Clay Christensen is the author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. Jim Collins is the author of “Guilt to Last” and “Good to Great”. Business 2.0 – gets the two to discuss – What Makes a Great Leader?.
Christensen: Breaking an old business model is always going to require leaders to follow their instinct. There will always be persuasive reasons not to take a risk. But if you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you’ve been passed by.
Collins: Of all the persistently good companies we studied in Good to Great, only one was led by a CEO who had an MBA. The most common academic background, oddly enough, was law. I asked one of the CEOs how law school helped prepare him to be a business leader, and he replied, “It taught me to ask the right questions rather than come up with the right answers.”
