Enhancing Ross's reputation for attracting and developing future leaders is a key concern for students. Despite our strong rankings in various surveys, few make mention of our 'leadership' qualities; in some circles, the Ross School of Business is disparaged as a 'factory of middle managers.' Through coordination and innovation, Susan Ashford, a professor of Management Organizations, and the Associate Dean of Leadership Development and the Executive MBA program at Ross, is working to enhance the school's reputation for attracting and developing leaders.
Ashford has three areas of focus as Associate Dean of Leadership:
- Coordinating existing academic and extracurricular activity to develop leadership.
- Developing new classes and programming to inspire, challenge, and create opportunities for Ross MBAs to demonstrate leadership.
- Increasing the notoriety of the existing leadership activities at Ross.
Along with these headlines, there are a couple of courses - Leadership in Changing Times, and Leadership, Vision and Change - several research papers, a student advisory board on leadership, and a couple of leadership case competitions. Two professors, Global Leadership Program director Noel Tichy, and recently hired Assistant Professor Scott DeRue focus their research on the valuable, yet indeterminate topic.
On paper at least, Professor Ashford inherits an impressive leadership package, open to all MBA students who are driven to co-create their roles as future 'leaders.' Why then, aren't these programs, and the value of being a leader, better recognized in the Ross community? Are our aspirations more modest than those of students at Stanford or Chicago? Are we less creative than students at Harvard or INSEAD?
Many students who have been through MAP and/or RLI roll their eyes at the experience; the 'touchy-feeliness' of the whole thing can sometimes feel contrived, pushing some students with valuable experiences further into a shell, while promoting the more verbose and extroverted types. Consequently, what on paper looks innovative and unique can in practice be an expensive, unexceptional experience for some students. This is a challenge facing Ashford, and will likely take some fundamental changes in both the aspirations of students, and the focus of the Management & Organizations academic department.
Many academic departments such as marketing, entrepreneurial studies, and strategy to name a few, have 'capstone' courses: challenging students to incorporate many of their hard and soft skills developed and enhanced during their 20-month program, meant to propel them into leadership positions after graduation. However, within Management & Organizations, where nearly all the leadership programming and research originates, it is not entirely clear that leadership is an academic priority.
Notwithstanding Mr. DeRue's class on leadership and research focus, our only other professor of leadership, Mr. Tichy, is rarely seen by most MBAs following RLI. There does not appear to be clear 'capstone' classes on the topic, challenging and helping MBA2s keep their aspirations high after graduation. So, despite what Dean Ashford has on paper, there are areas for improvement in existing and planned programming to help accomplish the desired notoriety the Ross School desires.
Leveraging a tactic from the playbook of many on campus recruiters, Ashford is employing student organizations to achieve some of the hoped for improvements in Ross' leadership offerings. Central to these co-creation opportunities is the theme of innovation: leaders are creative, with diverse interests that are not always found in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Ashford believes a quote from Nancy Alder epitomizes the Ross image of these new leaders, "Twenty-first century society yearns for a leadership of possibility, a leadership based more on hope, aspiration, and innovation than on the replication of historical patterns of constrained pragmatism." For researchers, MBA admissions boards and employers alike, artists generally make effective leaders, able to buck conventions and develop a unique and viable vision. To that end, Dean Ashford has partnered with Net Impact, a student organization at Ross, and the new Arts Enterprise Club, to create and execute new kinds of cross-school activities and case competitions. These events should be well marketed, inclusive, and open to expand*.
The importance for us as individual Ross students, with aspirations to be business and social leaders, is to push and explore how the school can help us organize and execute our vision. Notwithstanding the many pressures and commitments we have as Ross students, many of Dean Ashford's goals, and therefore the school's goals, are not achievable without a sustained cultural commitment by students, towards the concept and realization of us as innovative and unique professionals.
Dean Ashford wears a number of hats, each of them with their own complexities and commitments. I applaud her for taking on the topic of Leadership and wish her, and this year's MBA1s, all the best luck in improving our culture of leadership, through existing and future programming.
* To contact Net Impact please email Co-Presidents Brian Swett and Vanessa Frey; to contact the Arts Enterprise Club please email Chris Genteel or Kelly Dylla.
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