How to Teach Business Leadership in the #MeToo Era

The world is swiftly changing in no small part as a result of the #MeToo Movement. At its start, the movement was about abolishing sexual harassment and assault at work and beyond. Now, it includes the fight for equal pay and tackling inequalities in the workforce.

As a result, business schools have no choice but to evolve both in the practices at their own offices and in the curriculum they present to students. As they help graduate business students prepare for leadership, they must address how to manage a team and act professionally in this new world.

Charlice Hurst, assistant professor of Management & Organization at University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business, recently broached this topic in the school’s internal publication. She believes business schools have some responsibility to better educate students about sexual harassment, which she learned is often glossed over in workplaces.

“What students need to know about sexual harassment is integral to a host of topics future managers need to learn, including organizational culture, human resources systems, leadership, and self-management,” writes Hurst.

“If anything, establishing how these factors are linked to sexual harassment could better ground the concepts. Moreover, it may spark student interest. #MeToo has captured their attention.”

Clearly, business schools have to address the subject. But how do you teach people – who are already adults – how to behave? Navigating these waters can be tricky. Here are some suggestions for teaching future business executives how to lead in the #MeToo era.

Consider ethics courses as a model

Once upon a time, business schools debated whether they could actually teach ethics to students whose moral compass was likely established long before arriving at a top MBA program. Yet, after scandals such as Enron, schools began to unroll ethics education in various formats. The same can be true for issues of sexual harassment and inequity at work.

Even if students already recognize using certain language or touching colleagues in a sexual way is inappropriate, they might not understand what lapses in this judgment can mean for morale or the kinds of training and procedures that should be enforced.

Business schools can step in and provide frameworks and conversation to help inform students. They can give them a map for at least considering the approach they’d like to take as a leader.

Employ relevant case studies

Presumably, courses related to equality and sexual harassment will include relevant case studies. There should be studies related to biases, pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, and the general lack of diversity to name a few relevant issues.

Reading the experiences of others and discussing different reactions and outcomes within class can help students forge a better understanding. It also can get people comfortable talking about understandably uncomfortable topics. Note to business schools: if the case studies don’t exist, you can write them.

Allow for open communication

Sexual harassment is bad. No one disputes that. But defining sexual harassment can be more complicated and nuanced as there are varying degrees of misbehavior. There are also some actions that can be misconstrued. Some people think if someone else feels violated – regardless of what others did or didn’t do – then they’ve violated the rules. Others think that’s not the case.

To best come up with fair policies that work for the majority, you have to be able to have hard conversations. Universities have the tools and history to create the best environment for such discourse. This might require less than politically correct language at times, but the ends will justify the means.

These subjects sound like fodder for the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Interpersonal Relationships course, nicknamed ‘Touchy Feely’. No one can know for sure what is discussed there because students and administrators keep everything strictly confidential, but the idea is that people are free to speak and even get emotional free of judgment. That’s the kind of required communication to tackle these more challenging topics.

Offer real-life examples

Sexual harassment is not happening in a vacuum. As #MeToo first trended on Twitter, the world realized that many people have confronted these issues in the workplace. Professors must have some first-hand experience upon which they can draw. In other words, share your stories, whether you were a woman who had been harassed or a manager confronted with harassment among employees. First-hand accounts make the stories real.

Get down to business

Beyond the hurt feelings and morality, professors should rein in the conversation to include how these kinds of scandals influence the bottom line. A culture of harassment and inequity produces an unmotivated team. That means it produces less.

In addition, if and when these bad actors are revealed to the public, the bad publicity can shake – or even destroy – a company. Students have to realize that the future of whatever business they are leading is dependent on fair, strong, moral policies and procedures. Managing human talent and relationships must be a top priority for success.

Future business leaders and the business schools that educate them have an obligation to society. They should be shining a light on the wrongs in the world—and trying to make them right.

In the new world, businesses have missions greater than beefing up the bottom line. People expect them to contribute to society in ways big and small. They anticipate CEOs feeling concern about how their work affects the surrounding community and their employees. Businesses have to care about people or they will be shunned and doomed to failure.

So, inequity can’t last, and business schools have no choice but to address this as they educate the next generation of senior executives and CEOs. 

Lead image credit: Prentsa Aldundia (Flickr)