Your first “real” experiences at Booth come from the LEAD program. LEAD stands for Leadership Effectiveness and Development, and it is the only required class you’ll take at Booth. The class starts during orientation and lasts about six weeks into your first quarter. It’s composed of various modules designed to prepare you for leadership roles. Modules range from learning about your personality traits and how that impacts your conflict resolution skills to practicing your presentation skills. It’s also where you meet many of your friends. In honor of the ten LEAD cohorts, here are the Top 10 things LEAD can teach you navigating life at Booth:
1. LOR (the Leadership Orientation Retreat) is a microcosm of your life at
Booth. LEAD starts with a three-day retreat in Lake Geneva, WI. The days
you spend at the retreat mirror what you can expect from life at Booth – you’ll
be challenged during the three days, but you’ll also get personalized and
reflective training through the LEAD programming. By the time night falls,
you’ll be relaxing and partying with 600 of your closest friends across the
resort.
2. Your Cohort and Squad from LEAD will be where you find the first of
many friends you meet at Booth. Through LEAD, you’re divided into one of ten
cohorts. You’ll attend LEAD programming in these cohorts. Even after your
formal class time ends, you’ll still have events organized in/by the cohort
throughout the year. To get more personal attention, you’ll be divided into 7
or 8 person squads. Since much of LEAD becomes very personal and intimate,
you’ll get to know the members of your squad better than anyone else you meet
at Booth.
3. Cohorts give you a sense for the uniqueness of Booth students. Knowing
that Booth has a flexible curriculum, you’d expect a diversity of interests
among students and your experience in LEAD really showcases that. Unlike some other schools, your cohort isn't
determined by an intended concentration or future function/industry. This ends
up being a great benefit, because you’ll end up meeting people with the same
interests through classes, student groups and recruiting events. But by mixing
things up in the cohort system, you’ll already have a great start on a diverse
network for when you graduate.
4. Culture of giving back. One of the greatest attributes of the Booth
community is the prevalence of second-year students ready, willing and able to
help first-year students succeed. While first-year students see this happening
in a multitude of ways, your first taste of this culture comes from LEAD,
where, instead of a professor, 40 second-year students design and run the
course and make the various modules relevant to you.
5. Booth (and LEAD) are all about taking risks. As Dean Kole likes to
say, business school is your off-season, and there’s no better time to take
risks. Through LEAD you’ll give a speech in front of your cohort, participate
in the high-ropes course at LOR and be asked to at least try things that you
wouldn't normally do with your job on the line. These will all help make you a
more effective leader after graduation. For example, business school is
probably the best time to bomb while giving a presentation, especially compared
to the final presentation nearly all internships will require!
6. LEAD (and B-School in general) mark a transition point. While your
classmates come from a variety of backgrounds, everyone here is a high
performer. By the time you graduate and have your first post-MBA job, it’ll no
longer be enough to do well on whatever you’re assigned. Instead, you’ll have
to accomplish goals by leading teams and working with others. LEAD will teach
you that great leaders are made and not born, and that we all have individual
areas to work on to make us better leaders. Through the introspective approach
to development, you’ll learn exactly what those areas are for you.
7. To succeed at Booth, you have to be humble. Aspects of LEAD are
intentionally uncomfortable, especially as you learn how others see you. The
key to the LEAD program is your ability to take what you learn constructively
and to not become overly defensive. If you can’t force yourself to listen,
these programs become very difficult. For example, one LEAD module looks at how
you are initially perceived by your colleagues. I learned I am initially
perceived as being direct, candid and tough (as opposed to being warm and
non-judgmental), likely because I often rely on sarcasm. Getting feedback like
this can initially be unsettling, but it’s also important information to learn.
Knowing this, I can try to avoid sarcasm when meeting new people and try to
make myself more approachable.
8. But humility doesn't mean we don’t compete. LEAD helps foster a
sense of healthy competition. From Fall Frolics (a field day-like competition)
to the Golden Gargoyles (the Oscars, but for Cohort-produced videos), your
cohort will be competing against the other nine. Eventually, these competitions
build into the year-long cohort cup sponsored by the Graduate Business Council.
There are also opportunities to compete as an individual through LEAD, with
things like day-long leadership and/or public speaking competitions. While
we’re not allowed to disclose what actually happens at these competitions, the
thing that surprised me most was the school’s ability to bring in incredible
alumni judges (including top partners at some of the best-known consulting
firms), which indicates how the culture and community built at Booth doesn't
end with graduation.
9. The diversity at Booth means you can always learn something from your
classmates. In the Class of 2015, 36% are international students and 49%
were born outside the United States. With the huge multi-cultural community,
LEAD devotes an entire session to living and working in a country other than
your own. For U.S.-born students, you get a sense of how your actions can
easily be misinterpreted in other cultures and how you can help make the
transition for your international peers easier. For international students, the
session demonstrates some of the cultural norms of working in the United States
and how these may differ from other countries.
