academy of management learning & education becoming a ...€¦ · berg (2004) notes that the...

Becoming a Leader:Early Career Challenges Faced

by MBA GraduatesBETH BENJAMIN

CHARLES O’REILLYStanford University

Leadership development is often cited as an important organizational priority. Despitethe criticisms of MBA education, MBA graduates represent one important source of futureleaders. Although we have amassed significant knowledge about the roles and functionsof senior leaders, we know far less about the challenges faced by younger ones. Indeed,Linda Hill’s seminal work on new managers is predicated on the study of only 19 recentlypromoted sales managers from two companies (Hill, 1992). Our work here investigates theearly career challenges of 55 young leaders who had graduated from an MBA program inthe past decade. Based on in-depth interviews, we identified three types of transition thatthese young leaders described as particularly important to their development, and thefour most common challenges they struggled with throughout these transitions. Theprocess of working through these challenges led many of these young leaders tofundamentally change the way they thought about and practiced leadership, therebyfacilitating their evolution from individual contributor to experienced leader. Drawing onthese observations, we provide suggestions for how MBA programs can be modified tohelp students prepare for the experiences they will likely have to navigate early in theircareers.

........................................................................................................................................................................

“In content and pedagogy, the educationmany business schools provide does little toprepare managers for their day-to-day reali-ties (Porter & McKibbin, 1988: 258).”

“Business schools appear to be producingMBA graduates ill-equipped for the chal-lenges of the real world (Chia & Holt, 2008:471).”

In their well-known evaluation of the state of busi-ness schools, Porter and McKibbin (1988) lamentedthe fact that business schools, in their quest forrigor, had lost their relevance. In the two decadessince, little seems to have changed. Critics stillcharge business schools with being largely irrele-vant to leadership and the practice of management(e.g., Bennis & O’Toole, 2005; Ghoshal, 2005; Pfeffer& Fong, 2004). Mintzberg (2004) has put it most pun-gently, claiming that we are teaching the wrongmaterial with the wrong methods to the wrongstudents.

If these claims are true, why have business

schools failed so abysmally? Critics have identi-fied a number of potential reasons, one of which isthat recent MBA graduates lack the skills neces-sary to effectively manage people. Conger (2004)argues that academic models of leadership typi-cally adopt a one-size-fits-all approach rather thanacknowledging that leadership requirements mayvary across levels and circumstances. Compound-ing this, MBA programs typically concentrate onthe skills needed by general managers but largelyignore or are ignorant of those needed by theirgraduates to succeed in their early careers. Indeed,in a symposium on leadership development, SteveKerr, a scholar-practitioner, observed that “[t]hedevelopmental needs of ‘early’ employees are usu-ally not well known” (Kerr, 2004: 120).

The primary mission of business schools is toprepare people to practice their skills in the busi-ness world. Unfortunately, many academics do apoor job of developing and organizing new knowl-edge in a way that can be useful to practicingmanagers. Instead of teaching what the studentsneed, we often teach what we know—our disci-

� Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2011, Vol. 10, No. 3, 452–472. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2011.0002

........................................................................................................................................................................

452Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’sexpress written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.

plinary expertise (Tushman & O’Reilly, 2007). Anunanswered question is do we know what our stu-dents need to know? In their critique of MBA edu-cation, Pfeffer and Fong (2002) suggest that busi-ness school faculty need to do three things toimprove the relevance of MBA education: be moreproblem or phenomenon focused, listen more toour subjects, and be concerned with applicabilityas well as theory.

To address this problem, several prominent re-searchers in leadership development have sug-gested straightforward solutions. Hill (1992), for ex-ample, suggests that “[m]anagement trainingshould focus on what it means to be and what itfeels like to be a manager” (249). McCall (2010)argues that development efforts should “focus noton attributes of the leaders we might call effectiveleaders, but on the experiences that teach lessonsthat might, over time, produce effective leaders”(681). These suggestions all argue for a greaterunderstanding of the real challenges faced byyounger leaders as opposed to the current preoc-cupation with theoretical and analytic skills. Hack-man and Wageman (2007) note that we need abetter understanding of both what should betaught as well as how leaders can be helped tolearn.

Leadership Development

There can be little doubt that leadership develop-ment is an important topic. A Google search onleadership reveals 141 million hits. Friga, Bettis,and Sullivan (2003) report that corporations spendmore than $2.2 trillion on education and training.Hannah and Avolio (2010) estimate that $10 billionis spent on leadership development alone. Mintz-berg (2004) notes that the United States producesmore than 130,000 MBA graduates annually andthat in 1998, 42% of the Fortune-100 CEOs had MBAdegrees. Pfeffer and Fong (2002) even point out thatmanagement and management skills have beenidentified as a core competence for economicprosperity.

