes in which the moral predicaments of participants become the central topic. We conclude that management education must be radically reconfigured if it is to address greatness as well as effectiveness. The emancipatory aims of so-called critical management education go some way to addressing our concerns, but our own case presents us with grounds for profound pessimism, in the light of which we find hope only in the possible cathartic effects of confronting the tragic aspects of leadership and change. We recommend leadership development and management education that engages with these ethical realities

Leadership competencies: time to change the tune?

This paper indicates how the competency approach to leadership could be conceived of as a repeating refrain that continues to offer an illusory promise to rationalise and simplify the processes of selecting, measuring and developing leaders yet only reflects a fragment of the complexity that is leadership. To make this argument we draw on two discrete sets of data: a review of leadership competency frameworks and an analysis of participant reports from a reflective leadership development programme. A lexical analysis comparing the two data sets highlights a substantial difference with regards to the relative importance placed on the moral, emotional and relationship dimensions of leadership. The implications of these differences are considered, as are ways in which the competency approach could be aligned more closely with the current and future needs of leaders and organisations. In particular, we argue that a more discursive approach that helps reveal and challenge underlying organisational assumptions is likely to be more beneficial if organisations are looking to move beyond individualistic notions of leadership to more inclusive and collective forms. Methodological issues are also raised around the comparative analysis (both semantic and linguistic) of apparently incommensurable texts

Sustainable champions: how international companies are changing the face of business in China

PublishedThe final version is available from Greenleaf Publishing via the link in this record.The book illuminates some of their transformative practices, and the impact this is having on business in China and beyond

Management education and the ethical mindset: Responsibility to whom and for what?

Paper presented at the European Business Ethics Network (UK) Conference, Ethics in Crisis: a call for alternatives, April 7-9, 2010 at Queen Mary, University of London. Final version published by Springer in Journal of Business Ethics. Original title: Management education and the ethical mindset: Responsibility to whom and for what? Available online at http://www.springer.com/This paper offers an analysis of leadership responsibility associated with differing models of the firm. Following a critique of the classical economic and conventional stakeholder theories of the firm, we proposes an interactive stakeholder theory that better facilitates the kind of ethical responsibility demanded by twenty-first century challenges. Our analysis also leads us to conclude that leadership education and development is in need of urgent reform. The first part of the paper focuses on what it means to lead responsibly, and argues that leading is essentially the practice of responsibility. The second part of the paper challenges standard assumptions about the ‘business of business’, while the third section examines in more depth how leadership education might be configured as a preparation for the enactment of responsible leadership. KEYWORDS: responsible leadership, ethics, leadership education, mindsets, stakeholder theor

Developing collective leadership in higher education

Executive summary to the interim report, October 2006; full text of the final report may be downloaded free from LFHE website but registration is requiredLeadership Foundation for Higher Educatio

Procurement and contractual choices for engineer-to-order supply chains

Complex projects are increasingly collaborative, involving ever greater numbers of multiple organisations, while also seeking to deliver high levels of innovation. To gain insight into how supply chain management might be developed to better support these developments, many have looked to high volume manufacturing to benchmark and seek best practice. Outcomes have often fallen short of expectation: in the construction sector, for instance, productivity and adversarial relationships are still a major cause of concern in many countries. While there have been some successes in transferring technologies and supply chain innovation from high volume manufacturing to engineering intensive sectors, such as construction, shipbuilding, machinery and capital goods, the more general narrative is of the difficulties that have arisen. We see these difficulties arising from underlying differences between the between supply chain types, and have developed a body of knowledge for "engineer-to-order" situations to better support such sectors. The procurement process is crucial to establishing conditions for success and is typically a major source of concern for the supply chain. Hence, we summarise the findings of a research project that focused on developing the principles required for procurement excellence and to structure the possible contractual choices in engineer-to-order supply chains

Extending customer order penetration concepts to engineering designs

Purpose - The customer order decoupling point (CODP) concept addresses the issue of customer engagement in the manufacturing process. This has traditionally been applied to material flows, but has more recently been applied to engineering activities. This later subject becomes of particular importance to companies operating in ‘engineer-to-order’ (ETO) supply chains, where each order is potentially unique. Existing conceptualisations of ETO are too generic for practical purposes, so there is a need to better understand order penetration in the context of engineering activities, especially design. Hence, we address the question ‘how do customer penetration concepts apply to engineering design activities?’ Methodology - A collaborative form of inquiry is adopted, whereby academics and practitioners co-operated to develop a conceptual framework. Within this overarching research design, a focus group of senior practitioners and multiple case studies principally from complex civil and structural engineering as well as scientific equipment projects are used to explore the framework. Findings - The framework results in a classification of nine potential engineering subclasses, and insight is given into order penetration points, major uncertainties and enablers via the case studies. Focus group findings indicate that different managerial approaches are needed across subclasses. Implications –The findings give insight for companies that engage directly with customers on a one-to-one basis, outlining the extent of customer penetration in engineering activities, associated operational strategies and choices regarding the co-creation of products with customers. Care should be taken in generalising beyond the sectors addressed in the study. Originality - The paper refines the definition of the ETO concept, and gives a more complete understanding of customer penetration concepts. It provides a comprehensive reconceptualization of the ETO category, supported by exploratory empirical research

Product, process and customer preference alignment in prefabricated house building

Much of the extant literature exploits the customer order decoupling point (CODP) from an aggregate product level. We develop a systematic approach to determine the alignment of CODP configurations at product, category and component levels, with customer preferences in terms of their customisation requirements. We adopt a participatory research method incorporating focus groups and interviews with personnel from a German case study company that builds prefabricated houses. From this we determine the product architecture. We also undertake a customer preference survey utilising a questionnaire that is based on a paired comparison technique. The survey informs customer preferences for choice for various elements of the architecture. We find that while at the product level the company produces a house that as a whole offers a high degree of customisation, at a category or components levels there are various offerings from pure standardisation to pure customisation. Furthermore, there is not always alignment between what customers want and what is actually being offered by the customer. So the company has options in terms of reconfiguring its operations, design new products/categories/components and/or seeking new marketplace opportunities. While the research has developed a technique that determines the extent to which the CODP positioning for a product architecture is aligned against customer preferences, there is a need for further research to test our findings beyond a single case study and into other industry sector contexts

The role of supply chain leadership in the learning of sustainable practice: toward an integrated framework

AcceptedArticleNOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Cleaner Production. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Cleaner Production doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.10.029Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is a topic that has become increasingly important in recent years. However, very few papers focus on studying SSCM from both leadership and learning perspectives. In this research, we carry out a content-based literature review on the intersections of Supply Chain leadership, Supply Chain Learning and SSCM; we propose a conceptual framework on how focal companies assuming a leadership role initiate and disseminate sustainable practices in their supply chains. Three types of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) strategies (i.e., reactive, contributive and proactive) have been identified in this research based on four dimensions of SSCM governance, supply chain learning, supply chain leadership and SSCM performance. It is argued that two new constructs of supply chain learning and supply chain leadership are an integral part of the SSCM conceptual framework developed from the literature and have significant implication to our understanding of SSCM