When the strategy course I signed up for this fall was canceld due to the professor being ill, I began a search for a new course. Of primary importance were two criteria: 1) the course had to fit into my schedule, and 2) it must receive high ratings. One class met both criteria, MO 621: Leadership Development: Self Awareness, Skills and Strategies.
While Professor Klemstine would surly ask, "What do they teach you guys? Hugging?" after the first few classes I am intrigued at what I may get out of this course. As part of the course we are required to keep a journal of insights, questions, lessons and plans throughout the course of the term. While we are promised strict confidentiality on our journal entries, I don't listen very well so I am posting mine for all the world to see.... So withouth further adieu....
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Journal 3.5 – Value Framework – 9/21/08
So when one prepares for consulting interviews, suddenly there is a need to put everything into a framework. As such, below is the evidence of my illness.
While I identified the four core values blow that make up who I am when looking at the things that are most important to me, I came up with seven buckets.
Outside of the first bucket the remaining buckets are not necessarily shown in order of importance. The next bucket is health. While my health is important and I do typically eat fairly healthy, I do not workout. I have often said that the outside of playing sports the only exercise I enjoy is dance dance revolution and sex. Hey, I am who I am :)
The third bucket financial security / “having enough money”. “Enough money” is obviously a relative thing but what is important to this exercise is that I am spending an extraordinary amount of resources (time / energy / money) on this activity, primarily due to B-school.
Next is Respect – which is broken down into two sections. There is the results oriented part of me, which drives my success in school and work. The second part can be bucketed with relationships and is obviously very important, but again energy in this area is primarily used during times of crises.
Education follows – again tons of time/energy due to my B-school activities but there is a real question about how much time / energy I would be spending in this area if I wasn’t in school.
Making a difference – again I do whatever possible to make a difference in the lives of my friends and family but otherwise there is not much here. This leads to my questioning if I should ultimately devote my time to life in industry or if the professor goal outlined in an earlier entry is the better option.
Finally, last but certainly not least is Michigan Football. I know that it “is just a game”, but not when you are raised as I was. I understand that from a logic perspective I should not care so much, however much like my love life, logic tends to have no place in my feelings for Michigan Football. Needless to say, I spend WAY more time / energy following Michigan Football than I should but I know that this is one area that will not change! :)
While I identified the four core values blow that make up who I am when looking at the things that are most important to me, I came up with seven buckets.
- Honesty
- Caring
- Results Oriented / Darwinism
- Loyalty
Outside of the first bucket the remaining buckets are not necessarily shown in order of importance. The next bucket is health. While my health is important and I do typically eat fairly healthy, I do not workout. I have often said that the outside of playing sports the only exercise I enjoy is dance dance revolution and sex. Hey, I am who I am :)
The third bucket financial security / “having enough money”. “Enough money” is obviously a relative thing but what is important to this exercise is that I am spending an extraordinary amount of resources (time / energy / money) on this activity, primarily due to B-school.
Next is Respect – which is broken down into two sections. There is the results oriented part of me, which drives my success in school and work. The second part can be bucketed with relationships and is obviously very important, but again energy in this area is primarily used during times of crises.
Education follows – again tons of time/energy due to my B-school activities but there is a real question about how much time / energy I would be spending in this area if I wasn’t in school.
Making a difference – again I do whatever possible to make a difference in the lives of my friends and family but otherwise there is not much here. This leads to my questioning if I should ultimately devote my time to life in industry or if the professor goal outlined in an earlier entry is the better option.
Finally, last but certainly not least is Michigan Football. I know that it “is just a game”, but not when you are raised as I was. I understand that from a logic perspective I should not care so much, however much like my love life, logic tends to have no place in my feelings for Michigan Football. Needless to say, I spend WAY more time / energy following Michigan Football than I should but I know that this is one area that will not change! :)
Journal 3 – 9/20/08
So just a warning, this will be a fairly short journal entry… I am actually in the process of mapping out my values and such, which will be posted when complete… until then… here are a few thoughts from last class.
As we transition from a focus on my personal beliefs and values to one of how to lead, I agree that it is a good time to reflect on the insights gained. I have actually been working on such an activity. Unfortunately it is not complete. When it is in a more finished state it will be posted.
We are confident, determined, and results-oriented people who believe in having responsibility for ourselves and our actions. We are passionate about developing and bringing the value that we have to offer each other and our environment. By understanding who we are, we are able to foster the loyalty, trust and strong relationships that we all value, which in turn will allow us to be open, honest and forthright in our leadership circle. This will allow us to develop not only ourselves but our entire group. As leaders, we will be in a position to give back, leaving every person or place better than how we found them by sharing our knowledge, talents and fortune.Above is our leadership credo. The implications of our credo is that we are all motivated to succeed. As extremely self motivated individuals there isn’t as great of a need to have phrases to support and reinforce the groups values. What is more important is to challenge each other and make sure that each of us is putting in sufficient time and energy to our leadership journey. We have committed to be completely open and honest with each other, as such, I do not see the need to avoid any certain phrases.
