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Stanford Business magazine

 

About This Issue

Leadership Epiphanies

By Kathleen O'Toole, Editor

Kathleen O'Toole, EditorEntering his dorm, the freshman spotted an imposing upperclassman with a file folder heading toward him in the lobby. “Are you Mike Johnson?” the older student asked. When the freshman answered in the affirmative, the upperclassman identified himself as the coach of the dorm’s intramural football team. Too many players had signed up, he said. Would Johnson be willing to put his high school playing experience to use by becoming the player-coach of a new, all-freshman team?

Flattered, Johnson accepted on the spot and the next day headed to the practice field, where he discovered, much to his amazement, that the other freshmen “were looking at me as a leader. It was an epiphany. I enjoyed leading. I saw that I could provide value to others by leading. In the ensuring decades—at college, in business, with church groups, youth sports teams, and alumni groups—I gladly took on leadership.”

Johnson, SEP ’98, sent us this account of how he stumbled into leadership. He is among our readers who have said they are interested in learning more about how other people become not just managers but effective leaders. The Business School hopes to leave less to chance by helping MBAs discover and hone their leadership skills through the Center for Leadership Development and Research laboratories. As you will see, upperclassmen and alumni with leadership experience are putting first-year students through baptisms by fire in simulations designed to give them leadership epiphanies.

“Students must become incredibly self-aware and reflective as they discover their personal leadership style and how to inspire other people,” Evelyn Williams, the director of the laboratories, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “I see students make huge transformational changes. To prevent weak behaviors from becoming ingrained, they learn how to change their communication style or their emotional responses.”

As you read this magazine over time, you might notice that leadership is often the underlying subject of our stories about alumni. In this issue, for example, we write about two alums, Owen West, MBA ’98, and Jim Hake, MBA ’83, who dreamed up and led an effort to develop a terrorism-fighting device for soldiers in Iraq. There is Karol Emmerich, MBA ’71, who, after years leading a major retailer’s finance team, opted for a lower key spiritual style of leadership, and Susan Athey, PhD ’95, whose path-breaking research prompted the American Economic Association to give her its top honor. In addition, several alumni entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in China are featured; a New Ventures column highlights alums who recently founded companies; and our Newsmakers feature always provides examples of alumni in leadership roles.

It is safe to say that members of the GSB community have always found ways to lead others. The new leadership laboratory curriculum undoubtedly will open doors a little faster and wider for leaders in the next generation.