Yet, evidence for the failures in leadershipabound. Several books have documented the fail-ure of large firms and attributed these to failures in

leadership (e.g., Carroll & Mui, 2008; Finkelstein,2003). McCall (2010) observes that “[c]onsideringthe damage done by lousy leadership, and thepossibilities for good in extraordinary leadership,it seems obvious that it is important, indeed cru-cial, to invest in developing leadership talent”(705). In a study of managerial derailment withinone company, Lombardo, Ruderman, and McCau-ley (1988) estimated the cost of a single failed man-ager at $500,000. Even the American public seemsto regard leadership as lacking in the UnitedStates. A 2005 Yankelovich study using interviewswith more than 1,300 people reported that 73% be-lieved that leaders were out of touch with the av-erage person and only 27% were the “best and thebrightest.”

Leadership is an individual capability. It isabout what you do, how you think, and who youare. The acquisition of these skills may be partlydispositional, but much comes through learningand experience. From this perspective, improve-ments in leadership development could be wellserved by better understanding what aspects of“doing” leaders struggle with and why. Under-standing the early “doing” challenges will likelyproduce significant insight into the other aspectsof leadership as well.

MBA Programs—Problem or Solution?

Although academics love to debate whether lead-ers are born or made, the evidence is quite clear:“It is not a matter of whether leaders are born ormade. They are born and made” (Conger, 2004: 136).Avolio, Rotundo, and Walumbwa (2009) estimatethat 30% of leadership is heritable, while 70% isdeveloped. These estimates are consistent with thefinding that successful performance in most do-mains can be attributed to experience, practice,and coaching rather than innate talent (Gladwell,2008). Other evidence suggests that there can besignificant positive returns to the investment inleadership development (Avolio, Avey, & Quisen-berry, 2010).

However, to be effective, leadership develop-ment should start early in a person’s career and, asMcCall (2004) notes, “pay special attention to cru-cial transition points” (128). One such transitionoccurs as students move from MBA programs intojobs that require them to manage others.

If we want our graduates to flourish, it is imper-ative that we help them acquire the skills, abili-ties, attitudes, and knowledge required to do so.But do we know what it is that our students need toknow? Wren, Halbesleben, and Buckley (2007), in astudy of 525 members of the Academy of Manage-

Managers clearly would benefit most ifthese developmentally challengingexperiences occurred earlier in theircareers rather than later.

2011 453Benjamin and O’Reilly

ment, argue that academics in business schoolsdon’t always see their jobs as developing and or-ganizing new knowledge in a way that it can beuseful to practicing managers. Chia and Holt (2008:471) illustrate how a preference for abstract causalexplanation over practical knowledge has led todetached contemplation rather than involved ac-tion when it comes to business school teaching.Indeed, in a survey of the curricula of top-ratedbusiness schools, Navarro (2008) found a lack ofemphasis on the integration and experiential com-ponents needed to develop leaders.

Many authors agree that beginning to developleader-managers early in their careers is impor-tant. McCall (2004) observes that most organiza-tions begin executive development processes atvery senior levels, but to be truly effective he sug-gests that leadership development should beginmuch earlier. Hill (1992) also notes that “[t]here canbe significant benefits to intensive education foryounger managers” (2). Although many scholarshave observed that experience, rather than formaltraining, may be the best way to develop leaders,educational training that replicates developmen-tally challenging experiences can enhance leader-ship skills by motivating people to think criticallyabout the situation, teaching them to analyze un-derlying causes and consequences of problems,and enabling them to develop new ways of dealingwith others (DeRue & Wellman, 2009). Managersclearly would benefit most if these developmen-tally challenging experiences occurred earlier intheir careers rather than later.

We expect that educational experiences couldbe especially impactful if the form and content ofwhat is being taught reflects the specific require-ments of the leadership audience’s near-termneeds. Thus, in teaching leadership to MBAs, thatwe design experiences to reflect the actual chal-lenges our students will face early on is critical, inaddition to more abstract theories. When design-ing development efforts, the ideal is to present theright challenges at the right time to people who aremotivated to learn such that they are prepared toextract all that their subsequent experiences haveto offer. This requires that we have a good under-standing of the specific situations and challengesthat young managers typically face.

The First-Time Manager

In her book Becoming a Manager (1992) Linda Hillfollowed 19 first-time managers for a year anddocumented the challenges they encountered. Shecharacterized the challenge of becoming a man-ager as one of a transformation in identity, which

also challenged new managers to develop newskills—skills which their previous experienceshad not prepared them for. Because the nature andsignificance of this transformation required notonly learning new skills but also changes in atti-tude and self-awareness, Hill surmises much of theemphasis on imparting managerial knowledgethrough classroom learning may be misplaced—the education many business schools provide maydo little to prepare managers for their day-to-dayrealities. To address this misalignment, Hill advo-cates training that emphasizes the specific chal-lenges faced by new managers with a focus onwhat it means to be and feel like a new manager.

