In the words of Warren Bennis, the founding father of Leadership studies, “managers do things right; leaders see the right thing is done.” 

Unfortunately, that message is scrambled by the fact that George W. Bush was the first and only President to hold an MBA.  The least popular president of modern times – below even Richard Nixon – the smoking gun suggests that Bennis’ bullish point of view on management style might need an update.

“There has been too much emphasis on the study of leadership as a heroic, individualistic calling,” says Hilary Wilce education expert and skills training consultant. Rather than being a gung-ho method to launch your career on an unsuspecting world, as Wilce indicates, the groundswell is moving more towards enlightenment:

“Out is going yesterday’s confident financial swagger, in is coming a new attention to collaboration, stewardship and human psychology. There is barely a business school in the world that is not now tweaking its MBA curriculum into a new shape for the post-crash world.”

In the sobered-up globalised world, MBA programmes are now about undergraduates auditing knowledge, reinforcing what they already know and discovering where their skills gaps are.

Where Harvard Business School once led, others followed – but even this Ivy League leader-spawning hothouse is having to take a post-meltdown reality check. It seems that the old style of training has left the faculty trailing behind many of their forward-looking, enterprising & progressive competitors, around the globe.

In the sobered-up globalised world, MBA programmes are now about undergraduates auditing knowledge, reinforcing what they already know and discovering where their skills gaps are.

Indeed, the faculty has approved big changes to next year’s MBA curriculum, according to the Economist’s Which MBA slot. Harvard is adding a required first-year course, in which will focus on leadership and self-reflection in groups of six. Very touchy-feely. The course, called FIELD (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development), will also include a consulting project and an international assignment.

The objectives behind the new trends in globalised management education are to keep up with the reality of business, says Pankaj Ghemawat, professor of strategic management at Spain’s IESE. He believes the IESE’s MBA course provides “a framework for thinking systematically about the cultural, administrative, political, geographic, and economic differences across countries and how they affect business decisions.”

Similarly, Professor Michael Luger, Dean of Manchester Business School in the UK believes his institution is riding the new wave – indeed the FT recently voted the school into their top 30 global ranking and top five in the UK, up 11 places on 2010 tables.

“Manchester’s rigorous programme stretches our MBAs – both intellectually and practically,” Luger says. “We invest significantly in the amount of client contact our MBAs experience throughout the 18-month programme, which is designed to ensure the original thinking they learn is applied to solve business challenges in the real world.”

One of the largest Business Schools in Europe, Manchester upped the ante with their Doctor of Business Administration program in 2006. “There are similarities to the PhD, in that it is just as rigorous and should produce a publishable work," says Christopher J. Easingwood, director of the DBA program at Manchester Business School. “But it has to have a strong relevant management application.”

The institution’s entry figures show that the average age of students enrolling in the Manchester DBA is 42 – on average 12 years older that the average MBA student. The course is designed for senior executives looking to investigate single issues regarding their specific industry and expertise.

In 2009, the year after meltdown, MBA courses were oversubscribed; however, numbers tailed off as the job market fell flat. Business schools have since seen a resurgence in demand by employers for their MBA graduates. The marketplace improvements began to show the end of 2010.

“After experiencing a significant decline in opportunities for MBA students between 2008 -2009, we saw a return to normal recruitment levels in the third quarter of 2010, which has been maintained throughout the year." says Jacqueline Wilbur, senior director of the MBA Career Development Office at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Management consultancies and investment banks are again in a war for talent in most markets.”

The QS Top MBA Jobs and Salary Trends Report 2010/11 backs up these claims. The report notes the finance sector as hiring 22% more MBAs in 2010, and predicts a further increase of 11% in the coming year. MBA graduate hiring in the consulting sector also increased by 19% during 2010, and is set to increase by a further 37% during 2011.

Experts predict MBA hiring in both sectors returning to pre-recession highs in the next two years. Consequently, MBA graduates of 2012 to 2014 are likely to benefit most from this future hiring peak.

Experts predict MBA hiring in both sectors returning to pre-recession highs in the next two years. Consequently, MBA graduates of 2012 to 2014 are likely to benefit most from this future hiring peak

As a result of the choppy recovery, prospective MBA students are mirroring the previous uncertainty and are increasingly opting for flexible courses that are better tailored their purposes. According to research from the Graduate Management Admission Council, out of 1,900 schools polled worldwide, nearly 60% of schools said applications were up for part-time MBAs and Masters degrees, compared to 40% in full time courses.

With many schools’ lectures now available on the web, conferencing technology improving and case studies, text books and the like available digitally, there is seemingly little need for a student to attend a campus at all. In turn, the students mood of elasticity replicates the global economy in microcosm and to a greater or lesser extent, all the main European business schools have reacted to it – with Asia being the primary target for both rising employment markets and student base. For example, illustrious institutions like France’s INSEAD have recently opened facilities in Singapore, and Lancaster University has expanded into India.

The centre of economic gravity is shifting, and herein lies the rub. While the West is still feeling the market aftershocks, there is a mass appetite in South and South East Asia for management graduates. According to Bloomberg, the number of MBA jobs reported by employers in India shot up 43 percent in 2010, and 19 percent in China. What Europe and the US does have is excellent faculties that the world still looks on with envy when it comes to leadership training.

Perhaps their flexibility towards a changing global marketplace proves Bennis’ correct after all – leaders do see that the right thing is done…