That is consistent with my experience, in which business students are predisposed against any study relating to either to values or larger organizations. While the complaint is often that such subject matters are �soft�, people are less resistant to far softer theories of leadership which are heavily individualistic. This resulted in my being disappointed in most of my organization-oriented coursework. (At one time I thought that the causality was reversed and that the sub-par experience resulted in low student satisfaction, but as I collected more data I changed my mind.)

I attribute this behavior to how business students feel about themselves. Most are strongly individualistic. Not in a simplistic and megalomaniacal Gordon Gekko sort of way; many of them want to be part of larger organizations and improve the world. But they tend to be interested in having a lot of personal control over how the work that they do is done, and they tend to want personal recognition for it. As a result, they are not inclined to think about how they will have to fit into other people�s values, either those of an organization or society at large. While they are enraptured by great-man like descriptions of leadership, which hare similarly �soft� but appeal more to their sense of self.

There is a good chance you have read John Kotter�s �Leading Change�. It is barely more than a pamphlet, but it addresses some interesting questions about how one interacts with and changes an organization�s values.


by Aaron

Thanks for the perspective Aaron. Ironically, I think the same people who think these courses are "soft" are often the ones with the lowest job satisfaction -- many of them probably never get to experience real leadership, which can be very satisfying -- but is very hard to do well if you don't have some empathy for others and display some genuine caring for things like "values" -- one reason start-up environments are often seen as desirable is that in such small teams the human element of work can't help but shine through (which is not to say that all large companies lack that or that all small companies have it, of course).

In my experience, the organizations that take the "soft" stuff seriously tend to also have more actual individual autonomy/empowerment -- mostly because there tends to be greater trust in those teams, allowing for less need of formal structures that inhibit personal expression/power.

by Nathan Dintenfass (nathan@NOSPAMchangemedia.com)

i-f9d8ca1954ae87340521acbf2085cfcb-i Very good work, nice webpage.

by Dennis Harral (luis501@yahoo.com)