Am I a Leader?

An applicant recently, was worried that his profile does not show any leadership experiences so would that affect his chances of MBA admission. And surely he is not the only one with such doubts. Perhaps many of you may have the same fears – ‘I am just a team member at work. I might get to lead a team only after another year or more’. So should you all wait till you become team leaders in your careers before thinking of applying for MBA?

Well look at it this way – most MBA aspirants are in the first few years of their working careers so very few might have had the opportunity of formally leading their teams. Some others might have been Captains of their college football or some other teams. But the large majority would be neither team leaders at work or past captains of sports teams. So where does that leave us? Are all Business Schools filled only with those who were team leaders at work or past sports captains?  NO? Then, if it is true that all Business Schools want students with leadership qualities, where do all these leaders who fill their classrooms each year, come from?

To find the answer, take a look in the mirror my friends. Do you recognize the leader you see there? Because they all come from amongst you. They are just like you for the most part. And leadership? Well, leadership qualities assume many different forms in different people. Leaders are not only those who actually lead teams – whether at work or on the sports field or elsewhere. Leaders are people who take initiative. Leaders motivate others. Leaders are passionate about what they do. Leaders are prepared to take risks. Leaders work hard. Leaders persevere when others have lost hope. Leaders do ordinary things – extraordinarily. Leaders step up to take charge in a crisis. Leaders are persuasive. Leaders also make mistakes but they learn from them, move on and improve. Leaders think out of the box for innovative solutions. Leaders have self-belief. Leaders are not afraid to admit their mistakes. Leaders have the courage of conviction to defend their beliefs and opinions. Leaders are not scared to take sides rather than just sitting on the fence. Leaders see opportunities where others might see only an obstacle. Leaders also fall down but they just get up and start all over again.

One candidate narrated this story. At a cousin’s wedding the previous year, a typical north Indian wedding where the Baraat (bridegroom’s party) dances its way to the marriage venue, just as the Baraat was about to reach the entrance to the venue, it was discovered the bride was not yet back from the makeup parlor and, there being just the one entrance to the venue, it would be rather awkward for her to walk in after all the guests had arrived. Amidst frantic phone calls and counting of minutes to reach, this guy stepped out to where the Baraat had reached – about 200 mtrs from the entrance, and challenged those dancing to dance against him, knowing full well that he was a lousy dancer. A few minutes were spent in confusion as the dancers sized him up to decide whether they could accept his challenge and a few more while it was debated who would dance first. Well, he lost the bet within three minutes flat thereafter but had already bought the critical few minutes to allow the bride to walk in unseen and save major embarrassment. Surely this was smart out of the box thinking and he took the initiative to carry it out. That too is leadership!

Most of us have experienced some events when we did something different and many of these instances might illustrate some leadership trait. So these are the events to dig out from your memory in order to show you have what it takes to be a leader. Did you ever motivate a friend not to be depressed over some failure but to take heart and move on? That was the leader in you showing through. Did you step out of your car at a jammed intersection to direct traffic for a few minutes to clear up the jam? That too is leadership.

So, rather than losing sleep over the fact that you were never the real leader of a group of people at any time, use your energies to think of various events and instances where you demonstrated traits of leadership. Make a list of all these. Take your time over making this list because many such instances might be lost in the mists of memory. And once your list is made, you might find that some of these instances were really too small or too ordinary to really add value to your profile. So you need to sift through your list to pick up those events where your actions had some impact on those around you. And then use these events in your application to illustrate to the Ad Comm that you too have leadership qualities so that they will recognize you as the candidate they are looking for, among all those who have applied.

WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS FOR ZERO WORK-EX FRESH GRADS, TO GET AN MBA EDUCATION?

HOW MUCH WORK-EX IS DESIRABLE TO HAVE BEFORE PROCEEDING TO AN MBA EDUCATION?

HOW MUCH WORK-EX DO VARIOUS BUSINESS SCHOOLS REQUIRE ME TO HAVE BEFORE APPLYING?

WHAT ARE THE OPTIONS FOR ZERO WORK-EX FRESH GRADS, TO GET AN MBA EDUCATION?

As far as the first question above is concerned, the Jury, as they say is still out on this one, basically because there is no single ‘one size fits all’ answer to it. Perhaps the only one answer that can correctly address this question is “Apply when you feel you are ready for it”. But does that help? Or does it only lead to another, equally puzzling question “How will I know when I am ready?” The only one thing that seems to be clear is that the correct time to apply is different for different people. Some might be ready early in their careers whereas others might be better off waiting a few years more. But what exactly is the way to determine the correct time for any one individual? Well, as I said, the jury is still out on that one.

So, let us get another opinion on it. Business Schools, who actually teach the MBA curriculum are surely the best ones to advise on this. So what do they say? Unfortunately, here again we do not find the consensus which might lead us to the right answer.

Take for example the IIMs in India. They have from the beginning been open to taking early career students for their flagship PGDM programs. The majority of students at the IIMs continue to be fresh Graduates and most others are in the 1 to 3 years category. And the 5+ yrs workex students at the IIMs are still only a small minority. And are the IIM graduates as good at managing businesses as their counterparts from US Business Schools where the avg workex tends to be 4+ yrs and where it is the fresh grads who are the small minority? Well, looking at the track record of IIM grads over the decades, it would certainly seem so. Graduates of these institutions have done as well as those from any other institution, whether they pursued their careers in India or abroad.

