Teaching Leadership in Context is an article by Henry Mintzberg about the fact that you can’t really create leaders by teaching the theory about it. You need a mix of experience, exchange, and insight within that context and personal understanding. I admit that I might be barely ready to do the MBA I am doing now, but a great thing about the part-time MBA Systems, like the one of the Open University Business School, are that you are still working. You are still gaining experience. You are trying to link stuff together. I was self employed but I chose to work at a bigger company because of what Mintzberg is saying here. I was loosing out in things like People Management where I saw the theory but didn’t get the experience. The experience is very very important really and the biggest stumbling block within the OUBS Courses I think.
Mintzberg ist founding director of IMPM, the International Masters Program in Practicing Management. This is a really amazing course where you really have to be in top management to even start and get something out of it. There are 5 modules split over different universities world wide. There was a very good article about it in the Harvard Business Review recently. Now this is a thing I could see myself doing in maybe 10 or 15 years. The experience must be amazing.