Tag: Bauer Leadership Center

Allison Halpern, BSBA ’18, wrote this post on behalf of Bauer Leadership Center.

Last week, the Bauer Leadership fellows discussed the challenges and responsibilities of a leader. All fellows are MBA students serving as Center for Experiential Learning team leads for a project within their practicum program. In this role, they need to manage relationships with their teammates, mentors, and clients.

To navigate these winding roads successfully, they collaborated and role played tough situations to understand how to solve problems and create impact as a leader. To extend this conversation beyond the meeting walls, I wanted to share their words of wisdom here to continue building values-based leaders here at WashU.

Communicate Early; Set Goals; Manage Expectations

Many fellows discussed coming into a team with prior friendships with other members. Established relationships can be difficult to break, especially if you are coming into a role as a superior with a team of fellow students. It is important to set the goals up front for you as a leader and other team members in various roles to give them freedom and leadership.

This allows everyone to have responsibilities where they can shine. It also grounds you with a sense of authority and respect.

And these conversations go beyond the team, too. Each group has a mentor to guide them through the practicum. They are there for guidance and to provide a more experienced perspective, but making sure they are doing this properly can be difficult.

Taylor Ohman, previous CEL team lead and BLC Fellow, said it well: “This is the Center for Experiential Learning—the point is to work through the struggles and learn how to do better.”

With this in mind, its important for this mentor to let students solve problems to learn and grow in this safe space.

Take on the Responsibility of the Team

As one of the fellows said it, be a “leader servant.” Leaders will get much of the praise when things go well—and all of the brunt if they don’t. If another teammate is having an off week, it is on the leader to pick up the slack.

And if nitty-gritty administrative work needs to be done, it is important for the leader to pick up on it to allow the rest of the team to focus on the parts that matter most to them. As a leader, it is your job to bring the best out of your team.

Sometimes, that means doing the not-so-glamorous work and taking the fall when things go wrong. But it’s also important to know how to bounce back.

Adapt, Improvise, and Shift Plans, If Needed

Of course, you can set goals and take on hard responsibilities, but some things just might not go as you thought—and that’s OK. As a leader, it is critical to learn how to act on your feet and continually manage performance.

If someone is not performing up to par, discuss it with this person in a direct, mature, and decisive manner. Improvise on what their responsibilities are to provide tasks that can be benchmarks for success. Every team member will work differently, so work to understand these differences to create a cohesive team dynamic.

The Bauer Leadership Fellows Program provides experiential leadership development for team leaders who lead CEL practicum teams. Recently, the BLC fellows had the opportunity to go to Creve Coeur Lake for a leadership development rowing retreat. BLC fellows reflect back on what they took away from the rowing experience.

Place Trust in the Team

BLC fellow Elizabeth Hailand, MBA ’19, described how effectiveness in crew widely paralleled effectiveness in team leadership. Like a team, a crew requires trust in all members to stay afloat. As rowing is a coordinated team activity, if one crew member is out of sync, the entire team is put at a disadvantage. Trust in each other is vital to rowing an effective boat.

Lead by Listening

Trusting the team also means allowing others to naturally take the lead. To keep the boat balanced, rowers with more practice stepped forward. BLC fellow Perri Goldberg, MBA ’18, reflected how the rowing retreat pushed natural leaders to listen, and allowed those with more experience to take the lead. This was a reminder to those in charge not to get caught up in their own status, but focus on the team vision.

Understand How to Motivate Your Team

Success in rowing is also attributed to effectiveness in coaching. As rowing is an exhausting workout, having the right motivation is essential. A fellow shared how the coach would sometimes “cold call” a single member of the boat to row.

While this fellow enjoyed this type of personal coaching, they learned that it did not suit all of their crew members. This helped the fellow appreciate the importance of a leader to understand the team dynamics. A strong leader knows how to motivate and encourage each individual team member, while not compromising the project goal.

Apart from proving its worth as a physically strenuous workout, the Creve Coeur rowing retreat was a great opportunity to reflect first hand on leadership values and implementation. As one fellow shared after the rowing experience, since January, they have grown as leaders from driving meetings to now acting as facilitators of great and healthy content within meetings.

Jamie Semler, BSBA ’18, wrote this post on behalf of the Bauer Leadership Center.

“Are you prepared to be a leader?”

As an undergraduate business school student, I have been taught the technical skills and knowledge needed to excel in my career and the fundamental aspects of management and professionalism. The emphasis in my coursework on data-based decision making and evaluation of success through numerical measures and ratios has prepared me to be a valuable future manager in any organization.

Yet, as Bob Chapman—chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller Group—challenges us to answer the question above, I am forced to think about the ways in which my education and experiences have contributed to or fallen short of preparing me for my career.

