Realizing Your Worth: MBA Program Trashed on Harvard Business Podcast. A Blog by Chris Jarvis

What does it take to create an outstanding leader? Apparently, not a Harvard MBA. Based on a study by Henry Mintzberg of 19 Harvard trained CEOs identified as superstars in 1990, ten were outright failures and another four are mediocre at best. Only five of the 19 seemed to be doing all right. This year alone, another 150,000 MBA's step into leadership positions in corporate America. How do MBA's become leaders we can trust?

I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Fundamental weaknesses in graduate management education are a significant cause of the current economic crisis.”

“You don’t become a manager in a classroom, and you certainly don’t become a leader in the classroom.”

“The (business) schools will claim, as many of them do, that you’re being trained not only for business, but government and for the social sector, and that’s just dead wrong.”

I like listening to the Harvard Business Ideacast (podcast). Some of the interviews are a little boring, but more often than not, I get a lot out of them. Henry Mintzberg, the professor of Management Studies at McGill University was recently featured (episode 138). He was being interviewed about his article in the Globe and Mail this past March entitled ‘America's monumental failure of management’.

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