As we transition from a focus on my personal beliefs and values to one of how to lead, I agree that it is a good time to reflect on the insights gained. I have actually been working on such an activity. Unfortunately it is not complete. When it is in a more finished state it will be posted.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Journal 2.5 - 9/14/2008
More ramblings….
In my last journal entry I mentioned that I had doubts about my ability throughout the next few weeks to develop a plan to become a better leader. While I still have no clue how I will develop such a plan it suddenly seems much less important. Having just concluded the readings for this week with, Do Your Commitments, Match Your Convictions?, I am suddenly not so concerned. What I realize is at the very least, my time in this course will help me develop a better life plan – it will help me develop a plan to make sure that I am doing the things that will make me the happiest. While I still do not know if that will help me be a better leader, I don’t really care.
In the past few months I have struggled with several life decisions. When my employer canceled our tuition assistance program, in a fit of anger I decided, “I’m going to pull my graduation date ahead to August 2009 and recruit for full time positions this fall”. While I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my professional life (only mostly true…but that is another story), I have always somehow been drawn to consulting so I decided that would be my primary focus. I started meeting with an extraordinary group of people to prepare for case interviews which led me to learn a few things about myself. First, I was incredibly unprepared for recruiting. I had not put in any time networking, I was behind the curve on interview prep and I didn’t really understand the differences between firms so I struggled to find the best fit. After much deliberation I decided to delay recruiting until next fall and graduate in December 2009 as originally planned. I now am dabbling with the possibility of taking a leave of absence from work and trying for a consulting internship, however that has yet to be decided.
So is consulting the right choice? Would I be better off in a Leadership Development / Rotational Program? I don’t know. I actually think that longer term, I see myself getting a PhD and teaching. When students at Ross ask their peers which classes they should take, two courses are recommended more than any others, Advanced Competitive Tactics with Ahuja, and Strategies for Growth with Karnani. I loved Professor Ahuja’s course, however it was Professor Karnani (whom I consider to be my long lost Indian brother) who first made me realize that being a professor may be my calling. I watched the way he taught, challenging the way we approached problems. On a weekly basis I felt myself change, I started thinking differently. I started approaching problems more systematically and asking more questions. One might argue that I became even more obnoxious; however I do not see this as a bad thing. Over the course of 7 weeks I feel that I grew immensely and there is a large part of me that believes that shaping future business leaders may bring about a level of satisfaction that I will not find in corporate life. While I certainly do not expect this course will answer these types of questions for me, I am hopeful that I will be able to weave a lot of this thinking into my leadership development plan.
In my last journal entry I mentioned that I had doubts about my ability throughout the next few weeks to develop a plan to become a better leader. While I still have no clue how I will develop such a plan it suddenly seems much less important. Having just concluded the readings for this week with, Do Your Commitments, Match Your Convictions?, I am suddenly not so concerned. What I realize is at the very least, my time in this course will help me develop a better life plan – it will help me develop a plan to make sure that I am doing the things that will make me the happiest. While I still do not know if that will help me be a better leader, I don’t really care.
In the past few months I have struggled with several life decisions. When my employer canceled our tuition assistance program, in a fit of anger I decided, “I’m going to pull my graduation date ahead to August 2009 and recruit for full time positions this fall”. While I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my professional life (only mostly true…but that is another story), I have always somehow been drawn to consulting so I decided that would be my primary focus. I started meeting with an extraordinary group of people to prepare for case interviews which led me to learn a few things about myself. First, I was incredibly unprepared for recruiting. I had not put in any time networking, I was behind the curve on interview prep and I didn’t really understand the differences between firms so I struggled to find the best fit. After much deliberation I decided to delay recruiting until next fall and graduate in December 2009 as originally planned. I now am dabbling with the possibility of taking a leave of absence from work and trying for a consulting internship, however that has yet to be decided.
