| |9 December 2021HIGHERReviewBusiness education should empower students to engage the world's possibilities; it shouldn't just prepare them to get jobsTo external constituencies, the dean is usually the face of the business school; to internal ones, the dean is often the driver who moves plans forward. A dean must earn the confidence of all stakeholders, marshal collaborative support, direct improvements, accept accountability for successful outcomes, and work smoothly with other leaders in the business school.Institutional Support: When business schools are academic units within larger universities, it's essential that they develop excellent relationships with the leaders of the parent institution. Schools require unflagging support from their universities if they're going to achieve their missions, deliver superb academic programs, enable scholarly research, and align themselves with best practices in management education.Organization: High-quality schools must be well-run. No one organizational structure is definitively better than another, but at a highly effective business school, the leaders will know how to organize and deploy resources, assign responsibilities, assess outcomes, create clear lines of accountability and take corrective action when necessary.Business schools need to help students and faculty develop themselves both intellectually and emotionally. A business school shouldn't simply generate new knowledge; it should establish and share its core identity and its ethical compass. Emotional grounding unifies a business school around a common undertaking. Without a common cause, faculty would simply be an amalgamation of individuals pursuing self-interested goals without considering how they fit the business school overall.Business education should empower students to engage the world's possibilities; it shouldn't just prepare them to get jobs. By offering a mix of technical knowledge and emotional motivation, great business schools will teach students how to dream the impossible in ways that are grounded in the possible.
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