Why the ability to disagree is a skill to be taught in Management education

A Management classroom reveals itself in an odd moment: not when the professor asks a difficult question, but when a student thinks the professor may be wrong. There is usually a pause. Someone begins cautiously, “Sir, perhaps there is another way of looking at this…”That hesitation matters. A few years later, the professor will be replaced by a boss, the classroom by a boardroom, and the question may no longer concern a case study. It may concern an unrealistic sales target, a questionable acquisition, an AI system with hidden bias, or a decision that will cost people their jobs. The graduate who has learnt only how to give the expected answer may be highly qualified but poorly prepared to lead.This is why the latest Free to Think 2026 report by Scholars at Risk deserves attention in Management schools. The report documents 382 attacks on higher-education communities in 59 countries and territories between July 2025 and June 2026. Of these, 145 involved student expression, roughly 38% of the incidents recorded. The accompanying Academic Freedom Index found significant deterioration in 50 of 179 countries over the past decade. It classifies India as “severely restricted”; India’s index score fell from 0.16 in 2024 to 0.14 in 2026. Its authors stress that the incident database is illustrative, not a complete census.When debate stopsIndia gives the debate an immediate face. In March this year, SNDT Women’s University cancelled a scheduled memorial lecture by historian Uma Chakravarti a day after announcing it. Free to Think also records cancelled or contested events at Banaras Hindu University, Mumbai University, and Delhi University, along with disciplinary disputes involving students and faculty. At Azim Premji University, a February campus discussion ended in disruption, police complaints, and later disciplinary action. Whatever one’s view of these decisions, a larger question remains: what do students learn when difficult subjects disappear rather than get argued through?The tragedy at IIT-Bombay this month raises a different, more delicate, question. A second-year student died by suicide after an exam incident involving alleged use of a mobile phone and ChatGPT. Over 400 students protested, raising concerns about welfare, grievance mechanisms, and representation. The institute postponed exams and later apologised for aspects of its communication. It would be wrong to turn an individual tragedy into a simple argument about academic freedom. But the episode reminds us how quickly trust can break down when students feel institutional processes are distant from them. A university needs rules and also credible channels through which youngsters can question those rules, seek review, and be heard.This is not an Indian anxiety alone. In the U.S., higher education has become a site of intense disputes over federal funding, governance, and campus speech. Harvard University went to court after the Trump administration cancelled billions of dollars in research grants. The administration said its actions addressed antisemitism and ideological bias; the institution argued that the demands intruded into academic governance and constitutional freedoms. The dispute illustrates the difficulty: accountability and institutional independence must coexist.Britain has approached the issue through regulation. New free-speech duties for English universities came into force in August 2025, and a complaints mechanism began in September 2026. A YouGov survey commissioned by the Office for Students found that one in five academics did not feel free to teach controversial subjects; one in three felt constrained discussing them more generally. Among students surveyed later, 76% believed free speech was well protected on campus, but only 55% felt able to raise controversial ideas in an in-person lecture. In smaller face-to-face seminars, that figure rose to 71%.Why dissent mattersThat last number should interest every Management teacher. Classroom design changes whether people speak. Management research has known this for some time. American scholar Amy Edmondson’s study of 51 work teams showed that psychological safety, the shared belief that interpersonal risk-taking is safe, is associated with learning behaviour. Psychologists Charlan Nemeth and John Rogers found that exposure to minority dissent can stimulate a broader and less biased search for information. Dissent is useful not because the dissenter is necessarily right but because disagreement forces the group to think again.This is precisely the capability employers say they need. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on over 1,000 employers representing over 14 million workers, found analytical thinking to be the leading core skill. Seven in 10 employers called it essential. Employers also expect 39% of workers’ existing skills to change or become outdated by 2030. AI and big data are rising fast, but so are curiosity, creative thinking, resilience, leadership, and lifelong learning.There is a small irony here. We are racing to teach students to use AI while sometimes leaving them nervous about challenging the consensus in the room. Generative AI can already produce a competent SWOT analysis, summarise a case, and suggest strategic options before a student has finished opening a spreadsheet. The human advantage increasingly lies elsewhere: Which assumption is wrong? Whose voice is absent? What evidence would change my mind? What are we not seeing because everybody in the room has similar training or incentives?Challenge the consensusThat is where Management education must become deliberately argumentative, in the best sense of that word. A case discussion should not be a hunt for the professor’s preferred answer. Ask half the class to defend a strategy and the other half to destroy it. Let students red-team a proposal they personally support. In ethics, ask why a decent and intelligent person might reach the opposite conclusion. In strategy, ask which assumption is carrying the whole business model. In finance, ask what the spreadsheet cannot measure. In an AI class, ask not only whether the model works, but who bears the cost when it fails.Faculty must accept the same discipline. We cannot spend an hour praising critical thinking and then become irritated when a student actually practises it on us. Students notice the raised eyebrow, the sarcastic reply, the sudden change in tone. They also notice the opposite: a teacher who says, “That is a good objection. I need to think about it.”Academic freedom, then, is not merely a legal privilege belonging to professors. In a Management school, it is part of professional formation. It teaches a future executive how to disagree without becoming disagreeable; how to listen without surrendering judgment; how to distinguish offence from argument, and how to change one’s mind without experiencing it as defeat.The goal is not classrooms full of contrarians. Organisations where everybody disagrees about everything would be impossible to run. The goal is more demanding: people who know when consensus is sensible and when it deserves one more question.Perhaps, that is a useful test of Management education. When the person with the most authority in the room makes a confident claim, can a young person still say, calmly and with evidence, “I see it differently”? If we cannot practise that sentence in a university, we should not expect to hear it when a company or institution most needs it.The writer is Assistant Professor, Strategy, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurugram.