The MBA question archetypes
ARCHETYPE 4: LEADERSHIP 1. Examples
The truth is that some of your weak spots will probably stay with you through- out your life in one form or another. If they are genuine, there is – by definition – no easy way to beat them, and you will fail again because of them, and it’s juvenile to think otherwise. The only thing that improves is your management of your weaknesses. Take heart from the reality that most CEOs, presidents and other celebrities – from Bill Gates to Bill Clinton – are managing a chronic imperfection or two. It is fine to tell Adcom that you recognize a long-term weakness, and explain how you compensate for it, while always watching vigilantly for where it might still lead you to make wrong moves.
Tone
When you are writing about failure, take care to keep a straightforward, can- did, objective tone. Don’t try to slip in softening or deflecting phrases. Don’t hide behind humour. Don’t come across as excusing or blaming. Don’t whine.
(If you’re really struggling with this, get your spouse or significant other to write the first draft of this essay – they will give a forthright account of your weaknesses in the kind of tone you are looking for!)
5. How to flunk this essay
You will mess up this essay if:
• You cannot candidly admit failure and weakness.
• Your failure event is weak, or it is a non-failure, or you do not demon- strate that you understand what constitutes a failure.
• Your story is short on detail and interest.
• You don’t connect failure to weaknesses, or you imply that your weaknesses are trivial.
• Your tone is inappropriate or juvenile.
• There is too much description and not enough analysis.
• You fail to develop or share insight into yourself.
• You underestimate the transformation required to ensure not failing next time given the same circumstances. You think that your weak spots are solved rather than managed.
ARCHETYPE 4: LEADERSHIP
Please give an example of when you had an impact on a person, group or organization. Please describe the situation, your actions, and the results.
(Sloan)
Please cite and explain a specific situation in which you demonstrated initia- tive. (Columbia)
2. Recognition keywords
Lead, motivate, initiative, impact, leadership, guide, direct, direction, responsibility, decision, inspire, encourage, power, influence, run, organize.
3. The underlying issue
Leadership will be a guiding theme in every application you do. Adcom asks this question to find out not only what kind of leader you are now and what kind of a leader you might become – whether you’ve got ‘the right stuff’ – but also to determine your understanding of, and attitude to, leadership.
Part of having the right stuff is knowing what the right stuff looks like. Just having leadership experience doesn’t necessarily mean you were any good at it. You have to show them you know what good is. You must also demonstrate an explicit understanding of your particular personal leadership style – how you influence, how you motivate, how you sanction, and so on – and the preferences and assumptions behind your leadership style. Note that, for MBA admissions purposes, you won’t get far with the idea that being an associate member of nice-sounding organizations is ‘leadership’. If you weren’t present and active in the centre of events, it doesn’t count. One active leadership experience is worth a dozen organization affiliations.
In some cases, there may be an overlap between this essay and the achieve- ment essay – a leadership event may also be one of your great achievements.
But there are crucial differences. First, a leadership event need not be a success.
You may present a leadership event where you didn’t succeed, if you at least learned a lot about yourself and about leading. Second, while achievement is often the product of personal goals and private struggles, leadership is always in the public domain. If nobody other than you is involved, it is not a leader- ship event. This ‘public domain’ criterion of leadership requires you to pick an event where you created, directed and influenced an outcome that was achiev- able by two or more people, of which you were a part, and where your abilities made a difference to others’ ability to achieve a goal.
The ability to make a difference by motivating, harnessing and coordinat- ing the efforts of others is the very essence of leadership for MBA admissions purposes. Therefore, what’s also important here is your relationship with other people and your understanding of their motivations and the team dynamics.
98 ESSAY MANAGEMENT
The interpersonal dimension suggests that your leadership essay will poten- tially overlap with the team essay. In the team leader role, you need to show a sophisticated understanding of the leadership problems inherent in managing multiple egos and orchestrating group priorities. In all leadership analysis, you should show respect for the difficulties of leadership – if you underestimate how hard it is, you have never really led.
4. How to tackle it
The question usually requires the description-analysis format, as discussed above. Once again you should not overspend your allotted word length on telling the story. Remember, unless you have led in some spectacular capacity (you are already Eritrea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, say), the merit of your leadership story is going to resemble everyone else’s, so focus on your analysis, where you can differentiate yourself. Again, for the same reason, it is less important to pick the most impressive leadership event of your life than one that allows you to develop one or all of your themes.
In your analysis, you must explain why the leadership event you chose was, and continues to be, valuable as a leadership experience, what this sug- gests about how you view leadership and what that says about you as a future leader. Show how your leadership and other experiences to date are defining your emerging leadership style. You should, space permitting, share some of your ‘theory’ of leadership so far – what leadership is and how best to do it.
Remember that if you are MBA-entry age, you are at the stage of life where, no matter how good your leadership skills are, they are still being formed.
Most of your leading experience is still in front of you. This makes it appropri- ate for you to present your leadership skills as a work in progress (and in need of MBA training). In your attempt to outgun the competition, try not to fall into the trap of claiming you are a seasoned leader with rafts of senior experience.
You will just destroy your credibility.
Leadership versus ethical dilemmas
Some people think that taking a moral stand – for example, reporting your boss for inflating monthly sales figures – is a leadership event. It is not. It is just an ethical event. Very occasionally, a leadership essay overlaps with the
‘ethical dilemma’ essay (see Archetype 6, below) in that resolving the dilemma requires leadership. For example, there may have been broader organizational dynamics involved in resolving the issues of the inflated monthly sales fig- ures, and you may have challenged, motivated and led people to see things your way and follow you in taking action. In other words, the ethical event becomes a leadership event only to the extent that you influence a group’s action.
THE MBA ESSAY QUESTION ARCHETYPES 99
5. How to flunk this essay
You will mess up this essay if:
• Your leadership event is weak, suggesting you don’t have any significant leadership experience.
• You mix up leadership events with achievement events or ethical dilemmas.
• Your story is short on detail, interest and relevance.
• You hype the amount and extent of your leadership experience.
• Your analysis is vacuous and does not provide insight into you or your leadership attributes.
• You do not show understanding of your own leadership style.
• You fail to develop or share your insights into the nature of leadership.
ARCHETYPE 5: CONTRIBUTION