“How to develop leaders and not managers”

In a March 14, 2009 New York Times article called “Is it Time to Retrain Business Schools?“, author Kelley Holland has a new take on the “where did this all go so wrong?” autopsy that everyone is performing on the current economy.

The master’s of business administration, a gateway credential throughout corporate America, is especially coveted on Wall Street; in recent years, top business schools have routinely sent more than 40 percent of their graduates into the world of finance.

But with the economy in disarray and so many financial firms in free fall, analysts, and even educators themselves, are wondering if the way business students are taught may have contributed to the most serious economic crisis in decades.

“It is so obvious that something big has failed,” said Ángel Cabrera, dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. “We can look the other way, but come on. The C.E.O.’s of those companies, those are people we used to brag about. We cannot say, ‘Well, it wasn’t our fault’ when there is such a systemic, widespread failure of leadership.”

Cabrera’s quote is the gist of the article: We the Business Community encouraged this to happen, by institutionalizing and placing extremely high value on an educational program that rewards that behavior which prioritizes shareholder return above all else, including responsibility and risk management.

As someone without an MBA, my inclination is to file this nugget away for future reference. What a timely response I could provide if asked whether an MBA is in my future.

But as someone who works alongside MBAs — and has seen first-hand the commoditization of that degree, and how it can serve as a license for managers to behave badly and to operate without conscience — I have to say that I am glad that thought leaders in the business world are finally realizing that “we have seen the enemy, and he is us.”

Manager ≠ leader.

NB: For the record, I riffed on the MBA in my About page months and months ago. It wasn’t an opportune update sparked by the NYT article!