Universities fail to teach future business leaders the importance of humility, former GW School of Business Dean Doug Guthrie wrote in Forbes on Friday. 
The perfect case study for that theory? His own tumultuous deanship at the GW School of Business.
Guthrie was fired in August after he and Provost Steven Lerman could not agree on a budget for next year. Lerman said Guthrie overspent on academic programs by $13 million last year.
But the China scholar and former New York University professor’s deanship was also controversial among business school faculty, many of whom never quite bought into his plans.
Here’s what he wrote in Forbes:
My GW tenure proved to be equal parts exhilarating and jarring—and, most importantly, a true lesson in the importance of humility in leadership. I loved the strategizing, but did a poor job bringing the faculty along. With every homerun, there seemed to be a strikeout or two. We launched a successful program here, and the faculty battled me there. We raised more donations than ever, but spent more than we budgeted. It was a roller coaster ride of failure and success…
…Regardless of the headlines, and there have been many, I realize today that I was ultimately expelled for the most personal of reasons: I was inexperienced and too impatient to suffer academic minutiae and delicate egos. I might have had a vision for the school, but I also needed more hands-on experience to complement my expertise. I did a terrible job of managing up. I’ve taught leadership theory to executives and MBA students for more than a decade, but the painful reality is that I lacked the important element of humility when I walked through the doors at GWSB. I thought I knew everything when I really had much to learn.
The business school is searching for the next dean this year.
Here are some of those headlines Guthrie references:
Business school dean met with faculty strife (Dec. 3, 2012)
Business dean Doug Guthrie fired over $13 million budget gap (Aug. 22, 2013)
A look back on Doug Guthrie’s turbulent deanship (Aug. 24, 2013)
Pushed by ambitious agenda, Guthrie takes fall (Aug. 25, 2013)
Guthrie claims GW backed away from expansion plan (Sept. 8, 2013)
Top faculty leader accused of slander attack against Doug Guthrie (Sept. 16, 2013)
