Educating the Modern Manager

Continuous changes in both the economy and technology, as well as changes in the speed of change, suggest that managers who lead modern organizations need to be engaged in a constant learning process. Although much executive education focuses on technical and financial issues, we believe that the big mistakes in careers and organizations result from a lack of knowledge of a different kind—from gaps in self-awareness. We review executive education with three goals in mind. First, to define some key terms associated with learning and education that are often left unspecified. Second, to propose a taxonomy of learning outcomes associated with self-knowledge; the taxonomy is exhaustive in that it can account for all existing competency models. And third, to suggest that executive education will proceed most efficiently and productively when it is preceded by an assessment of the executives” capabilities, relative to their role responsibilities (present and future) and the organizational culture in which they work.