We need to emphasize on training leaders, not managers: Dr Pritam Singh

He was the keynote speaker at the Conclave. MBAUniverse.com presents some highlights from his speech:

Globalization has great impact on business and Indian management education. I have structured my thoughts around four basic points: Contextualization, Changing business landscape, What business schools are doing and What we need to do in future.

Contextualization is extremely important in this era of globalization. By contextualization I mean that instead of blindly following the methodology of foreign institutions we need to understand what is relevant to Indian management education and accordingly adapt.

The world is now borderless there are tremendous inter-linkages. Global competition is a reality. Today, there is power shift from politics to economics. If we look at the kind of competencies generated we will find that today about 85% companies feel the need for more global leaders.

There has been a tremendous shift in the nature of global competition. I compare past versus present competition though a simple analogy. Till a few decades back, running a business was like driving a sedan on an American highway. It was a smooth ride. Todays business environment is more like driving your car though a busy, congested market like Chandni Chowk. You dont know who will come and hit your car and where!

Lets now examine the way B-schools are engaged in their profession. In many cases, B-schools are teaching outdated concepts. Our teaching is based on concepts that have evolved from theories. These theories themselves have been based on how businesses were run in the past. So in a sense we are using the past to guide us into the future. But how can we handle the future with old practices?

The other point that I want to highlight about our current practices is that Indian B-schools largely focus on academic disciplines like marketing and finance. But we need to emphasize on training leaders, not managers. Gandhi was a great leader not because he took CAT and got educated at a management school, but because he understood the power of a human being, and emerged a tall leader.

We need to create entrepreneurs too. We need wealth creators not job hoppers.

Today, we require leaders with unbridled inquisitiveness and a Brahminical mind to thrive. Future mangers need an opportunity-sensing mind and have an alert antenna that can spot an opportunity even in the problem.
My recommendation is that we need to build a powerful management lab where management schools can experiment and develop theories.