Barnard on leadership development: bridging action and thinking

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore an effective educational method for leadership development. Design/methodology/approach – In order to achieve the objective of the paper, Chester Barnard's insights on leadership and its development are reviewed: the gap between action and thinking; practitioners' ways of thinking and moral senses; combinations of abilities and qualities for leaders; and an educational method for leaders. Findings – The paper concludes that when business school students write their own cases and explain them comprehensibly for others who did not experience the situation, they can enhance their abilities to observe and deeply analyze situations and are given opportunities to reflect and share their experiences. Research limitations/implications – The paper proposes the idea of the educational method, so, in the future it would be possible to show how to implement this method concretely. Practical implications – The paper suggests that it would be effective to develop an educational method based on practitioners' ways of thinking and sensing. Originality/value – The paper indicates that practitioners develop their own ways of thinking and sensing that are different from researchers' ways of scientific thinking. Practitioners' ways of thinking and moral senses can be learned in educational institutions by using rich cases including participants' intentions and interpretations.