ABSTRACT
While there is debate around the impact of leadership education and development on practice, the general assumption underpinning the debate is that leadership can be taught in some form. This is reected in the number of university leadership centres across the world (e.g. Lancaster, Exeter and INSEAD in Europe; Auckland in New Zealand; and Washington, Northwestern and Pennsylvania in the US). There are also non-university organizations such as the Center for Creative Leadership (US), which has a global reach, and the Asian Leadership Institute (Thailand and Canada) that oer a variety of leadership programmes. Many business schools across the world are re-packaging MBA programmes around global, strategic or executive leadership – as opposed to management. And this is not just the purview of business schools. Kellerman (2013: 136) says that at Harvard University, where she works, ‘virtually every single one of its professional schools boasts the words “leader” or “leadership” in its mission statement’. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan Fellows programme in innovation and global leadership promises a ‘deep reservoir of resources’, ‘expanded skills and capabilities’ and a ‘change-the-world toolkit’,1 which is typical of many top-ranked programmes.
