UCT offers tools to tackle leadership challenges of today

Elaine Rumboll, Director of Executive Education at the UCT GSB

According to Elaine Rumboll, Director of Executive Education at the UCT GSB, the move has been prompted by the reality that the world is changing so fast it is “simply not appropriate for courses of this nature not to change as well”.

“We are living in epochal times,” she said. “Climate change, economic crises and political instability challenge us at every point - and no-one really knows how it is all going to end. One of the roles of business schools must be to help leaders and executive understand the effects of change and the challenge of living in complex times, as well as deepen their understanding of who they are and how they will lead in such an environment.”

Rumboll says that for this reason, the new-look Leading Executive Programme has shifted its focus to understanding complexity and what course director Chris Breen calls “opening the space for new possibilities” - both in individuals and organisations.

“The course is informed by the ideas coming out of complexity and eco-systemic learning theories. It aims to challenge our dominant, and usually unconscious, reliance on linear complicated ways of seeing the world and to open up the space to see it in different ways,” said Breen. “This will include the deliberate introduction of paradigms that are usually sidelined such as African and ecological wisdom to shake up and interrogate the way delegates make decisions and how they act in the world.”

Breen added that the two week programme will be highly interactive and revolve around two key themes: personal leadership and the organisation of the future.

“Because self knowledge is the bedrock of good leadership, delegates will initially be invited to look inward and identify what they bring to the situation. They will be challenged to find what they are failing to notice and what possibilities are open for them that they are not aware of,” said Breen.

During the second half of the programme, this focus will be broadened outward to take in the whole organisation - with a specific emphasis what the organisation of tomorrow will look like.

“By working with information that each delegate brings from their own experience, we will seek to identify what the drivers of future organisations will be, what possibilities are likely to open up and what changes might be made in today's organisations to ensure that these are set on the course we want them to be on tomorrow,” said Breen.

The Leading Executive Programme will run from 23 August to 5 September. For more information contact Juanita Abrahams on 021 406 1323 or sms “LEP” and your email address to 31497.