On the other hand, most Business Schools in the US for example, do seem to prefer students with more workex. Even though many of them state as a policy that workex is only desirable not necessary, the class composition at most schools tells the real story because very few students at these schools are fresh from college and the average workex is 4+ years.

Coming to the last two questions of the topic for this post – How much workex do Business Schools require me to have before applying, and what are the options if any for fresh grads – you know already that IIM’s in India have no requirement for workex, though they too do give some weight to workex in their selection process, ISB in India asks for 2+ years and most business schools in the US also prefer at least 2 years, even if they do not always say so.

So what are the options for fresh grads? I wrote already in an earlier post on this blog, about MIM programs offered by an increasing number of Business Schools in the US. But what if one wants to join a regular MBA program? Well there is now an increasingly visible trend even among US business schools that some of them, including some top schools, are encouraging fresh grads to seek admission directly out of college. Notable examples are:

·         Harvard: The HBS 2+2 program – you apply while still in the final year of your UG program, get admission and defer enrolment for 2 years, acquire workex during these two years with an assured seat at their regular MBA program after two years.

·         Stanford: Deferred admission program - Here again you get admission while still in college, defer enrolment by 2-3 years and use this period to gain workex, with a reserved seat at the regular Stanford MBA program.

·         Yale School of Management: Silver Scholar Program – This is a total 3 year MBA program where you join the regular Yale MBA class directly after college, complete the first year of the MBA curriculum and then take a one year break from studies to take up a full one year internship before heading back to Yale to complete the remaining one year of their regular 2 year MBA program.

·         MIT Sloan: Sloan simply encourages college seniors to apply directly to their regular MBA program itself, without any workex. As an incentive, they even waive the application fees for these applicants. About 20% of the Sloan MBA class is composed of students without workex so that tells you they are serious about it.

·         ISB: YLP and Early Entry options – Our indigenous ISB has not one but two options for students with less than 2 years workex. The Young Leaders Program (YLP) requires you to apply while still in the pre-final year at college whereas the Early Entry Option is for graduates with less than two years workex. And both options allow for deferred enrolment.

Likewise there are many other business schools in US that offer either deferred enrolment option or accept significant accept significant proportion of the MBA class without workex. While it may not be clear yet, whether these Business Schools are in fact veering towards younger students, maybe they are only experimenting with the idea for some time to determine what works well, the point is that options are available at US Business Schools even for fresh graduates.

Components of your application - III - Essays

Many applicants have complained over the years that they find writing the essays among the most cumbersome part of the MBA app - something they approach with trepidation as an unavoidableburden. But my clear view is that essays should rather be seen as an opportunity to be utilized to its maximum. Let me illustrate with a story.

Early in my career, I worked at a large multi-division, multi-location company. I was in-charge of one of its profit centers. There was a strong internal audit setup wherein auditors periodically reviewed the operations of each profit center, and raised queries about its deficiencies, mistakes and wrong-doings. These had to be replied to by the profit center head. In the end, the auditor's notes, his queries and the division head's responses, altogether made up the audit report.

All of us operations managers abhorred this exercise because it could potentially highlight our mistakes, that too in front of the most senior Directors in the company. The audit report was the one and only report about individual profit centers that it made its way all the way up through the company hierarchy - such was its importance.

But this attitude changed one day, when a senior gave a bunch of us youngsters a completely new perspective. He pointed out that since the audit report was read by all the senior people, who could ultimately make a difference to our careers, we should see them as our direct line of communication to them. He pointed out that no other report we made, including our monthly or annual profit reports, reached them intact. Rather they got aggregated at the location level, or the product division level, and in those aggregate reports, a single individual's performance never stood out. Even our performance appraisals were not always read individually by people at this rarefied level of the company to which the audit reports reached intact.

From then on, we looked forward to the audits and while replying to the audit queries, ensured that all our important achievements, intitiatives and contributions made it into those reports. And as you might rightly anticipate, a few months later a senior director, when he visited our branch, called me separately and I found he actually remembered my key achievements from the last audit report, and in fact appreciated them in front of my local seniors.

The lesson with the MBA application essays is exactly the same.

The application form, resume, etc. force you into a certain format which firstly limits what you can write in them and is also quite similar across candidates. On the other hand are your essays which form the only part of your application which you get to write fully on your own. This is where you can tell your story in your own words, in your own style, and in such a way that you can paint your own picture of yourself for the AdComm. This is where you can truly make a case for why you deserve to be admitted. Your resume gets them interested. Your essays have them convinced.

So go ahead and appraoch your essay writing with the a sense of anticipation, like when creating a work of Art :) Grab the opportunity to speak directly to the AdComm through the essays. A good way to start I found, is to imagine yourself sitting across the table from the AdComm members and get your story down on paper in the same way that you would tell it to them orally. Then of course you condense it because understand that when the AdComm members are taking the trouble to hear you out individually, you too must show respect for their time.

Which is why when writing your essays, always remember - Clear, Concise, Compelling and Authentic.