Many universities, especially in their graduate programmes of business administration, law, education, public health, and public policy, claim their mission is to educate leaders who will advance the well-being of society in their respective fields. To cite a few examples, the Harvard Business School's formal mission statement is “to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business defines its primary educational goal as preparing “students for leadership positions in the world's foremost organisations.” The mission statement of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Manila is "to move forward the frontiers of human knowledge and enrich and elevate society.“
There are some signs that the adoption of a new leadership mission is having some impact on the field. AIM has developed a new framework built around leadership capabilities, including sense-making, relating, visioning, and inventing. The positive psychology perspective has also incorporated leadership as part of its teaching and research interests. Yet, the reality is still that research and case study on leadership is at best at the periphery rather than the centre of most top schools that profess to educate the leaders of the future.
How can we explain this disconnect between the mission and everyday practice? Based on my involvement as adjunct rather than tenure faculty at some business schools and as an Industry Fellow with the Malaysian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship & Business UMK, perhaps it is because leadership and management development is an elusive construct, riddled with so much ambiguity that it is hard to even define let alone study systematically. Perhaps it is because it is hard to grasp leadership unless you've been a tested leader.
I wonder if will students really take the mission statements of the universities they join seriously. Will they trust that these are the institutions where one can learn to develop one's leadership? Or will they view universities as places where one obtains credentials and connections, and knowledge, but not lessons about leadership? Will leadership largely be seen as a means of getting ahead, or gaining power, rather than of being understood as a serious professional calling with social responsibilities? The mission looks rather hollow.
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