Rich Wellins at DDI just published a fascinating blog post about the firm’s research into the value of different college degrees for business leaders. The title of the post is “What an MBA Program Won’t Teach You About Leadership.” Here’s the money quote:
“Leaders with business degrees were strong in five of the eight leadership skills. But so too were those leaders with humanities degrees! What’s more, the leaders with the humanities degrees were stronger than those with business degrees in three of the skills: compelling communication, driving for results, and inspiring excellence.”
That seems right to me. The question here is: “What does it mean for leadership development?â€
Leadership development and the humanities
Before we go too far here, let’s get a working definition of what the “humanities†are. Here’s one they use at Stanford.
“The humanities can be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world.”
The key is that a successful business leader needs a mix of skills. A business degree gives you necessary technical skills. What it doesn’t give you, most of the time, is a basic understanding of people and how we act.
Leadership development for the long term
If you want to develop agile, flexible leaders, you must make sure they bring more than technical skills to the table. That’s why knowledge of the humanities should be part of an effective leader’s skillset.