So is consulting the right choice? Would I be better off in a Leadership Development / Rotational Program? I don’t know. I actually think that longer term, I see myself getting a PhD and teaching. When students at Ross ask their peers which classes they should take, two courses are recommended more than any others, Advanced Competitive Tactics with Ahuja, and Strategies for Growth with Karnani. I loved Professor Ahuja’s course, however it was Professor Karnani (whom I consider to be my long lost Indian brother) who first made me realize that being a professor may be my calling. I watched the way he taught, challenging the way we approached problems. On a weekly basis I felt myself change, I started thinking differently. I started approaching problems more systematically and asking more questions. One might argue that I became even more obnoxious; however I do not see this as a bad thing. Over the course of 7 weeks I feel that I grew immensely and there is a large part of me that believes that shaping future business leaders may bring about a level of satisfaction that I will not find in corporate life. While I certainly do not expect this course will answer these types of questions for me, I am hopeful that I will be able to weave a lot of this thinking into my leadership development plan.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Journal 2 - 9/12/2008
My leadership journey…
So while there are several suggested topics to write about this week, I feel the need to take a bit of a detour. I have concerns about my ability to put together a successful leadership development plan. It is not from lack of caring or effort but rather because I am struggling to identify areas where I need to grow. That is not to say that I believe there is no room for growth but rather that I do not feel that I am deficient in any one area. I am concerned that there may not be a step function opportunity for my leadership growth. The one area where I am lacking in experience is leading with a title. Other than leading group projects I have not had anyone “work for me” in my professional career. However I have always viewed myself as a leader, since I have been able to inspire / motivate the groups I have been part of to move towards to right direction. If the question was what skill sets can I improve on to become a better manager the answer would be easy – I would simply need to work on being more organized. However, when the question is one of leadership, I have thus far struggled to identify the opportunities. I am very hopeful (even if a little skeptical) that throughout this process I will be able to identify significant opportunities for growth. Perhaps is that I still believe on some level that people are either leaders or they are not. I am not suggesting that it is all nature, that you are just born with it – but rather that it is a combination of nature and nurture. If this hypothesis is correct the question becomes, can one significantly grow once they reach a certain age or is it a case of they are who they are? I am certainly looking forward to finding out.
Leader or Manager?
Do I view myself as more of a leader or a manager? Ultimately I view myself as a problem solver. I identify problems and then do what is required to solve them. Often this is number crunching or process improvement, but quite often it involves being a leader as well. While it is possible to be a great manager with poor leadership skills, or visa versa, I believe that the most successful people are both good leaders and managers. If forced to choose I would say that I identify myself more as a leader. Even during something as trivial as the airplane exercise I found myself asking leading questions – helping to set direction. As I type this another question comes to mind. Does a defining characteristic of a leader have to be someone who sees “the big picture” – maybe not the correct picture, but one who has some vision about where things need to go. Obviously a good leader must be able to ask the “right” questions – but are the right questions asked because a good leader has that skill or is it because they have some greater vision? My gut tells me it is a combination of both, however it will certainly be something interesting to look into more deeply over the next several weeks.
So while there are several suggested topics to write about this week, I feel the need to take a bit of a detour. I have concerns about my ability to put together a successful leadership development plan. It is not from lack of caring or effort but rather because I am struggling to identify areas where I need to grow. That is not to say that I believe there is no room for growth but rather that I do not feel that I am deficient in any one area. I am concerned that there may not be a step function opportunity for my leadership growth. The one area where I am lacking in experience is leading with a title. Other than leading group projects I have not had anyone “work for me” in my professional career. However I have always viewed myself as a leader, since I have been able to inspire / motivate the groups I have been part of to move towards to right direction. If the question was what skill sets can I improve on to become a better manager the answer would be easy – I would simply need to work on being more organized. However, when the question is one of leadership, I have thus far struggled to identify the opportunities. I am very hopeful (even if a little skeptical) that throughout this process I will be able to identify significant opportunities for growth. Perhaps is that I still believe on some level that people are either leaders or they are not. I am not suggesting that it is all nature, that you are just born with it – but rather that it is a combination of nature and nurture. If this hypothesis is correct the question becomes, can one significantly grow once they reach a certain age or is it a case of they are who they are? I am certainly looking forward to finding out.
Leader or Manager?
Do I view myself as more of a leader or a manager? Ultimately I view myself as a problem solver. I identify problems and then do what is required to solve them. Often this is number crunching or process improvement, but quite often it involves being a leader as well. While it is possible to be a great manager with poor leadership skills, or visa versa, I believe that the most successful people are both good leaders and managers. If forced to choose I would say that I identify myself more as a leader. Even during something as trivial as the airplane exercise I found myself asking leading questions – helping to set direction. As I type this another question comes to mind. Does a defining characteristic of a leader have to be someone who sees “the big picture” – maybe not the correct picture, but one who has some vision about where things need to go. Obviously a good leader must be able to ask the “right” questions – but are the right questions asked because a good leader has that skill or is it because they have some greater vision? My gut tells me it is a combination of both, however it will certainly be something interesting to look into more deeply over the next several weeks.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Journal 1 - 9/7/2008
Leadership without followership?
Leadership without followership? An interesting question, that was actually on my mind as I sat through the first class. If no-one follows, is one really leading? While it feels right to answer yes, I somehow logically think the answer is no. One of the key themes that was carried through the class discussion on leadership, was that leaders motivate. If no-one follows, they must not have been motivated.
