Advancing Relevance and Rigor in 21st Century Leadership Pedagogy Through a “Blended Learning” Experiment

Business schools all over the world claim educating leaders as a primary objective. Consider these from the “mission statements” of prominent players: • “We educate leaders who make a difference in the world” (Harvard Business School), • “…to develop innovative, principled, and insightful leaders” (Stanford Graduate School of Business), • “Through teaching, we develop responsible, thoughtful leaders” (INSEAD) At the same time, however, there have been many claims that business schools have not delivered on these commitments. Just two weeks ago, Robert Reich, a former US Treasury Secretary, criticized Harvard Business School for “inculcating in [its graduates] a set of ideas and principles that have resulted in a pay gap between CEOs and ordinary workers that’s gone from 20-­‐to-­‐1 fifty years ago to almost 300-­‐to-­‐1 today,” implying that social ills have been a direct result of the content and nature of the school’s leadership training.1 David Brookes, writing in the New York Times on September 22 suggests we are experiencing a “leadership crisis” in today’s world.2 There is a pressing need for leadership pedagogy to (continue to) evolve, especially in business schools. Progress needs to be made in terms of content, but also, in this time of MOOCs and advancing educational technologies on every front, in terms of modes of delivery.