Leadership, like European culture, is a recently scheduled study for me. Today I had to pause and consider what exactly I must study when my clock ticks to Leadership. And, as with European culture studies, at first I couldn’t figure out why or what to study. Hmm… Perhaps why is clear. My interest in leadership is because being an effective and trustworthy leader requires a thorough understanding of the mind and people. To be a master of psychology. Do I want to be that? YES!
When I was studying at the University of Lapland twelve to fifteen years ago, I remember having a fairly negative opinion of leadership study programme, which claimed that university students would be taught leadership as their primary topic. I could not comprehend what would a person graduate with if he solely studied leadership? Upon graduation he would be master of leadership, but what is his area of expertise in what he will lead? At that time I did put leadership studies under nonsense studies, thinking it not to be a “get a real job” program. What I mean with this, if you study art, philosophy, astronomy, history, religion or leadership you’ve probably heard from parents or friends: “Why don’t you study a profession which leads you to real job?” They believe that being a mechanic, doctor, lawer or police officer are the only legitimate jobs available on the planet. Everything else is a fun learning. Not very clever people– and I was one of them. Today I want to be educated about leadership studies and hopefully you will learn something from this post as well.
In order to gain a better knowledge of leadership studies, I will Google the top 50 European universities and select one at random to study its programme. Looks like after some Googling for the top tier list I’ll be using EduRank. And for the sake of randomness I’ll ask my online friends to enter /roll 50 which will give me number from 1 to 50.
A moment later on Discord:
47 that is!
Five minutes past three o’clock on the 11th of April 2024 the forty seventh European top university is Humboldt University of Berlin. Have you heard of this university? I haven’t. Let us see if they teach leadership. If not, we will then look at the subject in Leiden or in Complutense.
Wait! While clicking more information about Humboldt, I discovered that Karl Marx studied jurisprudence and philosophy there in 1836!
Marx is regarded as one of the most significant figures in human history, and his work has been both praised and condemned. If I want to understand about leadership and what and how to study it, I will undoubtedly find the answers in Karl Marx and the Humboldt university. Some time after doing more research and typing leadership into the Humboldt search box, I came across an article about the Berlin Leadership Academy. I truly believe I’m onto something now!
Berlin University Alliance is a collaboration between the Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, the Technical University of Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. For the time being, I will rest, and the next time my calendar prompts me to study leadership, I will have the option of reading about Karl Marx, researching the Berlin University Alliance website, or continuing with understanding how Robert Schuman established the EU, about which I wrote some weeks ago. Schuman is the grand daddy who created the European Union and most likely a wonderful person to learn about leadership. So, with this knowledge on my hand I like to close this post by thanking Chris for rolling 47 and my luck of now having possibility to mirror two significant leaders: Karl Marx representing the east Europe and its socialist ideology while Robert Schuman speaks up for the western values.
Resources:
- Screenshots from EduRank website: https://edurank.org/geo/eu/ [11.4.2024].
- An article about the Berlin Leadership Academy: https://www.hu-berlin.de/de/pr/nachrichten/april-2021/nr-21429 [11.4.2024].
- Berlin University Alliance website: https://www.berlin-university-alliance.de/bla [11.4.2024].
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