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The Many Faces of Leadership
“I figured it all out.” That’s how I would paraphrase the essays many of my clients—MBA applicants and others—write in response to the ubiquitous “Describe a leadership experience” question. Now of course “figuring it all out,” my shorthand for “I came up with a creative solution to a tricky problem” or “I developed a killer spreadsheet model, the likes of which my team had never seen before” or similar achievements, is an important aspect of leadership. But it’s just one aspect. Skilled problem-solving, or “thought leadership,” as we called it at McKinsey and Company, where I worked as a business strategy consultant, was the mark of, well, a skilled problem-solver; but many of the most respected consultants at the firm, including senior partners, were equally or even more talented at something we didn’t have a formal name for: people leadership. By effectively leading our thinking on client firms’ problems as well as motivating us to work long hours to develop solutions to these problems and collaborate with our clients on implementing them, these colleagues were exemplary leaders. So don’t forget to include strong elements of people leadership in your essays. Here are several to keep in mind: - Rallying others around a vision. Did you convince your team or group to follow a specific path/solution? How did you do it? Successful clients have talked about handling dissenting opinions diplomatically or presenting their teams’ detailed quantitative evidence for a recommendation. The more you can show that you understood your audience and tailored the content and form of your message to them, the better.
- Harnessing others’ strengths—and expanding them. Did you provide team members tasks they could handle comfortably based on their capabilities, as well as opportunities to broaden their skills? For example, you may have handed your quant jock teammate the most complicated operations analysis as well as responsibility for leading a key client meeting. In this way you leverage teammates’ strengths while helping them develop new ones.
- Getting through tough times. Did you model for your team enviable cool in pressure-cooker situations, maybe helping them keep the big-picture goal in mind or lightening the mood with humor? Did you reward teammates with praise, pizza, or both for working long into the night? Did you pitch in on others’ responsibilities as deadlines loomed? Helping your team handle stress while managing your own is a cornerstone of strong leadership.
These are just some of the leadership traits you can show in your essay to make it more compelling. And remember, you don’t have to be in an official position of leadership to demonstrate them. We all know peers who provide great leadership without any formal authority. Make clear that you’re one of them. My fellow Accepted editors and I will help you include a powerful combination of leadership and other elements in your essays and interviews.
By Dr. Sachin Waikar .
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Finding the Right MBA Program for YOU
A new client asked me to help him with his MBA application essays to Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, and MIT Sloan. Although he has several years' work experience, including in the financial services industry, his GMAT scores (he took it three times) and lack of demonstrated leadership simply will not make him competitive for these schools.
Like most of our clients, this gentleman is smart and ambitious. But like too many of our clients, he did not at first consider many other outstanding MBA programs where he has a far better chance of gaining acceptance. While Accepted.com editors have helped countless applicants gain acceptance to the most fabled names in the MBA pantheon (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, etc.) even with less than average stats, we encourage our clients to look for the programs that are the best match for them. This isn’t just about scores and grades – it’s about matching an applicant with a school’s personality, academic strengths and flexibility, career placement opportunities, and other factors.
For example, the client I'm talking about wanted strong a general management program with entrepreneurship, but until I mentioned them he hadn't considered Darden, Michigan, Duke, University of Texas, and University of North Carolina – each of them excellent general management programs. Additionally, he didn't want to move to a cold climate, making most of these schools well suited to his personal preferences as well.
If an MBA is your goal, look beyond the "Hollywood" names and give careful consideration to the other top-25 schools that really might be a good fit for your strengths and career aspirations, and where you’ll have a better chance of getting in. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to do your homework. Here are a few of the many wonderful information tools to help you learn about various schools and what each one has to offer.
- Don't focus on a school's overall ranking as much as on its category ranking. Your dream school may be in the top 25 overall, but in the top 5 in entrepreneurship, so if entrepreneurship is your goal, that school is worth investigating.
- Look at where the graduating MBAs end up in the workplace. Are many of them flowing to the field of your choice?
- If your formal business educational background is skimpy, choose a school with a more structured core curriculum. Already a CPA? Look for a more flexible curriculum.
- Check out what student bloggers are saying about the schools and their programs at the Hella - MBA Student Blog site. This site will give you information that’s about as current as you can get for your target schools.
- Check the web sites of the MBA programs you are interested in to see if they have their own newspaper or blog. For a list of MBA program forums/blogs, go to this ever-growing resource page on Accepted.com (the MBA blogs are about halfway down the page).
You are investing considerable time, effort, and money into your MBA education, so take the time to learn as much as you can about each school’s strengths, curriculum, personality, environment, and even location. You may be surprised to discover there are more “dream schools” out there than you thought. By Judy Gruen, who would be delighted to help you find and get accepted to your dream school.
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Additional Posts about Harvard HBS
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Average 2007 GMAT: 713
Average 2007 Acceptance Rate: 14%
Average 2007 GPA: 3.64
Class Size: 914
2009 application deadlines: Oct. 15, 2008, Jan. 6, 2009, Mar. 11, 2009
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