Leadership Dialogue Forum, April 30, 2007

Preparing leaders for the global future: Top executives brainstorm at Leadership Dialogue Forum

Business leaders today face new challenges adapting to different cultures, growing competitive challenges, and fast evolving technology as their organizations spread across the globe.

Business schools must adapt to accommodate this broader world view, said participants in the April 30 Leadership Dialogue Forum sponsored by the MIT Leadership Center. More than 30 top executives shared their perspectives, gleaned from many years in business, academia and the nonprofit world, on how the demands of global organizations are evolving and what it all means for the future education of leaders.

Featured speakers included Steve Kerr, senior advisor to Goldman Sachs; Rakesh Khurana, associate professor at Harvard Business School; and Marcia Marsh, senior vice president, World Wildlife Fund. Peter Senge, management author and MIT Sloan senior lecturer, led the discussion.

"Given the enormity of the global challenges that we face right now, we have to change the very way we think about what it means to develop a leader," said Deborah Ancona, faculty director of the MIT Leadership Center. "It starts with people talking about values and ideas."

As businesses reach out around the world, they need to think more about legitimacy, said Khurana who is completing a book on the evolution of management as a profession. "Organizations are going to need to be a lot more careful when considering their impact on the various people and societies that they touch," he said. "Because if a society feels there's a misalignment between its goals and that of business, it's business that will suffer."

Many large companies are becoming more socially conscientious, said Marsh. "What's exciting about it is it's not a finger wagging exercise, it's much more the invention of new ways to do business, new ways to raise profits and give back into those communities in which people are working," she said.

The challenge in training new leaders is keeping up with changes caused by globalization, according to Senge, founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning. "There's a lot that seems to be shifting," he said. "I think a lot of these shifts have been going on for a long time, kind of quietly below the surface, but now they're starting to explode."

Global entities bring new challenges that are far more complex than the old problem of how to keep people connected, said Kerr. "The focus has really changed to ethics compliance and social norms," he said. "Companies have a sense of self and values that may not play well in the countries they move into."

Business schools need to consider teaching a different model of what it means to be a leader, participants said.

"We need to learn to communicate with different cultures, to be open to listening to others' insights," said Sandy Palmer, vice president of the Concours Group.

One forum participant suggested pushing for a code of ethics for business leaders that could be adopted broadly. Another suggested bringing leadership training into grade schools, teaching children about such things as social dynamics and conflict resolution. And still another said business schools should focus on continuing education, offering new insights to those in the field.

On an academic level, business schools could focus more on leadership as a science, Khurana said.

"The world is asking, are we producing the right types of leaders or are our leaders being effective," he said. "What measures should be used to measure effectiveness?"

Despite the different views, there is room for consensus, Ancona said.

"There are among us lots of different examples of things that have worked, things that have moved us forward," she said. "The challenge I give to all of us is to think about how we keep that movement going."