Professor Jonathan Gosling is Director of Exeter University’s Centre for Leadership Studies, where he heads 3 teams of people concerned with leadership. The first is a group of scholars with the primary aim to contribute to the scientific literature on the subject –and to teach students and mature practitioners drawing on their research. The second team works closely with companies on their leadership development. Current and recent partners include Generali, Amnesty International, Motorola, Royal Mail, The Luxemburg Civil Service, Campbells, M&G, Hanson, the NHS and others, including several in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The third team promotes regional development of the South West of England through the provision of short course, policy advice and organizational development.
Professor Gosling is also Head of Executive Education at Exeter University, in which capacity he is responsible for general business and management education for experienced managers.
His current research projects include research into how leaders learn from each other, feeding in to non-formal but highly focused opportunities for senior directors to learn from their peers in other companies. Celex is the title of a research programme into the measurement of leadership performance and its relationship to organizational performance. ‘Leading Continuity’ is the headline for an action-research programme studying leadership through radical and often traumatic change. Members of this project are all very senior executives from companies around the world, working through an appreciative analysis of narrative processes in organizations and communities. Other projects look at leadership in professional organizations such as universities, into the link between creativity and conformity to corporate culture, and into leadership in minority Muslim communities
As Co-founder of the International Masters Program in Practising Management (www.impm.org), Jonathan ran one of the most exciting new developments in management education. A partnership of 7 Business Schools from around the world share in the development and delivery of a series of taught modules and other activities designed specifically for experienced managers in multi-national companies. Accounts of this programme are published in a number of articles, many co-authored with Henry Mintzberg. See www.impm.org for details and downloadable versions.
Amongst a number of spin-offs from this initiative – now commencing its 12th intake – is a new Advanced Leadership Program, and RoundTables, a means for integrating the EMBA programmes of leading business schools around the world. Exeter’s MA in Leadership Studies employs a radical development of these ideas in its ‘close learning’ methodology.
Prof Gosling teaches on MBA, undergraduate and executive courses at Exeter; he supervises a small number of PhD students, is external examiner at several institutions across Europe, and an active contributor of research seminars. He is a frequent keynote speaker at both academic and professional conferences.
Prior to this Jonathan was the founding secretary of the European Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution, Visiting Professor at McGill University in Montreal, MBA Director for British Airways and Director of the PhD programme in Critical Management.
He is Trustee for a number of Charities and Foundations.