The Independent MBA: It's all in a dean's work

What does it take to run a good business school?

The shelves of business school libraries are groaning under the weight of research into leadership. Hardly a month goes by without the publication of some weighty tome advising organisations how to choose the best leaders. Yet, when it comes to putting theory into practice, academics seem to fare no better than their corporate counterparts.

"It's very difficult," argues Leo Murray, who is about to leave Cranfield School of Management after 15 years in charge. "The longer you are in a place, the harder people find it to imagine what it would be like with someone else." Cranfield has set up a selection committee and hired headhunters to search for his successor. It is proving a lengthy and expensive process, partly because the checklist of requirements is so complex. "Managing a team of highly individual academics is not easy," argues Murray. "It's been said that the relationship between a dean and his or her school is like that between a fire hydrant and a pack of male dogs." A former tobacco company director, he readily admits that his own transition from the world of business to academia was far from easy. "I suspect my successor will come from a more academic background than me. But he or she must be credible in the world of business."

Getting the wrong match can have serious consequences. The economist John Kay's now famous irritation with the bureaucracy of Oxford University life led to an early exit from his post as dean of the Said Business School, followed by months of damaging headlines. His successor, Anthony Hopwood, has had to tread a much more careful path between the traditions of the university and the development of the business school.

These tensions are increasing as schools grow in importance and financial strength. The MBA market provides a lucrative source of income for universities, which are keen to keep control of their business schools' budgets. At the same time, deans are struggling to find funds to attract better faculty and meet the needs of increasingly demanding students. Jonathan Slack, the chief executive of the Association of Business Schools, points out that many business schools have grown into multi-million-pound businesses in their own right. The salaries that deans command are also on the increase: "It could be anything from £50,000 a year to over £300,000," says Slack. The new Dean of London Business School, Laura Tyson, is rumoured to have been offered a substantial salary when she came from the United States to take up her post. This may be the exception rather than the rule, but it underlies a trend of deans becoming more like corporate chief executives; highly paid, high-profile ambassadors for their schools.

Laura Tyson's academic background as an economist is impeccable. But the former adviser to Bill Clinton acknowledges that a big part of her role will be to fund-raise for London Business School. "We need to build an endowment and fund-raising stream, and to develop partnership with corporate clients." Some eyebrows have been raised by reports that, like her predecessor John Quelch, she may not stay more than a few years. "There's a trend towards shorter contracts," she says. "A five-year dean's term is now more normal."

Since the average chief executive spends less than three years in a job before moving on, it is hardly surprising that business school deans are following suit. "There's a natural period of impetus for getting things done," says David Hatherly, who is about to step down from his three-year term as the director of Edinburgh University's Graduate Business School. "We have started to put out feelers for a successor. He or she should be a good talker, who can lead from the front and get us noticed. Ideally we want someone who will play well in the corporate boardrooms of Scotland." Unless the dean can impress the companies who sponsor MBA students and pay for executive education courses, they will have failed.

Over the past two years, more than 50 top jobs have changed hands in UK business schools. Stephen Watson, who left Lancaster to go to Henley Management College last year, admits that he spends most of his time as an ambassador for his academic colleagues. "You need a degree of business acumen but you also need to understand and respect the academic ambitions of your faculty," he argues.

Times may be changing for the person at the top, but most business school lecturers are part of a university structure where staff have tenure. Leslie Hannah, who joined Ashridge 18 months ago from the City University business school, says this can be a frustrating realisation for someone from the commercial world. "It comes as a shock to some people to realise that if a member of staff is performing badly you can't easily get rid of them. In academic life, influencing, rather than hierarchical skills are most important."

Now contemplating a less stressful existence, Leo Murray believes leadership in academia is particularly difficult. "When I ran a large business turning over huge sums of money I could measure my success and my power easily. Here there are no clear boundaries." But, he says, there are huge compensations. "I think I managed to make myself quite useful. I've rubbed shoulders with people from all walks of life, and discovered how their businesses work. This is a great job for a nosy person."