Let’s face it – the business world moves at breakneck speed, yet our education system for training its leaders remains stuck in neutral. While doctors, lawyers, and even realtors are mandated to continually update their knowledge, those holding the keys to the corporate kingdom – the almighty MBA – are given a free pass to coast on outdated wisdom. It’s a glaring double standard that’s not just myopic, but downright dangerous.

 

Picture this: a freshly minted MBA grad, circa 2003, steps into the C-suite in 2023. They’re armed with a toolkit that predates the iPhone, a worldview shaped before the Great Recession, and an ethical compass untested by the scandals that have rocked the business world in the intervening decades. It’s like handing a scalpel to a surgeon who hasn’t cracked a medical journal since the Clinton administration.

 

The harsh reality is that the shelf life of an MBA education is shrinking faster than the job prospects of a Blockbuster Video employee. The disruptive forces reshaping industries – from AI to blockchain to the gig economy – demand leaders who are not just knowledgeable, but adaptable. Continued education isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity for survival.

 

But it’s not just about staying relevant; it’s about staying ethical.

 

The parade of corporate scandals in recent years – from Enron to Theranos to Bankman-Fried, stealing $8 billion from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, is a stark reminder that when leaders lose their moral compass, the fallout can be catastrophic. 

 

Requiring ongoing ethics training for MBAs isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a societal imperative.

 

So how do we bridge this gap?

 

Enter the MBA Standards Board – a long-overdue watchdog for the watchdogs.

By mandating certification, continued education, and ethics requirements for MBA holders, we can ensure that the titans of industry are held to the same standards as the professionals they oversee. It’s not just about protecting shareholders; it’s about protecting stakeholders – from employees to customers to communities.

 

 

Critics may argue that imposing such requirements is burdensome, that it stifles the free market. But the free market doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it operates within the bounds of societal trust. And when that trust is eroded by leaders who are ill-equipped or ill-intentioned, we all pay the price.

 

The bottom line is this: the MBA is not a finish line, but a starting point. It’s a license to lead, but that license must be continually renewed through ongoing education and ethical accountability. Before our MBA Standards Board, not such regulation of ethics and continuing education existed in corporate MBA leadership. 

By embracing this paradigm shift, we can ensure that the business leaders of tomorrow are not just competent, but conscientious – that they have the skills to innovate and the integrity to inspire.

 

So let’s stop treating the MBA as a static credential and start treating it as a dynamic responsibility. Let’s demand more from our leaders, not less. And let’s empower the MBA Standards Board to be the catalyst for change – to not just uphold the standards of business education, but to raise them. Because in a world where change is the only constant, complacency is the enemy of progress.

 

Reading the business and financial news headlines quickly illustrates that requiring continued education and ethics requirements for MBAs is overdue. Awarding MBA’s should be more rigorous and demanding at the beginning and should involve oversight with annual ethics and CE credits. The current system, where anyone that can pay a  large sum for tuition, and a pulse can get an MBA, is not serving us well.

 

The MBA Standards Board is raising the bar to make the MBA more meaningful. 

Several times a year we email our MBA’s with new or interesting ethics and continued professional development courses options they can complete to qualify for their board membership renewal. Two short online courses are required annually, and their choice is optional as long as one relates to ethics. Time required for completion is minimal and varies per course, but may be only a few hours each.