In conversation with… Eleanor Shaw
Ambition editor Colette Doyle talks to Professor Eleanor Shaw, dean of Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow, about being a female academic in a male-dominated sector, having to deal with restrictive government policies and how to prepare future generations to become ethical and purposeful leaders
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be in your current role “I have worked in the university sector for more than 25 years, having held almost every post imaginable, including research assistant, lecturer, director of research, associate principal and now dean. I actually studied at the University of Glasgow for my undergraduate degree and my PhD and very early on in my career I also worked at Glasgow. “Since then, I have worked at a number of institutions across the UK, as well as internationally. It’s nice to be back at Glasgow, contributing and hopefully making a difference; there has been significant campus redevelopment and it’s lovely to be located in the new Adam Smith Business School.” How have things changed in management education over the past decade or so since you worked as a professor in entrepreneurship at Strathclyde Business School? “That’s a really interesting question because in those 10 years we have had to deal with the restrictions and impact of the global pandemic. Covid certainly placed enormous pressure on the sector – on both colleagues and students. What Covid also did was speed up the adoption of a whole range of teaching and learning technologies and helped academia understand the potential for innovation across almost all areas of management education.
“I think too the inclusion of ethics, purpose, sustainability and related equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) topics has become vitally important within management education. Having a focus on purposeful and responsible organisations, led by informed leaders who take decisions based on data and evidence, is much more important now than it was previously. Also, work around vulnerability, followership and the power of empathetic leadership are all topics that our cohorts are keen to learn more about.” What have been the highlights of your career to date? “I am blessed because I really enjoy working in the university sector and within business schools especially, so there are any number of highlights that I can think of. One thing I absolutely adore is executive education; I really value designing programmes for participants that help them and their organisations to prosper and thrive. “For me, executive education is a fabulous vehicle that allows me to draw on my own research and create a bespoke programme fully catering to the needs of clients. I always learn so much when delivering executive education and enjoy developing my networks through engaging with external clients. It’s such a highlight when executive clients tell me how much they have enjoyed a programme I’ve designed for them and the impact it has had on them, their organisation and their colleagues.”
12 | Ambition | OCTOBER 2024
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