Developing school strategy: developing globally fit leaders

This paper focuses on businesses and the leaders who guide them. These businesses operate in a world facing a range of urgent local and global issues, and an effective response to these issues requires globally fit leadership. Four elements are highlighted as being crucial to developing such leadership: a contemporary mission, a global approach, a new paradigm of thought, and improved decision-making processes. The paper continues by arguing that business schools also need to respond to the urgent global issues that are currently being experienced. One of the key roles of a business school should be to lead in the development and promulgation of new ideas on leadership, but until now many have operated from the same outmoded paradigms as the businesses they are there to help. As such, they are part of the problem not the solution. If business schools are to continue to enjoy success and fulfil their future role, they too have to transform their strategy and processes to ensure they are ‘fit to lead’ in the future.