Centre for Arts and Leadership

Centre for Arts and Leadership Development and Research

The Centre for Arts and Leadership Development and Research is dedicated to dynamic, innovative, challenging and provocative projects of experiential leadership exploration. Through music, visual art, film and performance contemporary and future leaders plumb the depths of leadership practices to develop creative, aesthetic, and holistic approaches to responsible leading. Through cutting edge, real-world research the Centre for Arts and Leadership Development is not only a place of practice but a place of knowledge creation and dissemination. Research activites explore the arts in action, as vital and dynamic aspects of social life with real relevance in everyday life and leadership.

The Centre for Arts and Leadership Development and Research seeks to prepare leaders for tomorrow's challenges by:

Fostering reflective, socially responsible leadership
Fostering creativity and creative skills in leadership
Fostering beautiful leadership through artistic practice
Promoting the importance of the arts in business and life
Promoting aesthetic visions of organisations and businesses

The MBA Innovation Award

IEDC-Bled School of Management is the global forerunner in integrating the arts into management and leadership education.

This unique approach to leadership development, which is incorporated into the core MBA curriculum, has been in2012 acknowledged by The Association of MBAs (AMBA). IEDC won The MBA Innovation Award for being one of the four most innovative programs - among more than 700 MBA programs, from 199 business schools in over 75 different countries. The world needs creative leaders more than ever before, and art is a tool to develop creativity. In order to be able to develop creative leadership, we must also provide a creative environment.

IEDC like an Art Gallery

IEDC looks like a gallery with more than 200 pieces of modern and contemporary art, not particularly for aesthetic aims, but especially as a source of reflection. An art commission established, IEDC- Bled School of Management is continuing its work on building a representative collection art. IEDC-Bled School of Management is a place where employees, students, professors and visitors enjoy the best that modern and contemporary art have to offer. However, the variety of art which can be seen in every part of the school, including the garage, especially inspires those who either come to the school to learn, or just to visit, to use all their skills and creativity to learn more about themselves, thereby developing the necessary skills which will enable them to play important roles in the world. We hope that they will not only strive for something more, but also for something better, and that their behavior and solutions will become “artful” and “beautiful”. The IEDC-Bled School of Management plays an active role in promoting the integration of artistic concepts and methods within our leadership development curriculum.

A Creative Environment for Creative Leadership

In 2013, IEDC published a book titled ‘IEDC - A Creative Environment for Creative Leadership’. In this book IEDC’s President Prof. Danica Purg and IEDC faculty members Dr. Ian Sutherland and Prof. Arnold Walravens contributed the discussion on connections between Art and Leadership practice based on the experience in IEDC. Lilijana Stepančič, the art historian and IEDC alumna, describes the art collection; finally, architect and artist Matej Mljač writes about the architecture of the school and its well-known architect Prof. Vojteh Ravnikar.