Mentoring thoughtful citizens leaders for active involvement in a democratic society
Contributed by – Prof Dr Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool
Leadership is about mastering the paradoxes. It is about the natural processes of finding meaning in the ' ying and yang' of 'living and doing'. Leadership is a process and not a position. Leaders are those that are able to find a meaning and coherence, between apparently contradicting choices. It is about discovering higher order purpose for self and the eco- system that one serves
What is leadership?
Leadership is a responsibility and a privilege- one cannot thrive without the other. Leadership is about consistency, being predictable and dependable. Leadership is discovery. It is all about assuming responsibility and accountability for upsides and downsides of a choice(s).
Action of Leadership
Business Management education, over the decades, has however tended to focus more on techniques, theories, styles and frameworks to anchor the development of B School graduates, as potential future leaders. This tool kit has run its life and needs transformation, both in terms of positioning what type of leaders would be required tomorrow and how they should be nurtured today. The existing tools have not sufficiently impacted and inspired the mindset of B school graduates to realize their potential to lead, through focus on action. The 'intent to lead' has begun to overpower the 'action of leadership.'
Global Citizen Leader
Global Citizen Leader thus mentored will surely have to remain focused of the Triple Bottom Line, by not just planning the optimum utilization of resources but also by being extremely conscious of the fact that one will be able to achieve the self-team-organizational goals only by collaborating with the multi-ethnic teams located in different geo-political-cultural arenas across the world.
Collaborations
WeSchool is collaborating with the best in the business, to learn how to prepare the ' Global Citizen Manager ' of today and tomorrow. Center for Creative leadership (CCL), a US based organization in the space of leadership development joined hands with WeSchool recently to create an unusual program aptly titled ’Leadership Beyond Boundaries’ that has a blend of innovation and leadership development.
Leadership beyond boundaries
The journey through ’Leadership beyond Boundaries’ was an excellent opportunity for management graduates to confront such conflicts and actively work out solutions, test their ideas against and with their peers.
Building trust
At the end of it, each team with participants from diverse management programs like Healthcare, Retail, Rural Management, Business Design, E-biz etc. came up with scalable business models focused on a strong social issue. With this sensitivity and empathy embedded in the mindset, one acts ethically, works toward building trust not only in one’s own team but in and around the eco-system.
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