The example of this behavior that first comes to my mind is, Crazy Diag Guy (CDG) – the guy who stands on his soapbox telling everyone they are going to hell. CDG exemplifies many of the ideals that my classmates identified as those of leadership. He has conviction, some set of morals, and he is very passionate. The key item that stops CDG from being a leader is that he cannot motivate people (except to make fun of him). Since there is a lack of motivation, no-one follows and thus CDG is not a leader.
Leadership – What do I believe?
So it is probably clear from my stance on leadership without followership that I believe the ability to motivate is the real key to being a good leader. I believe that every good leader has had the ability to motivate. Whether one looks at the outspoken, commanding types such as a Bo Schembechuler and George Patton whose leadership styles involve yelling, the motivating / inspirational types such as Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK, or the more quiet, lead by example types a common thread immerges – leaders motivate people.
I believe that a good leader has conviction and is passionate and confident. Even when they do not know the correct answer, they demonstrate conviction and confidence in a process that will enable them to solve difficult decisions. They know they are doing the “right thing” – whether or not history agrees is another matter.
When I look at the other items that were identified as traits of good leaders – even some I came up with in our brainstorming session, I see traits that while admirable are not required to be a good leader. For instance, our group brainstormed that leadership is not intimidation. While I agree that ideally one shouldn’t have to intimidate to be an effective leader, history is full of examples of very successful leaders who led through intimidation. One comment I found especially interesting is the concept that “a leader doesn’t have to care about people, but a good leader does”. I find this interesting because I would agree that a good person cares about people, however this trait isn’t necessarily required for leadership.
Means or an End?
Is effective leadership a function of the “means” by which one leads… or is effective leadership a function of the “end state”? When looking at such a question I believe it is very important not to confuse the word effective with good or moral. As I mentioned in class, Hitler was a very effective leader. While I certainly would not condone his actions, or deem them as moral or right, the fact remains that he convinced a nation of people to commit genocide. While he is certainly not an admirable person, he was an effective leader. History is full of examples of people leading unmoral or unjust causes thus I don’t understand how the “end state” plays into this argument. Obviously as a student of Ross who is taking this course to make myself a more effective leader, the end state is very important, however I believe that is a separate issue.
Leadership without followership? An interesting question, that was actually on my mind as I sat through the first class. If no-one follows, is one really leading? While it feels right to answer yes, I somehow logically think the answer is no. One of the key themes that was carried through the class discussion on leadership, was that leaders motivate. If no-one follows, they must not have been motivated.
The example of this behavior that first comes to my mind is, Crazy Diag Guy (CDG) – the guy who stands on his soapbox telling everyone they are going to hell. CDG exemplifies many of the ideals that my classmates identified as those of leadership. He has conviction, some set of morals, and he is very passionate. The key item that stops CDG from being a leader is that he cannot motivate people (except to make fun of him). Since there is a lack of motivation, no-one follows and thus CDG is not a leader.
Leadership – What do I believe?
So it is probably clear from my stance on leadership without followership that I believe the ability to motivate is the real key to being a good leader. I believe that every good leader has had the ability to motivate. Whether one looks at the outspoken, commanding types such as a Bo Schembechuler and George Patton whose leadership styles involve yelling, the motivating / inspirational types such as Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK, or the more quiet, lead by example types a common thread immerges – leaders motivate people.
I believe that a good leader has conviction and is passionate and confident. Even when they do not know the correct answer, they demonstrate conviction and confidence in a process that will enable them to solve difficult decisions. They know they are doing the “right thing” – whether or not history agrees is another matter.
When I look at the other items that were identified as traits of good leaders – even some I came up with in our brainstorming session, I see traits that while admirable are not required to be a good leader. For instance, our group brainstormed that leadership is not intimidation. While I agree that ideally one shouldn’t have to intimidate to be an effective leader, history is full of examples of very successful leaders who led through intimidation. One comment I found especially interesting is the concept that “a leader doesn’t have to care about people, but a good leader does”. I find this interesting because I would agree that a good person cares about people, however this trait isn’t necessarily required for leadership.
Means or an End?
Is effective leadership a function of the “means” by which one leads… or is effective leadership a function of the “end state”? When looking at such a question I believe it is very important not to confuse the word effective with good or moral. As I mentioned in class, Hitler was a very effective leader. While I certainly would not condone his actions, or deem them as moral or right, the fact remains that he convinced a nation of people to commit genocide. While he is certainly not an admirable person, he was an effective leader. History is full of examples of people leading unmoral or unjust causes thus I don’t understand how the “end state” plays into this argument. Obviously as a student of Ross who is taking this course to make myself a more effective leader, the end state is very important, however I believe that is a separate issue.
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