At Stacy Blackman Consulting, we do a lot of thinking about leadership – what is leadership, how best to showcase it, why it matters and more. If asked what is the single most important quality for business school applications, I would say leadership. While some schools emphasize it more than others – leadership is extremely important to every school. They are grooming overall leaders, not just number-crunchers, marketers or statisticians.

Leadership often gets confused with management, but being a great leader is not just about managing something, although that can be a part of it. Last week I was featured in a BusinessWeek article called, Make Your Leadership Case for B-School Admission. It’s a very helpful article that helps to dissect exactly what leadership is. It also provides six examples of how to demonstrate leadership potential.

I am quoted as saying, “It’s about leaving a footprint on whatever situation you’re in and doing more than a good job,” says Stacy Blackman, president of Stacy Blackman Consulting. “Leadership is not a solo effort. You’re inspiring others and bringing out the best in them.” These two points are critical and help to explain how leadership differs from just any great achievement.

1) Leaving a footprint – think about how you made an impact even in a very simple way. that footprint can reveal a lot about what you care about and how you engage with an organization.
2) Working with others – if you accomplish something alone, no matter how impressive it may be, you are not really leading. Think about WHO you led, and how you led in order to develop a great example.

If you are beginning to contemplate content and stories for your applications, definitely check out this very helpful article. Our book, The MBA Application Roadmap, also has terrific content on leadership, how to brainstorm for good topics and how to approach the essays. We consider it a must read as you approach the application process!

Recessions always hit the nonprofit sector particularly hard, and that, Columbia Business School professor Raymond Horton says, gives MBAs and today’s nonprofits more to offer each other than ever. In the latest installment of Columbia’s Ideas at Work, Horton argues that “We shouldn’t be trapped into thinking about nonprofits as so fundamentally different that they are somehow beyond the purview of MBAs.”

Nonprofits and private-sector organizations have more in common than is often acknowledged, and Horton says the role of an MBA in a nonprofit is basically the same of an MBA in a leadership role at any firm:  to lead, to manage and to use available resources to deliver results.

“With proper attention to the nuances of the nonprofit world, most of what MBAs learn in business school can quite readily be applied in a nonprofit or public-service career. MBAs can bring hard skills in financial management and analysis at a time when nonprofits and their funders are increasingly using assessment tools — both quantitative and qualitative — to measure their success. MBAs may also smooth the path between nonprofits and their corporate supporters, bridging gaps in communication and culture,” Horton explains.

At Columbia, MBAs and the public and nonprofit sectors intersect in the Nonprofit Board Leadership Program, a place where MBAs can put their expertise to use in service to a nonprofit. “Board leadership can give a big bang without requiring a wholesale career switch,” says Horton. In the strategic-philanthropy course, students learn how a thoughtful, effective philanthropy program can be shaped and managed even if they’re not ready to run a nonprofit or public agency right out of the gate, he adds.

“The emergence of social enterprise as an umbrella under which a range of private, nonprofit and public enterprises prosper has helped MBAs — hundreds of Columbia MBAs included — see through artificial divisions that once precluded nonprofits from revenue-generating endeavors, and public companies from adding social value to their financial bottom line,” Horton says. “Market and nonmarket and nonprofit situations are reconcilable.”

Nonprofits are almost always forced to use remarkable ingenuity to stretch their dollars–something their counterparts in the private sector infrequently face. These limitations, Horton says, require a high degree of creativity and problem-solving skills that entrepreneurial MBAs should relish.

Empty pocket image courtesy of Flickr user Stuart Pilbrow, CC 2.0

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We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

On Tuesday, 16 September, Daniel Brookings will share insights from our brand new book “The MBA Application Roadmap: The Essential Guide to Getting into a Top Business School” with anyone applying or thinking about applying to an MBA program.  Come hear him discuss strategies, essay writing techniques and “war stories” based on their work advising many hundred MBA applicants.

There will be two events in the Bay Area.  The first will take place at 12 noon at Books, Inc. in Mountain View, a perfect location for any young professionals working in Silicon Valley.  The second event will take place the same evening, at the uber-cool Books Inc. location in the heart of SF’s Marina District.

