What qualifications should the Dean of a business school have?
May 13, 2010 1 Comment
As an aside to our current conversation what qualifications do you think the Dean of one of the world’s foremost business schools should have?
Economics?
Finance?
Commerce?
Try Ethics and Leadership.
At least that’s what Harvard Business School reckons and has appointed an expert in both – Prof. Nitin Nohria – as Dean to prove their point.
Elsewhere in this blog I have argued that business schools need to focus on what business ought to do, rather than what it should do, as it seeks to find meaning in the society in which it operates.
Understanding the mechanics of business through an MBA programme isn’t sufficient – while an MBA confers technical competence it doesn’t confer differentiating competencies like moral intelligence.
For that you need a sense of the difference between right and wrong which relies on an understanding of consistency and rationality in the way one engages in business practice.
Prof. Nohria’s appointment signals the start of a new era in the way business schools operate.
Trust Harvard to be the first.
Is there a link between reputation and sustainable competitive advantage? Does 'brand citizenship' exist? And in the crazy world of social media networking can reputation be managed? Sound interesting? Then welcome to a world in which brands and branding are defined by their reputation, the commercial sustainability of which depends on people like you and me.
If ethics and leadership are the way of the future, I have a renewed hope in America.