ICASL concludes benchmark leadership programme with INSEAD

Monday, 27 June 2011 01:06 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Yet another ambitious initiative by the country’s national accounting body, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) together with one of the world’s leading graduate business schools, INSEAD, came to an impressive conclusion recently with the four-day global leadership programme drawing some of the country’s very high-end professionals.

The highly inspiring and sold out INSEAD–ICASL Global Leadership Programme was conducted by the renowned Professor of Leadership Prof. Thomas Mannarelli from the faculty of the INSEAD Business School during a period of four days at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo.

The participants for the programme ranged from vice presidents, directors, chief executive officers, chief operating officers, chief financial officers, divisional heads, managers and partners from a diverse group of companies in the country.

The programme explored various thought provoking topics which are pertinent to corporate leaders in today’s context including the primary challenges many successful managers face when transitioning to more senior leadership roles.

During the programme, Prof. Mannarelli articulated in detail how corporate leaders should navigate through the transitioning process and where it was most imperative for them to focus their energy and attention.

While elucidating that regardless of the setting, management decisions are necessarily

made under conditions of uncertainty and risk, he highlighted the fact that as executives face greater turbulence and increased change demands in their decision-making environments, the importance of understanding and avoiding cognitive traps and identifying biases in decision-making was therefore becoming increasingly critical.

The four-day leadership programme which concluded on 18 June kicked off on 14 June at a special ceremony held at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo.

ICASL President Sujeewa Mudalige commenting on the landmark programme said that the tie-up with INSEAD was indeed a proud moment for ICASL. He maintained that cutting edge executive education in Colombo was lacking but this void has been filled following the INSEAD–ICASL tie up.

He also announced that ICASL was hoping to offer many more short and medium term partnerships with INSEAD.

Prof. Mannarelli speaking at the launching ceremony stressed that leadership is a continuous learning process and therefore executive education was very important because there are always new things to learn about leadership.

Intake for the second batch of the ICASL-INSEAD Global Leadership programme is currently in progress which is scheduled to be held in September this year.