The views expressed here are my own, based on my perceptions.

I have written elsewhere in this blog about leadership and my diffident attitude towards it. I recoil from people who would set themselves up as leaders while recognising that visionary leadership encourages others to achieve great things, which they may have felt unable to do on their own. Cognitive dissonance? Guilty as charged.

Euan Semple has written a great post about The Price of Pomposity, in which he says:

“I would argue that pomposity represents a real, and nontrivial cost to the business world.”

Euan’s post ties in with something I have been thinking about. This is the coming to an end of a successful and innovative academic programme I have been involved with, and that has been running for the past three years. Innovations from the programme have been incorporated into an Executive MBA, which the market understands more easily.

Reflective Leaders

One of the most notable features of the programme has been the sort of executives drawn to it. These senior people could easily have been persuaded by the allure of the institution’s existing MBA, which is seen as a market leader. They chose to do something different. As a result, I have been privileged to work with people who are thoughtful, reflective, respectful and the farthest from pomposity you can imagine.

Going back to my ambivalence about leadership, the executives that joined the programme have one thing in common. They do not aspire to to be leaders as a prime objective. Rather, they have a specific thing they need to do (set up new business units, get into new markets, diversify products, deal with post-merger cultural integration etc). The excutives want to do it in a way that is good for them as individuals, for the business and for their employees.

The Executive MBA will continue to attract thoughtful and reflective people, of that I have no doubt. But there is something a bit special about pioneers who take a risk on an academic programme that many in the UK regard as an innovation too far.

I am looking forward to graduation in July. Party!