Giving Voice to Values: An Innovative Pedagogy for Values-driven Leadership Education

Abstract

Is there a place for education for wisdom in management education? And if there is, how could it be achieved? In their book, Wisdom and Management in the Knowledge Economy, Rooney, McKenna and Liesch (2010) discuss the unique responsibilities and challenges of management education and they pose several difficult questions. They wonder how business education can educate the whole person, preparing the individual to reflect upon, question and actively choose the objectives they are pursuing in their professional lives, as opposed to merely imparting tools and analytics that students might employ unquestioningly to the tasks set before them. They lament the lack of critical commentary by business schools on the role and purpose of business in our lives and wider society, even while they point out the difficulty in pursuing such a critique when the schools are so closely tied, economically, to the businesses they might call into question. At heart, Rooney, McKenna and Liesch are questioning whether business schools are primarily institutions for higher learning and education, or whether they are something more akin to vocational training? This is a genuine question, not mere rhetoric.