Getting Down to Business: A Look at Leadership Education in Business Schools

Abstract

In the context of business schools, the word “leadership” is widely used in missions, visions, and marketing materials. However, underlying support and the infrastructure to truly develop leaders may be lacking. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges and issues facing leadership education in the context of business education. More specifically, we highlight some of the structural challenges, foundational issues, and research related problems and identify several opportunities to address some of the areas for development. Throughout this paper, we discuss how the National Leadership Education Research Agenda can spark research that will legitimize our work not only in business, but across disciplines.