"Mud, Marines, and MBAs" - Leadership 101
Tuesday, May 17, 2005SUSIE GHARIB: What's the first thing an executive needs on the job? Try leadership. It is a buzzword in business, but teaching leadership to executives is a whole other matter. So the Wharton School, one of the nation's top business schools, is turning to a branch of the U.S. military for lessons in leadership. In the first of a three-part series, "Mud, Marines and MBAs", Jeff Yastine shows us how one group is learning from the other.
JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: The place? The U.S. Marine Corps' officer candidates school, in Quantico, Virginia. But these aren't raw recruits, or Marines at all. They're mostly MBA students, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The guns aren't real, but just about everything else is. It's a long way, to here, from here, the Wharton campus in Philadelphia. MBA students like Tom Vonreichbauer learn the essentials of being a business executive or entrepreneur: statistics, strategy, negotiation. There's even a required course in leadership. But learning about leadership and being a leader, he knows, can be two different things.
TOM VONREICHBAUER, MBA STUDENT, WHARTON SCHOOL: People ask whether leaders are born or whether they're made and I think -- I'm not sure on that. I think there's a chance that people are maybe born with some of those characteristics kind of generally within them, but I think it takes time to really develop those and bring them out.
YASTINE: It's been a continuing debate for years. Can leadership be taught or is it something that some people have and others do not, no matter how hard they try? Professors here at Wharton believe that leadership in fact can be learned.
MICHAEL USEEM, DIR., CTR. FOR LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE MGMT.: Our view here is that everybody can improve the leadership platform they start with. So some come into our MBA program, they've led people for five or six years. They're good at leadership. They've got the basic moves pretty well down. But we say they can improve what they've got. Some people come here. They've had no background. They've never managed anybody else. And we say they too can improve their skill set.
YASTINE: Some students here have seen up close what bad leadership can do to a company. Jennifer Stewart worked at Enron for two years before its collapse.
JENNIFER STEWART, MBA STUDENT, WHARTON SCHOOL: I learned from that experience that leaders have to be ethical and honest and have their morals completely intact. And that's why I think that, from that experience, I learned that business is not just about making money. It's about how you treat your employees. It's about making sure that you're doing the right thing and making a long-lasting impact.
YASTINE: But right now, the impact is on the students, like Jan Eskildsen, getting ready to forego their comfortable campus, for time with the Marines. Eskildsen, who's going on to an investment banking job after graduation, sees similarities for a leader in either world.
JAN ESKILDSEN, 2ND-YEAR MBA, WHARTON SCHOOL: He has to make decisions with not all the information in front of him, in stressful situations with a lot on the line and make decisions and be assertive and I think that that's something that I want to learn.
YASTINE: Over the next two days, these students will learn a lot about leadership, a lot about the Marines and a lot about themselves. Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Philadelphia.
