The CEO with a social conscience - how an E-MBA benefits both employee and employer
Today’s successful leader also has a social conscience
Following the financial crisis back in 2008, especially US Business Schools have been accused of having graduated MBAs with way too much focus on profit maximization no matter what the means were. For this reason there has been a development towards working more holistically with the management curriculum and adding more social conscience to the MBA journey.
Copenhagen Business School joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) in 2008, to secure high attention and dedication to research on ‘what is responsible management within the different business areas’ and ‘how to secure that teaching at CBS is developing responsible managers moving forward’. To create this new form of corporate focus and strategy there is a need to re-tool executives and thereby our Executive MBA students to secure that you are not just going to graduate as money-making individuals, but have a bigger purpose too. The CBS graduates actually get to know that capitalism has a bigger role than just creating shareholder value in the short term and that you are therefore expected to be able to adapt to turbulence of any kind in a more nuanced way.
The structure of the programme is carefully thought through
The CBS EMBA education has been designed as a journey where the structure and order of the included courses is carefully thought through to secure progression all along the studies but also to bring the participant closer to obtaining the valuable overview and holistic approach to how to lead an organisation in today’s turbulent marketplace through professional and up to date application of strategic tools. This includes adapting to an exploiting digital technology, securing flexibility and strategic innovation, entering into strategic alliances when applicable and not least – where this article started out: securing social and environmental responsibility.
We believe that if we really want our Executive MBA students to graduate as successful world leaders and real citizens of the community, they've got to understand that what is felt personally cannot be different from what they practise in their professional lives. For this reason also the leadership courses have been fundamentally developed in the programme as well.
Business Coaching
As another new add on in the programme, Coaching and reflexive leadership training is now provided throughout the E-MBA programme to help our participants learn more about themselves and their managerial styles. The learnings enhance an individual’s capacity to develop and become even more effective leaders on the job.
Open your company to the world and apply some of the consultancy reports within your organisation
For practically all the exams following each course, you are to identify an issue within your own organisation which is relevant to analyse and provide solutions and implementation plans for, during your studies. This adds real value back into your own organisation (Return on Investment) both for you (to make sure that you are able to directly apply the learnings in your worklife) and for your management and board having an ‘internal consultant’ working on an issue combining it with the E-MBA scope and analysing your current performance applying the latest tools and business areas. This can open for a lot of new opportunities and new ways of seeing the market and competitors – current as well as potential. At the same time they can evaluate the process, the abilities and whether they would like the employee to maybe also implement it in the organisation.
Getting your employer on board
Getting your employer on board is not always an easy task but a necessary step. Even though we do not require formal support from your employer, it is important to get your employer’s approval particularly when it comes to time away from work.
The Executive MBA will provide many benefits for you as well as your employer and we – the EMBA admissions managers – would be very pleased to assist you building the good and convincing business case to benefit you and your company.