The Handbook for Teaching Leadership
Knowing, Doing, and Being

Edited by Scott Snook (Senior Lecturer), Nitin Nohria (Dean of Harvard Business School) and Rakesh Khurana (Dean of Harvard College)

The quotes below are from the editor’s introduction of a chapter titled “Creating Leaders: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model” written by Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen, and Kari Granger in the book “The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being.” The book is edited by Harvard Business School’s Scott Snook (Senior Lecturer), Nitin Nohria (Dean of the Harvard Business School and George Baker Professor of Administration), and Rakesh Khurana (Dean of Harvard College and Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development).

“How does one teach leadership in a way that not only informs them about leadership but also transforms them into actually being leaders?  …this eclectic group of scholars argues for adopting a decidedly ontological approach to leadership education that promises to leave students actually being leaders.  Contrasting their ontological approach described as being and action as experienced "on the court" with more traditional perspectives where leadership is observed and commented on "from the stands," this chapter presents a rigorous theory of leadership education that begins and ends with the following bold promises to students:

“You will leave this course being who you need to be to be a leader.

“You will leave this course with what it takes to exercise leadership effectively.

“…by following a rigorous, phenomenologically based methodology, students have the opportunity to create for themselves a context that leaves them actually being a leader and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression."

The chapter described above by the editors is available for download at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1681682.

From The Handbook for Teaching Leadership, Chapter 16 (excerpt):

"The sole objective of our ontological approach to creating leaders is to leave students actually being leaders and exercizing leadership effectively as their natural self-expression. By "natural self expression" we mean a way of being and acting in any leadership situation that is a spontaneous and intuitive effective response to what one is dealing with." - From Chapter 16, "Creating Leaders: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model," by Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen and Kari Granger

 

Related Links:

Sage Publications: The Handbook for Teaching Leadership
Knowing, Doing, and Being

Social Science Research Network: Creating Leaders: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model

Harvard Business School Faculty and Research: Creating Leaders: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model

The Huntington Post: Winners, Opportunists, Hustlers, by Tony Smith

Widener University: Recommended reading on the topic of Ontological Leadership

The Academy of Management: Review of Harvard's Handbook for Teaching Leadership, by James G.S Glawson, University of Virginia

 

Werner Erhard on the Internet ..... ....