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Can Business Schools Humanize Leadership?

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Can Business Schools Humanize Leadership? Q Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2015, Vol. 14, No. 4, 625–647. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2014.0201 ........................................................................................................................................................................ Can Business Schools Humanize Leadership? GIANPIERO PETRIGLIERI JENNIFER LOUISE PETRIGLIERI INSEAD This article examines how and why business schools might be complicit in a growing disconnect between leaders, people who are supposed to follow them, and the institutions they are meant to serve. We contend that business schools sustain this disconnect through a dehumanization of leadership that is manifested in the reduction of leadership to a set of skills and its elevation to a personal virtue. The dehumanization of leadership, we suggest, serves as a valuable defense against, but a poor preparation for, the ambiguity and precariousness of leadership in contemporary workplaces. We propose ways to humanize leadership by putting questions about the meaning of leadership—its nature, function, and development—at the center of scholarly and pedagogical efforts. Reflecting on our attempts to do so, we argue that it involves revisiting not just theories and teaching methods, but also our identities as scholars and instructors. ........................................................................................................................................................................ “In any world, I think you need to balance two learning, show integrity, care. Cliched´ as it may kinds of sanity: A sanity of reality by which you sound, he concluded, “leadership really is all about connect your actions to their consequences; the people.” and a sanity of identity by which you connect Students clapped, professors nodded, and a few your actions to a sense of proper behavior. skeptics rolled their eyes. One could almost be ex- Reality gives only limited justification to an cused for ignoring that the kind of leadership he intelligent leader. But a socially embedded stood for has lost most people’s trust—as have the sense of self, an identity, can keep a leader institutions that host its celebration. A decade of resolute.” corporate scandals, financial meltdowns, and grow- —James March (In Podolny, 2011: 505) ing inequality has consolidated a discontent with business and political leaders that is as evident in Not long ago we joined students and colleagues for systematic surveys (Edelman, 2014; World Economic a cherished ritual at business schools such as ours. Forum, 2014); as it is in the protests on streets and A Fortune-500 CEO had come to speak about lead- squares around the globe (Haque, 2011). Such leaders’ ership. The venue was full and the speaker com- leadership, popular sentiment goes, is hardly about pelling. His flair animated a somewhat standard and seldom for “the people.” Most people are, at script for corporate leaders’ personal epics: persis- best, resources for and, at worst, casualties of their tence in the face of setbacks, openness to opportu- maneuvers—which benefit restricted, impermeable, nity, regret for not having spent more time with an and self-serving elites of fellow leaders by title only. ailing spouse, the wish that future leaders would not No longer serving as role models and stewards of the need to sacrifice as much of their personal lives common good (Mizruchi, 2013), theseso-called leaders as he had. His advice was sensible: Deliver, keep are often viewed as rapacious, disconnected pluto- crats who profit disproportionately from globaliza- Both authors contributed equally to this article and are listed al- tion, rent seeking, and lenient if not subservient phabetically. We are grateful to Robin Fryer for her dedication to regulatory systems (Freeland, 2013). helping us improve the article, as well as to Associate Editor Carolyn Egri and three anonymous reviewers for their encour- By ignoring the rift between people in leadership aging and insightful feedback throughout the review process. positions and their potential followers, however, one 625 Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only. 626 Academy of Management Learning & Education December can easily become complicit in sustaining it. This is In this article, we employ a systems psychody- the essence of critiques of business schools, the namic perspective to examine why in the face of standing of which mirrors that of their alumni in high such analyses, authoritative critiques, and evident offices. As those executives’ values, motives, methods, urgency little appears to have changed. This per- and allegiances have been brought into question, so spective endeavors to reveal the covert motives have those of their almae matrae. Business school underpinning the persistence of dysfunctional critiques are a burgeoning literature. Some reject the structures, conventions, and practices in groups, focus on leadership (Mintzberg, 2004) and lament organizations, and societies. It is particularly well- educators’ excessive reliance on abstract, analytic suited to circumstances in which available evi- models that neither prepare students for the work of dence and sensible advice are overtly applauded managing (Datar, Garvin, & Cullen 2010; Rubin & and covertly resisted. This is the case in many Dierdorff, 2009), nor make a difference to their careers business schools, whose curricula ignore even their (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). Others express concerns that own faculty’s research on learning (Brown, Arbaugh, business schools may develop leaders whose values Hrivnak, & Kenworthy, 2013) and leadership and actions reflect amoral ideologies (Ghoshal, 2005), (Klimoski & Amos, 2012). In such circumstances, lack of concern for society (Khurana, 2007), gender bias a systems psychodynamic perspective posits that (Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb, 2011), and positive attitudes to- members’ investment in practices that fulfill their ward greed (Giacalone, 2004; Wang, Malhotra, & emotional needs may distort the way a system per- Murnighan, 2011) that are implicit in management forms its task and undermine its ability to adapt research and pedagogy. to changes in the environment (Fotaki, Long, & Either by doing too few of the right things or too Schwartz, 2012; Gould, Stapley, & Stein, 2004). many of the wrong ones, critics argue that business We build on the systems psychodynamic notion of schools do a disservice to students, organizations, business schools as identity workspaces, that is, as and society by churning out graduates who are ill- holding environments for identity work (Petriglieri & prepared to lead (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005). And they Petriglieri, 2010). Resting on a view of learning as have argued it for a while. At the turn of the century, becoming (Lave & Wenger, 1991), this conceptuali- Gioia (2002) warned that unless they shook off their zation highlights that business schools are venues complacency and challenged the dominance of where students (and faculty) craft, revise, or affirm economics in faculties and curricula, business ac- who they are, where they belong, and who they ademics should not be surprised if cynics believed might become. During their time there, students do that they trained executives “bereft of socially re- not just acquire knowledge and skills through study sponsible values” (p. 143). In the aftermath of the and practice. They also address existential and financial crisis, Podolny (2009) noted that those cultural questions, such as “Who am I?”“What do I warnings had not been heeded: “So deep and care about?”“What does success look like?” and widespread are the problems afflicting manage- “What does it take to lead well?” (Khurana & Snook, ment education,” he wrote, “that people have come 2011; Petriglieri, 2011). Answers to these questions to believe that business schools are harmful to so- are refined in interactions informed by institutional ciety, fostering self-interested, unethical, and even discourses and norms, and they ultimately shape illegal behavior” (p. 63). Four years later, conclud- graduates’ identities and orient their actions (Scott, ing an evidence-based book on the state and pros- 2010). pects of business schools aptly titled Disrupt or Be In this article, we are concerned specifically Disrupted, Dierdorff and Holtom (2013) warned that with the production and development of leader unless business schools overcame their inertia, identities in business schools. That is, the recursive they were doomed to irrelevance. process through which theories and images of what leadership is and what leaders do serve as tem- plates for the kind of leaders students aspire, work, “Either by doing too few of the right things or or struggle to become. Looked at through a systems too many of the wrong ones, critics argue that psychodynamic lens, we argue that the persistent shortcomings of business schools exposed by the business schools do a disservice to students, aforementioned critiques are not the result of neg- organizations, and society by churning out ligence, incompetence, or malevolence, rather they graduates who are ill-prepared to lead.” are manifestations of the commitment of business schools to a process that we term the dehumanization 2015 Petriglieri and Petriglieri 627 of leadership. This process involves a
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