Leadership development is one of the key skills emphasized in many MBA programs. In fact, Forbes and the U.S. News & World Report mention leadership as one of the top reasons to earn an MBA.
The importance of leadership training is particularly evident in Bloomberg’s 2016 Job Skills Report. Each year, Bloomberg asks 1,251 job recruiters and 547 companies about the skills they want but can’t find. In all industries, leadership skills were found to be less common, but highly desired in candidates.
Emory University’s Goizueta Business School is preparing its graduates for the demands of their next positions by placing an emphasis on its leadership initiatives, which just received a huge boost thanks to a $3.5 million gift from the Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Foundation.
Delta Leadership Gift
The $3.5 million donation will endow the Goizueta Leadership Development Program—newly renamed the Delta Leadership Coaching Fellows Program—and help to develop the Delta Leadership Hub. The gift will allow the school to serve more students, expand its coaching and training opportunities, and increase gatherings of leaders inside and outside the university.
Tad Hutcheson, senior vice president of the Delta Air Lines Foundation, had this to say:
“Giving back to the communities where Delta people live, work and serve is at the core of our values. The Delta Air Lines Foundation has a long history of serving communities, and we are proud to help advance the mission of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School through the Delta Leadership Coaching Fellows program, as well as the Delta Leadership Hub.”
Goizueta Leadership Initiatives
The Delta Leadership Coaching Fellows Program is an experiential and peer-to-peer education opportunity. Its goal is to enhance the leadership skills of all Goizueta students by:
- Deepening their self-awareness of their strengths and weaknesses
- Providing experiences to work in teams with the goal of creating effective team members, high-performing teams, peer leaders, and team leaders.
As part of the program, second-year MBA students will have the opportunity to understand, practice and enhance their leadership skills by providing team and individual performance feedback. The objective, according to the program’s website, is “to provide the behavioral, relational, cognitive and emotional tools that will enable selected students to effectively interact with teams and individuals to improve performance.”
The program goes beyond the MBA curriculum to provide practicum experiences as well as one-on-one sessions with executive coaches. Mark Thomas, a former fellow, said the program sparks an evolution in skills for the coach and team.
“I certainly learned to be a lot less prescriptive,” Thomas said. “I had a natural inclination to give a solution, and I had to really learn to be a facilitator.
As for the Delta Leadership Hub, it will act as a signature teaching and reception space. The plan is to open the hub later this summer, when more information will be available.
MBA Leadership Development at Goizueta
Ken Keen, associate dean of leadership development, described the school’s focus on leadership in its MBA program this way:
“Roberto Goizueta once said, ‘Leadership is one of the things you cannot delegate. You either exercise it, or you abdicate it. We seek to provide our students as many opportunities as possible to exercise leader skills, receive feedback, reflect on those opportunities, and grow as leaders. The fellows program is one of those unique opportunities.”
In the the two-year MBA program, leadership development skills are broken into three pillars: academic, experiential and reflective.
- Academic: Throughout an MBA student’s courses and electives, he or she will be exposed to the fundamental core values that drive principled, effective leaders.
- Experiential: Experiential opportunities are integrated into the MBA program to offer students a chance to practice leadership in real-life situations. For example, the Leader’s Reaction Course applies team-based problem solving, decision-making, and communication skills.
- Reflective: Throughout the two-year MBA, students will have many opportunities to receive immediate and consistent feedback from coaches, mentors, faculty, and other students.
Delta Air Lines Foundation
The Delta Air Lines Foundation is a nonprofit corporation formed in 1968. It was designed to enhance Delta’s charitable giving and is primarily focused on giving back in the areas of education, health and wellness, arts, and culture. All foundation contributions are unrestricted, which means Emory University can use the funds where they are most needed.