How can we learn leadership? The vision of the Europe-wide University.

In the view of many students, business and engineering education in Europe today do not sufficiently take into account complex problems, tendencies of chaos and uncontrollable business behaviour, and the lack of mutual trust in business transactions. Additionally, universities seem to fail in creating leaders, instead focusing on educating future managers. Therefore, the student-run international organisation the European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management (ESTIEM) offers a whole series of educational activities and programmes in parallel to their own university courses. It is based on the concept of experiential learning. Through ESTIEM, we, students of Industrial Engineering Management, learn and practise working in teams with shared and rotating leadership among ourselves. These experiences are to be described in the paper in some more detail, as a model for university education in industrial engineering and management. Furthermore, the following questions will be tackled: What does leadership mean today? How are problems handled by leaders and managers in industry nowadays? How can leadership to solve complex problems be taught in the university? As a consequence, it is suggested to develop out of the ESTIEM programmes, a series of university-equivalent ESTIEM courses. In the long term, the goal might be to realise the vision of a genuine Europe-wide 'ESTIEM University' in its own right, similar to normal universities which will help in shaping new leadership generation in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]