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This chapter examines the complexity of global leaders themselves. As global leadership research has begun to move beyond a limiting overemphasis on skills and competencies, we merge one focus on the deep structure of leader cognition with a focus on cultural identity that has matured largely independently. In so doing, we seek to push the field toward answering the broader question of what makes a global leader sufficiently complex to handle the vast complexities of the role. We place the construct of self-concept complexity as central to the performance of global leaders in ways ranging from organizational performance to social and community responsibility. By advancing our understanding of the role of self-concept complexity in driving global leadership outcomes, this research seeks to spur further theoretical development and practical application toward a deeper comprehension of the complexity of truly global leaders.

Dealing with the issue of “Can practical wisdom be taught in business schools?,” in this chapter, I argue for an inquiry-based learning approach as a way of improving today’s management education. Following along these lines, I initially focus on the current criticism of today’s management education in business schools. Then, I provide an introduction into the recent interest in the topic of practical wisdom by management scholars that emerged as part of an effort to overcome these failures of business schools. These attempts, however, remain on a rather vague or theoretical level and are lacking helpful guidance on how universities might implement this concept into their educational offerings. In order to remedy these shortcomings, I introduce a competency-based three-pillar model of practical wisdom and combine it with an inquiry-based learning approach. A comprehensive scheme highlights how the particular competencies of practical wisdom can be fostered over the successive stages of the inquiry process. Most importantly, by describing a MA-thesis program as a successful example of these ideas in application, I provide concrete suggestions of how to facilitate the growth of practically wise competencies by means of an inquiry-based learning approach.

Two major trends have shaped the international business field over the past decade: globalization and the quest for responsible leadership. Yet, what are the qualities that predispose business leaders to act responsibly in an increasingly complex, interlinked world, and thus to meet new social, environmental, and political responsibilities? How can organizations develop these qualities in their current and future leaders? In this chapter, we provide tentative answers to both questions by fleshing out some of the qualities global leaders need to succeed in a connected world and by comparing three innovative executive development programs that use international service learning assignments as a way to instill these qualities in their executives. These programs are PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Ulysses Program, Pfizer’s Global Health Fellows Program, and IBM’s Corporate Service Corps.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question ‘Why reflection is important to introduce in the teaching and learning’. This paper commences with a brief literature review on reflection, followed by the provision of tentative results of a study on the role of reflection in learning. Data collected from a sample population of 257 undergraduate students at business ethics undergraduate class in Australia were analysed. The data were collected from students’ own reflections that formed part of two of their assessments in the unit. In the first assessment, students were asked to reflect on their own moral development, using Schon’s reflection in and on action, to allow the markers understand the students’ own moral development as highlighted by Kohlberg levels and stages of Moral Development. In the second assessment, the students were asked to reflect on their personal learning as a global citizen and how this assessment has informed their views and perspective on ethical decision-making process and global citizenship using one of the frameworks introduced during the semester (e.g. situation, task, action, result, learning, planning – S.T.A.R.L.P., Gibbs or Kolb). This paper will not discuss students moral developments levels or their ethical decision making, but, will only discuss the ‘reflection’, thus, the findings from this research come in twofold: (i) students acknowledged the new skills they gained, the development of other skills they had through their reflections, such as critical thinking, time management. (ii) Most of the students have demonstrated an understanding of reflection in higher education, and ethical decision making, through use of different frameworks. However, some students felt reflection is difficult, thus, the paper concludes with a recommendation to introduce reflection in the first year of university.

Highly publicized scandals and increased stakeholder activism for sustainable development have resulted in calls for more responsible global leadership. At the same time, emerging economies characterized by weak institutions, political instability, and a shaky rule of law have gained in importance for global business. Under the lens of responsible global leadership, we highlight the challenges that global leaders face in addressing the needs of diverse, cross-boundary stakeholders, with a particular focus on Western multinational enterprises (MNEs) doing business in emerging markets. We identify three prototypical approaches that MNEs and their leaders take in responding to calls for responsible global leadership, focusing on the tensions and possible trade-offs between globally integrated and locally adapted approaches. We discuss the implications in view of managerial decision making and behavior and offer recommendations for how organizations may promote responsible global leadership.

Higher education has begun to attend to the importance of collaboration and self-awareness for educating sustainability leaders. However, there has been limited discussion on how to design a pedagogy that supports the development of these competencies, particularly the development of self-awareness. In this chapter, we introduce an experiential pedagogy in which students and faculty work together to develop self-awareness as the basis for sustainability leadership. We present three pedagogical principles that support the emotional learning that is foundational for sustainability leadership: student self-discovery, faculty as co-learners, and a developmentally focused learning environment. We demonstrate how these three principles work together to enable students and faculty to grow their self-awareness, providing the foundation for sustainable leadership. We conclude with a discussion on how management educators can learn from this case to develop sustainability leaders who have the self-awareness and relational competency to lead positive, inclusive organizations that are committed to sustainable business practices.

The Covid-19 crisis has coerced organisations and business schools to rethink and reflect their practices about well-being and purpose individually and collectively. While this discourse was existent within academic and professional sphere, it was rather muted or isolated in the quest of pursuing traditional indicators of progress in terms of economic productivity. It is within this context we revisit our past interaction with the leader who has been advocating for responsible leadership which encompasses well-being and purpose amidst Covid-19. Arianna Huffington is the Founder and CEO of Thrive Global, which is a platform to help corporations in promoting individual and collective well-being. Formerly she was also the Co-founder and the President and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. In 2014, she received the Tesla Sustainable Leadership Award, after which one of the authors had an opportunity to interview her for the Sustainable Leadership Blog.¹ A staunch advocate of issues like climate change, gender equality, work-life balance and youth empowerment, Arianna exemplifies the commitment to articulate and implement purpose-led corporations, proposing the People–Planet–Profit approach to leadership . By shedding light on Arianna’s perspective this chapter suggests reflective pointers for decision-makers in management education, these are follows: (a) business schools can lead integrating sustainability in their purpose and practice; (b) relevance of the spiritual dimension and its significance in business schools and organisations; and (c) proposing a holistic view in comparison with a traditional view of business education. Finally, we also posit that her practice as role model for responsible leadership during Covid-19 reflects consistent adherence in her past and present discourse about responsible management issues. Thus, her insights can help leaders of public, private and social organisations to grapple with complex organisational issues arising due to of Covid-19.