ABSTRACT
We reel from leadership crisis to leadership crisis. Two major (and related) types of crisis have occurred within the last fifteen years. Neither has succeeded in generating the necessary review of the nature, role and importance of leadership. Neither has caused a reduction in the emphasis on, and perceived value of, leadership as an antidote to organizational ills and failures. Neither has yet caused a significant change in the qualities of leadership seen as necessary. Indeed, leadership continues to be seen as the best and only solution to the problems caused by leadership. But despite this, the biggest crisis could be not that leadership remains defective and unchanged but that we – the business school analysts and commentators, who should be the source of much-needed analysis, evaluation, commentary and even prescription – have failed to rise to the occasion. The crises of leadership have been met by a wall of silence from academia, calling into question not only the role and contribution of business schools (once again) but also and more fundamentally the role of business schools as leaders for the processes of necessary reform and change.
