Reinvent leadership

Updated on: Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Keen to expand on Indo-China ties and contribute to student exchange across borders through their MBA programme , John Quelch, distinguished professor of international management, vice-president and dean, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), says that they would like to expand their base in India.

"I am here in India to meet CEIBS alumni. We are very keen to increase the visibility of CEIBS in India and to encourage more Indian students to apply to China. The China-India axis is a very important diplomatic axis and we can contribute to facilitating this relationship by encouraging students from India and China to visit each other's countries. We already have a relationship with ISB and are keen to expand on it and we may include IIM-Bangalore as well," says Quelch.

Elaborating on their plans, he says, "The purpose would be to increase the level of student and faculty exchange between leading business schools in both countries. To make our school visible, we are also reviewing our relations with other schools and we are planning to reduce the number of collaborations to focus on schools that will help our students. We have also increased the amount of scholarships by about 40%."

Quelch says that one of the most important challenges now is to meet the deficit of leaders globally. "The challenge is not so much about training people in the nuts and bolts of business than about training them to analyse and solve complex problems in a relatively short time frame. The complexity and speed of change is such that we need more leadership that can help companies and countries to navigate through these challenging times," he adds.

According to him, business schools have to rethink the education they are imparting after the recession to focus on developing leaders who look at things holistically. "Many of the leaders and managers who are involved in the running of the financial systems in the US, for example, are graduates of leading business schools. They were taught well technically but perhaps they weren't taught holistically about their societal responsibilities to the point where they would have been able to know that shortterm money making option is not appropriate . Now, students need to be aware of multi-stakeholders and be involved in socially responsible leadership," he adds.

Times of India

Reinvent leadership

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