Leadership and Culture

More and more people are aware that leadership is a skill of experience rather than a class in an MBA course. A good article in the German WIWO # 38 -2007 is about this insight in European Business Schools, especially mentioned Ashridge in the UK, who do experimental learning. One of the gurus of this insight is Charles Handy, a manager of Shell in his early days and later the founder of the London Business School. Experimental Learning is done a lot in role plays and board games, but it is always the questions in how much it is really reflected. Learning subconsciously is always done, but it helps change your behavior if you really know about it and reflect on your believes.

Leader-to-Leader Institute in New York – a source for new thoughts and place to find old friends. I found this two interesting articles in Leaders to Leaders – one by Charles Handy who describes the difference of American way of leadership and the European way. A good mixture of both would be an improvement. Read the article/interview

The other article is about culture and what is culture about. Very interesting point of view from an US Major Remi Hajjar. He says: „Army leaders leverage culture. They know why it is important to take time to analyze a unit’s culture and then to form a plan that molds culture to accomplish the institution’s mission. Although the Army has a unique organizational mission–to fight and win the nation’s wars–I believe the cultural lessons from this military institution are relevant to leaders across society.“ Read the full article