In the land of the blind.... (leadership classes)

Economist (US), The, June, 1988

LEADERSHIP has become a hot topic of business education. What is it? Can you teach it? What is the difference between leadership and managerial ability? Whatever the answers, the questions themselves are enough to guarantee a place for "Leadership" on many a business school's curriculum; they inspire arcane articles on the subject; they fill conference seats with would-be-leaders' bottoms.

At a recent Harvard Business School reunion, Mr jay Conger, a professor at McGill University, shrivelled the ivy by challenging the dominant view at Harvard that leadership cannot be taught. Mr Conger, who calls himself a "behaviourist", reckons that if students can be taught tennis they can be taught leadership.

He shows his MBA students films of such "charismatic...

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