Re: Leadership at Kellogg

Whew, it has been a long time since I've been able to sit down and type one of these up. The good news is that I have a lot of things I want to write about; the bad news is that if I don't find the time to do so soon, I'm likely to forget all of them.

I wrapped up my NBI project, which I am certain I'll write up a more detailed account on, last week with a 2-hour presentation at the organization's headquarters. My team put together a huge 70-slide deck containing our analysis, findings, recommendations, and supplemental data (simulations, survey data, etc). I also finished the last of my HW assignments, projects, and papers, so I now only have 4 finals left before I wrap up my first quarter at Kellogg! I'm in the middle of cramming for "Finals Frenzy," and it looks to be a difficult week, but that isn't the topic for this here post.

Instead, I wanted to quickly address a misconception that I've heard from a few applicants during the past couple of weeks on Leadership at Kellogg. Basically, there are a lot of opportunities to develop leadership skills here, but as far as I've seen, you will rarely, if ever, have formal authority over anyone (or a team). Instead, you will be working with groups of classmates that are all pretty much equally qualified to be the "leader." In these situations, you have to find a way to work together with your teammates to arrive at the best possible solution or successfully plan and execute something, and if you think that you have the right answer, it is up to you to convince the rest of the team. This is a lot harder than it seems, and I think it is representative of the situation you are likely to find yourself in most often throughout your career.

Not the most thrilling post, but finals are looming large and I have to get warmed up again.