What do they teach you about leadership at Stanford?

Introduction

I can honestly say that until today I’ve spent most of my career working in some sort of leadership positions – the ones that require leading others for a common goal. I remember the first time when I formally was a “boss” of two young guys working with me in a chain-store. It was November 2011; I was scared and not very confident.

Since then, my experience of leading others has expanded to include the post of managing director of a restructuring project, two years of leadership development program “Pathways” at Amazon and several years running multimillion businesses of the key product categories in consumer retail.

Therefore, when I was admitted to the Stanford LEAD program, I was very anxious to learn: what do they teach you about leadership at one of the best business schools in the world – Stanford University Graduate School of Business .

Course Structure

My leadership course at Stanford was titled “Foundations of Leadership Immersion” and unlike other courses at LEAD was not eight but only two-weeks long. It was shorter but much more intense at the same time, divided into eight areas and coupled with team and individual coaching as well as three life sessions with the authors of the course – prof. Sarah Soule and prof. Brian Lowery .

And the first part of the course was particularly important – it was Stanford’s definition of leadership, leadership competencies and values.

The definition itself is rather simple and was presented by both professors along with the leadership competences and values “Our definition of leadership is motivating and inspiring a group of individuals to achieve a shared goal.”

However, to achieve that goal: “You need to develop a self-awareness, the ability to understand the perspective of others, an understanding of situational context, the ability to communicate effectively, and the ability to use data to make effective decisions.

We also believe in four core values of leaders. We believe in humility, curiosity, compassion, and courage.”

The logic of it is that you need your actions need to be grounded in values: you need to be humble to be able to self-reflect and understand what drives and motivates yourself in the first place.

Conversely, you need to be curious to understand the perspective of others and the general context of the situation you find yourself in.

Course Content

After initially defining what leadership as well as leadership competences and values are, we dive deep into all of them one by one.

1.??????Self-Coaching

2.??????Understanding Others

3.??????Effective Communication

4.??????Personal Values

5.??????The Role of Trust and Humility in Teams and Organizations

6.??????Diversity and Inclusion

7.??????Decision Making

8.??????Leadership Action Plan

For each of those we had a different presenter including Ed Batista for self-coaching, Leah Weiss, PhD, MSW for understanding other and compassionate leadership, Matt Abrahams for effective communication, Joel Peterson for trust and humility, and finally Shelley J. Correll and Lori Nishiura Mackenzie for diversity and inclusion.

The most inspiring for me was the part by Joel Peterson as I firmly believe building high-trust organizations is not only great for the business itself but also for the community as people enjoying their work are far more likely to enjoy their lives as well.

To this end I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Peterson himself:

“High trust lives are happier than low trust lives, and high trust organizations work better than low trust organizations. High trust organizations innovate, they're flexible, they repair themselves, they attract the best people, and they keep them. They reward for innovation, for hard work, and for delivering on promises.”

Conclusions

When I approached the course, I expected it would be largely a repetition of a well-known subjects and topics. It was the structure that I got that was the most valuable for me: defining what leadership is, what the competence and what values are needed to support it.

Based on this course I can also assure everyone that:

1.??????Leadership skills is not a “God-given gift” but something you gain by working hard, staying humble and curious.

2.??????It is much easier to meet leaders who follow their instincts (for good or worse) and not evidence which is far more valuable to become a good leader.

3.???????I do not associate leadership with job-titles and formal hierarchies. You can show leadership each time you are confronted with a problem and when cooperating with others is needed to solve it. Just be honest, be polite, think of others and be creative – you don’t need a directorship to do that.

For Jim Collins in his classic “Good to Great” leadership was put as a foundation of a great organizations. Sadly, and my own personal experience confirms that, he didn’t manage to find many great leaders. Still, I believe it is really up to each and every one of us to show good leadership whenever we can and the proper attitude whenever confronted with a bad one.