On Leadership

Business schools and increasingly even universities have made leadership a central part of their mission, asserting that they educate and develop leaders for society.

And yet, if we look at the leading research universities and at the business schools within them, the topic of leadership is actually given fairly short shrift.

The gap between what is espoused and by the capacity to deliver is glaring. In part, I think this gap has grown because leadership is such a complex phenomenon.It's a phenomenon partly rooted in psychology with respect to the sense of identity that leaders have.

It is rooted in sociology in the sense that leadership is a social construct. It's also a negotiated relationship that individuals have with other individuals or that individuals have with society...

Leadership is also complex from an economic perspective because the consequences of leadership can't always be measured by financial measures. Some people we most honor as leaders sometimes have to deal with significant failure. So leadership can't be simply evaluated on its utilitarian outcomes.

Given the complexity of the phenomenon and its multidisciplinary nature, including its inability to answer basic questions such as whether leadership can be taught or developed, leadership research was neglected...

It is ironic, though. If we go back to the origins of the modern social sciences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is clear that scholars studied leadership closely.