CONTEMPLATE for a moment the leadership qualities of Margaret Thatcher: the steely resolve, unbreachable conviction, manic energy and that icy stare.

Can you imagine trying to teach any of that? In fact can you imagine teaching what it takes to become a national leader?

Yet the death of Baroness Thatcher, and the endless reflections on what made her so unique as a person and driven politician, came as a new Oxford University school was preparing to resume its task of moulding the world leaders of the future.

Two and half years ago, with enormous fanfare, personal messages from Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton and most significantly a £75m gift from the billionaire tycoon Leonard Blavatnik, Oxford University launched what was hailed as Europe’s first major school of government.

The scale of the ambition was set out by Prof Ngaire Woods, the Dean of Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and a prominent figure in its creation. In 20 years time, she said, she wanted the leaders of the group of 20 industrialised nations “to be Oxford alumni.”

Oxford, you might think, having educated 26 Prime Ministers, including the present occupant of 10 Downing Street, and some 60 presidents and prime ministers worldwide, can already count itself as something of a production line when it comes to heads of government.

But the school would put things on an altogether different footing by deliberately setting out to groom world leaders, training its students in the skills and responsibilities of government – and leadership.

As a professor of Global Economic Governance, Prof Woods has an altogether different take on leadership than many of those who stood on the streets of London holding up “Thank You Maggie” signs. “A lot of people say leadership is about vision, charisma and personality. What I would say is that great leadership is about informed vision,” said Prof Woods. “In the case of Margaret Thatcher, I would argue, the times when she got into trouble came when her vision was not informed.”

But Prof Woods added that Margaret Thatcher had in heaps many of the leadership qualities that the new school wants to instil in its students. “She had that great sense of responsibility and diligence, along with her commitment to discharging her duty and really master her brief when making a decision. She was one of the quite rare politicians who worked extraordinarily hard at her job.”

The first intake of 38 students on the one-year master degree programme includes students from China, Kenya, India, Russia, Nigeria and Mexico. The number will grow to 60 next year, rising to an annual cohort of 120 students with Oxford University hoping to move the school into a £30m building in Walton Street in 2015.

Nailing what makes a good leader is not easy.

Prof Woods said: “People lead in different ways. They look back on Clement Attlee as a successful Prime Minister but he was not at all charismatic. I would say that the qualities that successful leaders share is commitment, determination and tenacity.”

The school is currently based in perhaps Oxford’s most beautiful street, Merton Street. But Prof Woods must be tempted to tell her students – borrowing from the Iron Lady’s slightly embarrassing impersonation of Ronald Reagan – “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. For the glass structure that the university hopes to build on the site of the old Radcliffe Infirmary, designed by celebrated Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron would become Oxford’s most significant new structure of the new century. Leonard Blavatnik clearly wanted it to make the boldest of statements.

Prof Woods said: “Mr Blavatnik walked around Oxford looking at the Sheldonian and Radcliffe Camera and said ‘We have got to build something as beautiful as these buildings.’ The reason why we are two years behind schedule is because the competition took so long.”