INSEAD reviews about "leadership"

-some times resources are limited but there are reasonable expectations of deliverables by management -not many promotion opportunities internally within the same team/department but plenty of opportunity to move cross-departments

Where to even start... there is no meritocracy to speak of. If you are a French speaker or your manager likes you, limited rules apply to you. Diversity is dropping in some campuses like Singapore but that's not the school's fault, it is government policy. HR has zero relevant experience in real world settings - Ever since they introduced a shocking poorly executed compa-ratio policy when discussing remuneration in 2024, most long serving staff that have stuck with the school through COVID and all the difficult times get ZERO increment due to salaries being forced into a band, leading staff retention to drop to an all-time low. If you are a new joiner and negotiate a good package to join, bear in mind the compa-ratio policy means you will not get a pay raise for at least 3-5 years or until you quit. All the good people from the past 10 years have quit or are in the process of finding a new job. INSEAD's work culture has gone down the toilet bowl since Francisco Veloso took over from Ilian Mihov. People who get promoted now are not the performing ones, but rather the ones who are good at carrying balls. If you want to keep your job, make sure you do not whistleblow on any wrongdoing even if it happens in front of you, especially if it is done by top management. We had a popular ex-colleague (brit guy) in talent acquisition who can attest to this. There are also some departments in degree programmes who are haemorrhaging long-serving staff faster than ice cream melts in Singapore due to the wonderful "leadership" on display. Current INSEAD leadership probably got confused and think that they are working at INEOS and not INSEAD, as they are sinking the school's work culture faster than Jim Ratcliffe is destroying Manchester United.

The leadership team is not effective or thoughtful

Culture is terrible, leadership more interested in office politics and backstabbing each other. Small initiatives take a long time to implement, big initiatives never get there.

Poor leadership standards in select department as office politics are prevalent with credits often taken from deserving staff and given to favored individuals who prioritize visibility over actual performance. Promotions appear to be awarded to favorites, frequently leveraging the hard work of others. Decision-making authority concentrated with the manager, creating opportunities to manipulate outcomes for personal gain.

Unfortunately the structure of INSEAD leads to certain institutional problems that at this stage have become detrimental to the operations of the school. Top leadership in the school is drawn upon from Faculty who generally have little real-world experience and actual people or business skills. This applies also to the Dean. Another institutional problem is that every 5 or 10 years there is a change of Dean and during that transitional period there is a vacuum of power at the top. 2023 is such a transition year and the current Dean mentally checked out of making any difficult decisions at least 18 months ago. A new Dean is incoming but by the time he is settled in it will mean that INSEAD has had about 2 years with an indifferent leader who was just focused on his exit. Sadly, this lack of leadership has filtered down to the next level and allowed all kinds of toxicity to develop. Upper-management engage in a Game of Thrones style battle between themselves as they vie to position themselves for the next Dean, dragging their departments with them into their political battles. Most toxic of all is the HR department that has been allowed to grow like a cancer within the school, negatively influencing everything it touches. Read the Glassdoor reviews (select for both English and French) and you'll see that most complaints are towards HR - ignore the repetitive 5-star reviews which bear all the hallmarks (short incomplete sentences, bad spelling, lazy copying/pasting) of being written by the guy who leads HR. There are serious questions about the leadership of HR that need to be addressed. Turnover is huge and it's leadership team is inexperienced and unrespected with a tenure measured in months rather than years. Serious ethical issues surround the guy leading HR and his herd. Harassment complaints are swept away, retaliation is guaranteed despite reassurances, there are questionable expensive training schemes signed off that have personal links to HR leadership, ditto for recruitment, and the narcissistic yet incompetent Chief People Officer regularly loses his temper in group meetings without consequence. An organization should not suffer because one person has unresolved mummy issues. During my time at INSEAD I witnessed shocking abuses of power and the subsequent cover ups. Blame for this can only be pointed towards the Dean whose indifference has allowed toxic monsters in upper management to reign unchecked. For a school that preaches itself as being a "force for good" I saw people fired for the crime of being harassed, HR staff given salaries and pay increases that went outside normal process and were denied to other departments (even when Singapore staff were forced to take an 8% paycut during COVID), and seriously questionable decisions on how money was spent. I left INSEAD entirely cynical of non-profits and related NGOs and would recommend to anyone with an appreciation of competence to seek employment elsewhere.

Poor selection of managers - extremely lacking in leadership qualities and empathy