Mountain View event information:
Time: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 12:00 p.m.
Location: Books Inc. in Mountain View, 301 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA 94041

Chestnut Street, SF event information:
Time: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Location: Books Inc. in the Marina,2251 Chestnut Street,San Francisco,CA 94123

You can check out the book on Amazon and “Search Inside”.

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We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Sara Hennessey of BusinessWeek reviewed the MBA Application Roadmap.  She says that the book is an “excellent resource for MBA candidates”.  Thanks, Sara – we agree!

Sara also states, “For those looking to improve their essay-writing abilities, or interested in hearing about the application process from a number of current and former b-school students, The MBA Application Roadmap may be a good fit.”

We hope you will check out our book, and if you are in Los Angeles, stop by our launch party on Wednesday!

MBA Book Release Event:
WHERE: Blank Spaces – 5405 Wilshire Blvd. (entrance off of Cloverdale), Los Angeles, 90036
WHEN:  September 10, 7-9 p.m. (official book discussion and Q&A at 8 p.m.)
Snacks, beer and wine will be served.

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We are now on Facebook – please join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman. I am posting news about MBA related events, job listings, and of course MBA news.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Stacy Blackman’s Weekly Roundup of B-School Intelligence

Columbia Business School will unveil its redesigned core curriculum this fall with the entering class of 2010, introducing a streamlined set of foundational courses, newly built-in flexibility and a corporate governance module during orientation for first year students.

Across top-tier U.S. business schools, a small but growing number of students are skipping traditional winter on-campus recruitment and its seemingly surefire jobs, says Business News Blog’s recent post: Alternative Routes to and from the Traditional MBA. Instead, they are logging long hours conducting their own searches and networking furiously to get onto the career path they want.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business has increased its resources in biotechnology and technology transfer with the addition of Steven Roth and Karen Olson as entrepreneurs-in-residence. They will join an already-established roster of six prominent investors and entrepreneurs who donate their time to work in a senior advisory capacity to the emerging firms that the center serves.

In response to the market, London Business School has extended their Executive Education program portfolio by creating Executive Workouts, a series of new two-day programs that address critical business issues concisely yet intensively. This series starts in December 2008 with Coaching for Performance. Find out more on www.londonworkouts.com.

Some international MBA students are already hitting the books in Kellogg’s American Culture and English for International Business Students Program (also known as ACE). Designed in conjunction with Northwestern University’s School of Continuing Studies for incoming MMM and Two-Year MBA Program students with limited exposure to English as a primary language, the four-week ACE Program gives international students a chance to acclimate themselves to American culture before the rest of their classmates arrive.

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.

Stacy Blackman’s Weekly Roundup of B-School Intelligence

The typical MBA track runs a collision course with many young women’s plans to start a family, the Wall Street Journal reports. To break this pattern graduate business schools are recruiting students at younger ages, creating new programs to attract women and launching part-time “morning MBAs” to bend the rigid MBA track.

The Kellogg School of Management’s new executive education program in partnership with the NBA aims at providing pro athletes with business tools for life after the hardwood court. The program’s objective is to provide players with a comprehensive tool kit to help them thrive in the business world while emphasizing the importance of lifelong learning as a means to pursue a sustainable career.

INSEAD, the leading international business school, announced it has named Professor Jake Cohen as the new dean of the school’s MBA program. Cohen has been with INSEAD for more than five years as Professor of Accounting and Control and Business Law, and Director of the INSEAD-PricewaterhouseCoopers research initiative on high performance organisations, overseeing the school’s largest research center.

At many MBA programs, what used to be a brief meet-and-greet period is now an education in itself, says BusinessWeek. Administrators now use the orientation period to accomplish a host of weighty goals–from instilling a sense of ethical responsibility in students to helping them catch up on essential math skills and prepare for an ever-earlier recruiting schedule.

On October 11, Syracuse University’s sixth “Start-Up: Syracuse Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp” program begins. Led by the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship in the Whitman School of Management, the program helps entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs develop the skills necessary to take their idea or existing venture to the next level. Tuition for the six-week program is $650, with a limited number of $200 scholarships available to qualified applicants.

For a concise, thoughtful guide that will help you navigate the MBA admissions process with greater success, order our NEW book, The MBA Application Roadmap.