Trained as an anthropologist, worked for several years as a mediator in neighbourhood conflicts in London, founded the UK's first community mediation service and was the founding Secretary of the European Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. After taking a mid-career MBA he moved into management education at Lancaster University, where he directed MBA and other programmes for British Airways and other major companies. He co-founded, with Henry Mintzberg and 3 other malcontents, a new approach to management education, the International Masters in Practising Management (www.impm.org). This takes place in six countries around the world, and has been the springboard for several subsequent innovations in helping practising mangers to improve the way they manage.
Jonathan also played a significant role in the so-called ‘critical management’ movement, launching an influential MPhil and PhD and contributing to the development of specialist conferences and interest groups. He has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Leadership, Management Learning, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and in many more practice-oriented outlets, including a regular column in Exeter's ‘Leadership Matters’. His 2005 book ‘Nelson's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Commander’ was published in for the bicentenary of Trafalgar, and is the basis of a popular series of lectures and workshops. In 2007 he will publish ‘Key Concepts in Leadership studies’ (with Antonio Marturano) and ‘Foundations in Leadership: articles in celebration of John Adair’ (with Morgan Witzel and Peter Case). (Resource: www.sobe.ex.ac.uk).
Innovations: Your current and recent research projects include research into how leaders learn from each other, feeding in to non-formal but highly focused opportunities for senior directors to learn from their peers in other companies. Why did you choose this direction of your professional activity?
Jonathan Gosling: Much research into leadership focuses on what leaders should do, or the qualities they should possess in an ideal world. I am more interested in being practical about what people can do to improve their understanding and ability in the real world. Also, we know from many studies that most people learn from doing things, and from reflecting on their own experience. So I decided to focus my research in these very practical matters.
I: According to your opinion, what are the best methods to study management?
J.G.: Of course the answer depends on what you want to know more about. In order to understand how leadership is accomplished, I think it is best to study real organizations, to carefully observe what is going on, what people do, what they believe about their actions and motives, and to work collaboratively with them to develop a deep and nuanced appreciation of how leadership actually works.
I: You are criticizing standard views of theoretical management on leadership. In your opinion what are the main 3 characteristics of leader?
J.G.: If you ask me what are, in reality, the most common characteristics, I would have to answer something like:
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A leader is someone who has followers, so this is the first characteristic;
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Most leaders are driven by a high degree of narcissism, the belief that the world will be improved if it conforms to their inner vision of how it should be; sometimes this narcissism becomes counterproductive and dangerous;
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An ability to represent a group, organisation or community to itself (to create a sense of shared identity through the appropriate use of symbols and stories); and to outsiders.
My criticisms of much leadership theory is that it concentrates on what we might wish for, rather than what we actually have to work with!
I: In your opinion in which directions will business education develop during the next 5-10 years? And will the tasks of it be changed?
J.G.: Business education must take more account of the interactive nature of society. Formal hierarchies will remain important in many ways, but business will get done by people who work across networks, around the world. So business education must be much more flexible, recognise that valuable knowledge and insight comes from many places other than the professors, and that learning should be designed to make use of experience. In the past, business schools have acted like banks: they collect other people’s experience, create generalised theories and sell these back to practitioners. I call this the ‘ATM model of education’, in which students come to download pre-packaged information. In the future business schools must recognise that knowledge can be shared easily over the internet, and academics can add value by helping to sort and prioritise knowledge, but they can no longer own it. This is called the ‘wiki model of education’, after the on-line wikipedia. (I attach a short article on this topic)
I: According to your articles leadership development is a kind of ‘character-building’. Psychologists have a thought that the character is built if the early ages and later it is very difficult to change it. Does it mean that it is very difficult to learn leadership consciously?
J.G.: No, it is very easy to learn leadership, if you want to do it. The point is to become aware of one’s own character, and to consciously place oneself in situations that challenge you to grow. There is not an ideal ‘personality type’ for leadership; and in any case, the most practical approach is to try to improve the capabilities of the people who are most likely to get into positions of power. That is why I believe it is so valuable to work with practising managers – they have proven their ability to take responsibility and to get things done. Now let’s try to build on that.
I: You are talking about importance of experience sharing between managers. But what is the role of theoretical knowledge in their education as managers and leaders?
J.G.: Whenever a manager or leader decides on an action, she or he is applying a theory about what will happen; they have some kind of model about how their actions (causes) will produce effects. The purpose of reflective practice is to make these theories explicit and conscious, to examine and improve them in the light of experience. This is what happens when managers share their experience in a disciplined and structured way. Of course it is quite different to mere gossip, or to discussions that just reinforce their existing assumptions. This is why it is so important to carefully design these kinds of learning opportunities such as the RoundTables for Practising Managers.
I: You are making stress on importance of round tables where managers could learn from each other. There is an assumption that slavik and asian cultures have the cult of Teacher, where the most trust comes to Teacher. Are the round tables relevant for such cultures?
J.G.: There is still a role for teachers in the RoundTables – to provide rigorous testing of the assumptions of the practitioners; and to introduce new concepts and theories. In the RoundTables, practitioners have the opportunity to absorb and really test the relevance of these ideas – not to simply ‘read, remember, repeat’.
Moreover, the RoundTables give people the opportunity to work with people from other cultures, and to learn how to learn in different ways. This is really important for internationals business success.
I: If you had experience of collaboration with managers from Ukraine or Eastern Europe, have you noticed any features in their mentality? And what are the quality that you would advice to perform?
J.G.: I have worked with managers from Eastern Europe on several occasions, and have found them to be as varied and individual as those from any other part of the world. Many have benefited from a state education system that gives them a very good understanding of social, economic and political contexts, so compared to managers from some other parts of the world, Eastern Europeans are often more aware of the diverse contexts of business, and of the limitations of what can be achieved through markets and enterprise (for example). As many businesses are quite young and dynamic, they tend to have a pragmatic culture, but this is of course changing all the time. I would advise managers who are thinking of joining the RoundTables to do so with a spirit of curiosity about how other managers and leaders operate, and to be ready to examine their own experience.
19.05.08
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