In describing his experiences and leadership philosophy, often termed “Truly Human Leadership,” Bob helped us all attempt to think about and answer the above question and left us with some key takeaways about being an impactful leader:

Taking Responsibility for Other People’s Lives

Bob’s realization of the profound impact leaders have on those that they lead has spurred his belief that leaders are responsible for being stewards for the people they lead. Through his experiences at Barry-Wehmiller he has seen the effect his actions as a leader have had on the health, family life, and work satisfaction/enjoyment of his employees.

 Having the Courage To Care

The main principle underlying Bob’s leadership style is the importance of showing that you care about those who you are leading. This idea is best explained by Bob’s statement that “the greatest thing you can do as a leader is let people know they matter.”

In order to show appreciation for his employees, he has created a guiding principles award aimed at recognizing and rewarding those who exemplify leadership and company values, as nominated by their peers. The emotional responses to getting the award demonstrate the impact this type of leadership tactic has on the morale of the employees.

Defining Success

By measuring success by how he touches the lives of people, rather than solely by economic figures, Bob has created an environment that shows that he takes an interest in his employees. The way in which he handled the economic downturn of 2009 shows that he places importance on the lives of the people.

Instead of laying people off, which would severely affect the lives of many people, he decided that since he measures success by the way he touches people’s lives, he would not fire anyone and instead ask people to take a one month unpaid vacation, so that everyone suffered a little loss, but no one suffered a complete loss.

Understanding the Importance of Business Strategy

Although Bob puts much emphasis on being good to his people, he also notes the importance of having a strong business model in order to be able to support the them.  In talking about some key aspects of a strong business model, he emphasizes the importance of focusing on cash, growth through organic means and acquisitions, developing a sustainable model that balances markets and customers, and building a board of directors that you respect and who will challenge your thinking.

Long-time Olin professor and former interim dean Kurt Dirks has been tapped for a new university-wide assignment as vice chancellor for international relations and director of the McDonnell International Scholars Academy.

He will succeed James Wertsch in the vice chancellor role when Wertsch leaves the post July 1 and takes over the academy director’s role Jan. 1.

“Kurt is a perfect successor to Jim. He brings energy to continue to build on our progress and vision to find new opportunities to expand our international engagement,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said in the announcement to the WashU community on Friday. “I am looking forward to this next chapter in our international programming.”

Dirks comes into the new post after teaching at Olin since 2001. Now the Bank of America Professor of Managerial Leadership, he is also co-director of Olin’s Bauer Leadership Center and served as interim dean of the business school after Mahendra Gupta retired from the post in 2016.

“I’m grateful to Dean (Mark) Taylor for being so supportive in this,” Dirks said. “In the new role, I am looking forward to help support the global vision Dean Taylor has for Olin, as well as working with the other schools to support their global objectives.”

In his new role, Dirks will help to attract students from across the globe to attend Washington University, to strengthen ties between Washington University and leading research universities from other countries, and to support global research and educational programs in the university.

Dirks will remain on the Olin faculty, continuing his research on trust and leadership. He will no longer be able to teach his “Power and Politics” or “Defining Moments” classes, which are popular electives in the MBA program. Although he will remain active in the Bauer Leadership Center, he will step down from his post as co-director.

“I am excited Kurt is taking on this significant role at the university, and I am thrilled that he will remain connected to Olin as we grow our school’s global presence and offerings,” Dean Taylor said. “It is as important as ever to continue to emphasize around the world the academics, research, intellectual capacity, student experience, innovation, and values that make Olin and Washington University so special.”

Dirks’s connection to McDonnell is a continuation of his service on its steering committee, where he’s served since 2015. He helped to launch Olin’s Executive MBA program with IIT-Bombay in Mumbai, the first US-based EMBA degree program in India. He also helped manage Olin’s EMBA partner program with Fudan University in Shanghai.

Wertsch was the founding director of the McDonnell academy in 2005, which was founded as a hub of international activity and has grown to include 34 partner universities around the world. According to WashU’s announcement, the academy was established to help link universities in sharing expertise and research to jointly work on significant global challenges such as energy and the environment and global health.

Wertsch also expanded the McDonnell Scholars program, which pairs international students from partner universities with WashU faculty mentors to study on campus. The program has grown to 98 alums since its first graduate in 2007.

Dirks indicated there may be opportunities for the McDonnell Academy and Bauer Center to collaborate on their work.

“The McDonnell Scholars program helps international students become leaders in their own areas — law, science, business,” Dirks said. “We want to look at whether there are ways the Bauer Leadership Center can add onto that.”

