Since the late Middle Ages, the notion of the “Renaissance Man” has celebrated those people who are well-rounded, broadly knowledgeable and capable across the arts and the sciences, and able to approach problems holistically. This year marks the five hundredth year since the passing of the world’s most famous Renaissance Man: Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian polymath who simultaneously excelled as scientist, engineer, writer, artist, and musician.
Today, highly educated people tend more toward specialization, but in settings that still encourage cross-disciplinary thinking, people are more likely to …
Challenge outdated assumptions and conventions of thought and behavior,
Explore and discover new realms of artistic, physical, and intellectual achievement, and
Develop different and broader visions of themselves.
The renowned twentieth-century thinker Peter Drucker offers a modern exemplar of a Renaissance Man in the field of management—itself a multidisciplinary subject. In an age when the work of running organizations was typically approached as an engineering and optimization challenge, he described management as a “liberal art.” Its best practitioners, he insisted, have always drawn on the wisdom, self-knowledge, and enlightened understanding that comes with a liberal education and continually refined their “art” through practice and application.*
Drucker lived long after da Vinci, yet shared some of the Renaissance master’s fundamental traits. Both were unusual in their intellect and talents; each was driven by an insatiable curiosity about the world around him; neither conformed to the mainstream mind-set. Like da Vinci, Drucker was born in a period of great social change, when the need for continuity (and reverence of tradition) was challenged by the need for innovation (and radical thinking). Both adopted a whole-systems perspective as they looked for connections and patterns.** For leaders, organizations, governments, and individuals today, both offer inspiring examples of the power of breaking rigid thinking patterns.
* see Peter Drucker, Management, 2008
** see Michael Gelb, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day, 2000
4. Chibuzor Ndubisi (NG) * "The Vitruvian Drucker and his Camera: A Magnum Opus for Managers" | ESSAY |
5. Dorota Nowaczewska (PL) "Difficult Art of Managing Attention" | ESSAY |
6. Rui Alvites (PT) "Multipotentiality in a World of Multiple Challenges" | ESSAY |
7. Anika M. Kennaugh (DE) "A Trip down the Styx" | ESSAY |
8. Mariana Sierra (CO) "A Renaissance man in the 21st century business manager" | ESSAY |
9. Sirma Duman (TR) "MANAGING THE CHANGE: Perfectly Inscribed in a Circle and Square" | ESSAY |
10. Karolien Koolhof (NL) "When will we finally understand we need both techies and fuzzies as leaders of our companies?" | ESSAY |
* HONORABLE MENTION FOR THE MOST CREATIVE ESSAY
Dana Kanafina (KZ) "Management in Kazakhstan - Something Nobody Expects" | ESSAY |
Qing Ze Hum (SG) "Let the Renaissance flourish anew" | ESSAY |
Fabian Höll (DE) "A correspondence with Peter Drucker" | ESSAY |
Atul Mishra (US) "Avatar: The search of next leader" | ESSAY |
Thanh Hai Tran (US) "Renovation of Management" | ESSAY |
* HONORABLE MENTION FOR THE MOST CREATIVE ESSAY
4. Kaidi Ru (CN) "Nature and Nurture - The Making of a Renaissance Manager" | ESSAY |
5. Shubhadeep Basak (IN) "How can the ideal manager of today be re-imagined?" | ESSAY |
6. Meg Seitz (US) "Look for Lapis Lazuli: Our Futures As Renaissance Managers Depends On It" | ESSAY |
7. Andrew Want (AU) "The Renaissance Decision Owner" | ESSAY |
8. Leda Cecilia Samin (JP) "No Roads Not Taken" | ESSAY |
9. Daniel Adeyemi (NG) "Everyone is Invited" | ESSAY |
10. Segun Ogunwale (NG) "7 Lessons for the 21st Century; A Keynote Address to Today’s Students as Managers of Tomorrow" | ESSAY |
Neha Agarwal (IN) "Dot To Dot: The biography of an ordinary Renaissance Man" | ESSAY |
Ngarka Lizette Beri Makwa (GH) "Collective Brain Analysis: A Polymath Manager's Ability to Make Sense of the Little Bits in Making Strategic Decisions" | ESSAY |
Nishiggandha Kerure (IN) "The Art of Doing It All" | ESSAY |
Mirjana Lakovic (RS) "5 C’s Of a Renaissance (Wo)Manager" | ESSAY |
Amrutha Das (IN) "Contemplations of a Millennial on developing a Renaissance Manager" | ESSAY |