Prof Eric Guthey, Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in Denmark, visited the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership (ALCRL). His visit formed part of the collaborative agreement between the ALCRL and CBS, aimed at establishing an international network of leadership centres.

Prof Guthey is an Associate Professor in the CBS’s Department of Intercultural Communication and Management. He earned a PhD in American Studies from Emory University, an MA in Biblical Literature and Religion from Columbia University, and a BA in Religion from St Olaf College.

With a background in the humanities and cultural history, and years of experience at business schools in Europe, New Zealand, and the United States, his research explores the interplay between media representation and the public face of business leaders, the business dynamics of leadership development, and the production of leadership via the leadership industries. Prof Guthey has written and co-authored numerous articles in the area of leadership, organisational behaviour, and management trends and is co-author of Demystifying Business Celebrity. Since 2008, he has served as a board member of the International Leadership Association and the Academic Council of the Baltic Management Institute.

During his visit, Prof Guthey had meetings with ALCRL staff to exchange knowledge and ideas. He also engaged with PhD students and presented a Brown Bag lunch seminar and a public lecture. During his public lecture, Prof Guthey focused on what he calls “leadership land” and emphasised the importance of following a critical leadership theory approach, with the emphasis on collective leadership rather than individual leadership.

Prof Guthey and Prof Derick de Jongh, Director of the ALCRL, explored the possibility of joined research projects on leadership between the CBS and ALCRL. This collaboration will inform and promote responsible leadership and transformational change in business and society via the production of new research and new theory on the leadership dynamics of sustainable change in a development context. The first step will be to organise an international network of scholars in leadership, including a jointly-authored theoretical research paper on the connections between responsible leadership, sustainability, and transformational change. It is also ensvisioned that a PhD student exhange programme be developed, whereby ALCRL and CBS PhD students in leadership studies will visit SA and Denmark in 2016 and beyond.

“I was impressed with the work done by the ALCRL,” says Prof Guthey, “and I believe this collaboration will help us to get to know one another, help each other to build a working team and create academic and practical value for both our institutions in years to come.”