By Dr. Larry W. Stout, Associate Professor of Psychology
Stockholm School of Economics in Riga

When the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became independent in 1991, I joined with a small group of Americans to assist these emerging nations in the transition from a planned and very stagnant economy to one that embraced a free-market model, governed by democratic principles and rule of law. A key element for the transition, we believed, was a reshaping of the socialist-oriented Weltanschauung into one that valued personal creativity, visionary ideas, and independent thinking.

In short, new leadership was needed, and it was needed in every field: the arts, sciences, technology, commerce, education, government, medicine, even religion. Leaders of these institutions required learning opportunities, we concluded, if they were to move beyond an archaic ideology and embrace a mindset that would foster rather than retard their nation's economic and social progress.

To that specific end, the Stockholm School of Economics established a campus in Riga, Latvia, in 1994. It now annually recruits 100 to 115 undergraduate students from among nearly 2000 applicants, and it stresses Western economic principles and, possibly more importantly, Western cultural values. The university now also extends its classroom opportunities to those already in the work force through a thriving executive education program and executive MBA program.

The curriculum in all of our programs is intended to radically transform the students' and participants' thinking. To appreciate precisely what this would require, for the past five years we have conducted research on the Baltics' most successful emerging leaders, and our investigations have led us to formulate a developmental approach that we term the Inter-Disciplinary Leadership -- or IDEAL Leadership -- Model. Our model identifies six critical capabilities that we group under "Leadership Capital" and four capacities we term "Leadership Conditions."

The six critical leadership capital capacities are the (1) vision and (2) values that constitute the leader's philosophy; the (3) wisdom and (4) courage that compose the leader's personal composition; and the (5) trust and (6) voice that enables them to influence others.

The four vital leadership conditions for these capacities to make a difference are (1) a place where the leader can hold sway, (2) a period that calls for his or her leadership, (3) a position that conveys leadership authority, and (4) people who are ready for leadership.

Students of the Stockholm School of Economics at Riga are using this model to study leaders in various institutions throughout the Baltics, and our faculty are drawing on it to design both their undergraduate courses and executive programs.

We in the Baltics have been endeavoring now for a decade to chart a course of leadership development that will be comprehensive, simple without being simplistic, and most importantly, practically as well as theoretically sound within our national experiences. We hope it works.

Reprinted from Wharton Leadership Digest, July, 2002. http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/digest/07-02.shtml