Supply Chain Frontiers issue #10. Read all articles in this issue.
The MIT Master of Engineering in Logistics (MLOG) program has introduced a Leadership Track to provide some of the leadership skills students will need when they become senior executives. The new track has been added to MLOG in response to feedback from practitioners, alumni, and other experts in the field.
The ability to analyze a situation, run a model, and come up with a solution is extremely important, and programs such as MLOG have been teaching these abilities for years. However, the solution will never be implemented without a leader who is capable of championing the idea, as well as motivating a team to implement and navigate it through corporate egos and politics. Moreover, today's supply chain professionals have to fill these roles in a global environment that involves disparate trading partners scattered across multiple geographies. These are skills that educators need to teach.
A web-based survey of the MLOG alumni revealed that these practitioners are well aware that leadership skills are of the utmost importance to their career development. The alumni-- who work in a wide cross section of industries and companies in various supply chain management roles - were presented with a list of 31 leadership skills. These included leading a project team, coaching a subordinate, receiving feedback from a superior, negotiating with a hostile player, and creating a performance plan. They were then asked to rank how important each of the skills is to their careers. The top three leadership skills ranked most important were the ability to express a complex concept in as simple a fashion as possible, to lead a change management initiative within an organization, and to lead a team.
Additionally, the alumni ranked themselves on these 31 skills. Combining the responses to these two questions revealed several important yet under-taught leadership skills. Two of the more interesting skills in this category were the ability to identify and apply different leadership styles within a given situation and the ability to defuse a hostile work situation or negotiate with hostile players.
"It is generally recognized that leadership is important and that it can be learned--sometimes by accident and usually through experience and trial and error," said Chris Caplice, MLOG Executive Director. "The question is whether it can be taught. We strongly believe that it can." The method is critical, however, since these leadership skills will need to be used in numerous contexts and within different relationships. For this reason, the MLOG Leadership Track is divided into three segments based on the types of relationships with others: self, team, and external.
The first segment, designed to help students understand their own leadership style, personality type, strengths and weaknesses, was kicked off with workshop sessions led by Dr. Shalom Saar, Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. These sessions feature a battery of self assessment instruments coupled with in-depth discussions that helps the students internalize and use this new understanding of themselves. These sessions will culminate with a 360-degree feedback for each student that includes not only their student peers, but also their pre-MIT acquaintances.
In January 2006 the program expands from the individual to the team. The focus is on teaching students how to work on a team in a variety of leadership and supporting roles. This includes understanding team dynamics, diversity, decision making, performance management, etc. Based on the idea of learning by doing, this segment features a series of interactive exercises and large scale simulation projects by both MIT staff and supply chain professionals. The insights and lessons are directly applicable to real-life supply chain management. Also participating in this "Know Thy Team" segment will be the students enrolled in the Zaragoza Logistics Center.
Finally, in the spring of 2006 the Leadership Track concludes by examining leadership in relation to external players such as, partners, vendors, and customers. To improve these skills a number of specialized communication, change management, and negotiation courses are offered.
These three dimensions of leadership (self, team, external) will help MLOG professionals to lead both within their organizations and externally in the extended supply chain. This is crucially important, since they must orchestrate a web of supply chain partners that is becoming more complex and global.
This article was written by Chris Caplice, MLOG Executive Director. For more information on MLOG, or the program's new Leadership Track, contact Chris Caplice at: Caplice@MIT.EDU