Joe Piganelli, MBA ’18, wrote this post on behalf of Bauer Leadership Center. Olin Blog is running it today, the day of the Cardinal’s home opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

While the common fan may not view baseball this way, running a baseball team is just like running a business. Both require focus, discipline, and leadership skills. There are revenues, expenses, profits, and losses that must be managed for the team owners.

John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations for the St. Louis Cardinals, holds these responsibilities. He has implemented a unique system of coaching and feedback spanning the entire Cardinals organization.

Recently, the “Defining Moments” class at Olin had the opportunity to hear Mozeliak. He told us what leadership means to him, sharing the correlation between leadership and success within the Cardinals organization. What stuck out to me most about Mozeliak’s leadership tactics were his discipline and adherence to systems and his ability to focus on areas where he can have the most impact.

In the Cards’ organization, individuals receive bimonthly feedback on whether they are at a constant level of performance, improving performance, or declining performance. Those with constant or declining performance levels learn how they can achieve improving performance. This system sounds simple and intuitive, but is difficult. It requires amazing discipline, prioritization, and consistent management to stick to and maintain it.

Mozeliak’s strict adherence to systems, routines, and concepts of organizational management have provided him the means to sustain and enhance the mystical “Cardinal Way.” The key element to managing these systems is his ability to not micro-manage.  The “Cardinal Way”—the organizational philosophy of the team—depends not only on discipline, but also trust.

Mozeliak trusts his people and likewise his people trust him. He provides his team the autonomy and space to run these systems, creating a stronger team on and off the baseball field.

The privilege of listening to our (favorite) baseball team’s president of baseball operations was unforgettable. Mozeliak gave us a window into the hard work and discipline that goes into leading any organization to success—especially a winning baseball team.

Written by Taylor Ohman, MBA ’18, on behalf of Bauer Leadership Center

I had the distinct pleasure of being the student host for our speaker, Ward Klein, former CEO of Energizer. Prior to our meeting, I discovered he began his career in the exact position I will begin mine in four months: Marketing Associate at Nestlé (formerly Ralston) Purina.

This made the “war stories” he shared especially inspiring: I could see them being defining moments I, too, one day might encounter. Although I understand that no two individuals’ career trajectory could ever be the same, I enjoyed imagining myself following his footsteps to a meaningful, successful, and truly impactful career.

After listening to him speak, I believe there are three primary elements that define Ward Klein’s leadership style: a commitment to culture, courage against the unknown, and a sense of responsibility for those that he leads.

Klein’s commitment to culture was apparent from the start, when he described why he chose to work for Purina over other companies. He valued the environment that they worked hard to propagate throughout their organization and recognized the importance this sort of culture has in the shaping of people working within it.

This was impactful for me, as I also recognized Purina for its distinct culture of teamwork. Klein’s commitment to culture continued throughout his career as he managed the difficult task of integrating a new company—with a very different culture—into the Purina “family.”

Even when he assumed the role of CEO at Energizer, this commitment to culture did not waiver. During his speech, he said a majority of his responsibility as the leader of the  company was to define and foster the culture of the organization. By remaining loyal to his values and propagating those values throughout the company, he was able to create a culture that lended to the growth and advancement of all his employees.

Passionate for Challenges

The second element of his leadership style, courage against the unknown, manifested in his willingness to stand up to others and in his passion for taking on difficult and ambiguous projects. Klein shared a moving story about one of the first times he made his boss “turn red in the face with anger” after Klein openly opposed his idea.

The story culminated in Klein signing onto his boss’s idea with an upside-down signature, as done in Japanese culture, to signify his disagreement—but his willingness to follow his boss’s lead. This resonated with his boss, as it was he who originally shared this technique with Klein.

Not only did this show Klein’s propensity for effective communication, but also his courage for standing up for what he believed in. Another time that Klein showed such courage was when he accepted an undefined role in Energizer’s unproven flashlight market.

This effectively diverted his original career path and sent him into territories, both geographical and theoretical, that he knew nothing about. However, it was the challenge and ambiguity of this role that ultimately led Klein to learn more about himself and his company than he could have ever done in his previous role.

Servant Leadership

The final defining element of Ward Klein’s leadership philosophy was an unwavering sense of responsibility to help his employees grow and flourish as leaders themselves. As a leader, Klein said, your job is not to make yourself look good in front of your employees, but instead to be of the most assistance to them.

This servant-leadership approach, and Klein’s absolute commitment to it, has allowed him to earn the genuine and passionate loyalty of his employees. It has also allowed him to create a company that continues to grow and prosper under the legacy of his leadership.

It was these three elements—commitment to culture, courage, and responsibility for others—that I feel combined to create Klein’s unique and effective leadership philosophy. He was an incredibly inspiring speaker and I will remember his lessons for years to come as I embark on my own professional journey as a leader.