As a part-time professor of MBA classes… I was intrigued today at 
FastCompany.com … with an article More than MBAs by Jim Bolt …. Jim is chairman and founder of Executive Development Associates Inc., a leading consulting firm specializing in the strategic use of executive development and he does this better than most. It’s just that I had questions about who’s teaching leaders and what approaches are used … after reading this article.
According to Jim, “Companies are relying more on their own execs, and less on B-school professors, to teach up-and-coming leaders.” Do you agree? A more important question may be… ”How does this shift impact what is learned…?”
Jim looked at the phenomena of leader-led learning, and suggests that companies identify more “specific capabilities needed to address their organization’s marketplace challenges and to execute their strategies, then custom-design programs to build those capabilities.” He then concludes that “Since the programs are about their unique challenges, strategies, and capabilities (and therefore, often their vision, mission, values, strategy, and culture), it makes a lot more sense for their own executives to be teaching much of the program rather than outsiders.”
With this shift in the very nature of executive leadership development it has become obvious that many senior executives are not good teachers by nature… as Jim points out… and that creates a problem. Do their teaching-learning approaches for executive leader-teachers take into account how to learn and lead with the brain in mind, for instance? That would require teaching approaches consistent with the news that:
1. Intelligence is no longer considered fixed and people can gain IQ points
2. More is learned when teachers also become learners and when learners teach at times
3. The brain retains 90% more when we teach others while we are learning ourselves
4. Great end results identified at the start inspires creative and quality results in the end
5. Mistakes can become stepping stones to higher standards with a few mental tactics
Jim’s suggestion is that we learn from the pros … by observing them … partnering with them and being mentored by them. But do we really? We have all suffered situations where some pros become complacent or stagnant. “If it isn’t broke don’t fix it” … can become the slogan for such complacency.
Should those who develop a flawed mindset that assures people how today’s realities will contain tomorrow’s best … in tidy quantifiable ways … be teaching? Is it the MBA professors or the executives who could offer the best executive development for current changing markets? What do you think?
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