Category: For the “long” essay, I had a maximum of two pages to answer the following statement/question:
Today, companies must navigate through complex and interdependent issues. They must deal with health and security matters, environmental impact questions, and diversity and cultural concerns. Leaders need adaptability, imagination, and emotional intelligence as well as business acumen.
Upon graduation, a Duke MBA will be a leader of consequence – able to deal simultaneously with complex matters and engage skillfully with colleagues, clients, and community. What impact do you hope to have as a leader of consequence?
I started this essay Sunday night, November 30th, after finishing the other three short essays and the optional essay. The December 1st Midnight deadline was ~27 hours away, and in between I needed to sleep and go to work on Monday. Nothing like a firm deadline to get the blood pressure up!
After having a looooooooooong “Dude, WTF?” moment, I tried to think more abstractly about what I wanted to do with my professional career. Clearly, this question wasn’t asking “Do you want to be rich & successful after you complete this program?,” but rather “How will you represent yourself and the school in your future endeavors?”
I was panicked, which I am not entirely sure wasn’t the intent of the question! But once again, Google was my savior. In an interview with Businessworld, Blair Sheppard – Dean of the Fuqua School of Business, outlined the Fuqua vision for ‘Leaders of Consequence’.
The job of the great university is to prepare tomorrow’s leaders. The present forms of business schools don’t do that. If I turn out a student who understand the US really well, who understands finance really well, but doesn’t connect to the policy issues that are impacting business, the environmental issues that influence the business and the larger context under which business is embedded – then, I am not turning out a leader of consequence.
But if you look at the events of the last few months, I think it’s fair to say there are a whole series of people who didn’t understand the world, who didn’t understand the business in the larger context, who did not actually exercise the judgement they should have exercised. Our mission is to train the people who actually did understand the world, did exercise judgement.
With this guidance, it was time to map out my career.
Yeah, that was a tough one. I just re-read my essay on that topic and realized that I could definitely have done a better job at it.