But what are the specific challenges faced byrecent MBA graduates? Hill’s study focused on 19first-line sales managers from two firms—10branch managers in a securities firm (average age36) and 9 sales managers in a computer company(average age 30). Whether any were MBAs or howtheir experiences might generalize to the roles andresponsibilities of recent business school gradu-ates in other firms or industries is unclear. Wouldthe specific challenges be the same? We set out toextend Hill’s work by focusing directly on the ex-periences of new managers who have graduatedfrom an MBA program.

METHODS

Study Design

To identify specific leadership challenges faced byMBA graduates early in their careers, we gathereddata from managers across a variety of organiza-tions. Our goal was to understand the experienceof recently minted MBAs—from their perspec-tives—with a focus on the types of situations theyfound most difficult to navigate. Specifically, wewanted to know: (1) Were there particular experi-ences that MBA graduates frequently fumbled orstruggled with? (2) if so, what was it about thesesituations that they found particularly difficult orsurprising? and (3) what insights or lessons, if any,could be learned from these experiences? Becausewe wanted to understand the world from the eyesof those who lived it, we relied on key informantinterviews as described by Gilchrest (1992). Keyinformant interviewing is an ethnographic ap-proach used across a variety of disciplines includ-ing anthropology, medical sociology, and educa-tion. It is sometimes described as “researchlistening” (Miller & Crabtree, 1992) because thegoal is not to test a set of specific hypotheses, butto discover a sense of reality that is shared by agiven group or constituency. The difference in ori-

454 SeptemberAcademy of Management Learning & Education

entation is important to note because researchersusing key informant interviews seek to learn frompeople and understand their informants’ interpre-tation of events rather than studying people andforming interpretations of their own (Spradley,1979). This approach allows for the discovery ofphenomena that might not have been consideredotherwise, in addition to new ways of conceptual-izing and analyzing problems of interest.

Sample Selection

Key informants are individuals who possess spe-cial knowledge or status; who are willing to sharetheir knowledge; and who have access to perspec-tives, experiences, or observations that are not di-rectly available to the researcher (Goetz &LeCompte, 1984). In addition, Gilchrest (1992)points out that key informants differ from otherinformants in the nature of their relationship to theresearcher. In many cases, the relationship may beone of longer duration, it may span different set-tings, and it may be more intimate or familiar.Notably, key informants are not selected randomly.Random sampling is based on the assumption thatthe phenomenon under study is representedequally across the population—in this case, grad-uates of MBA programs. We make no assumptionthat the knowledge or perspective we are seek-ing—perceived challenges experienced by early-career managers—and the ability to share thesechallenges, is equally distributed among the pop-ulation of MBA graduates. Our intention was tolearn as much as possible about the situationsdescribed most frequently as difficult or hazardousto a novice manager’s career.

With these considerations in mind, we wanted tointerview a set of informants who would haveunique insight into the types of leadership chal-lenges that MBA graduates pursuing a managerialcareer are likely to struggle with early on. To gen-erate our sample, we obtained a listing of all stu-dents who had graduated from the MBA program ofa top-ranked U.S. business school between theyears of 1997 and 2006. The listing included eachsubject’s date of graduation, current organiza-tional affiliation, their title, the city within whichthey worked, and relevant contact information. Thedata set was sorted by graduation date and orga-nization, allowing us to compare graduates on thebasis of their career progression within and acrosscomparable companies.

Consistent with ethnographic methods, our sam-pling aimed to yield a reasonable number of infor-mants who could provide a representative pictureof the types of leadership challenges experienced

by the population of MBA graduates pursuing amanagement career. The sampling was purposefuland strategic, guided by our theoretically formedjudgments (Johnson, 1990). Because we were ex-plicitly interested in the challenges associatedwith managing others, we excluded from the sam-pling pool graduates working for organizationswith a partnership governance structure (i.e., man-agement consulting, private equity, venture capi-tal, and investment banking). Although interestingin their own right, we were concerned that thecareer paths, election processes, and equity re-quirements in these firms could introduce uniquevariation that might not generalize to firms withmore traditional corporate governance structures.We also dropped from our sample those who wereclearly not in management roles (e.g., technicalspecialists, such as analysts, buyers, staff engi-neers, etc.).

For each graduating class we identified gradu-ates whose current job title suggested that theyheld a role with significant managerial responsi-bility. We reasoned that individuals who had ad-vanced to more senior positions during a givenperiod, or who had founded and led their ownorganizations, were likely to have had a broaderrange of experiences. In addition, Fetterman (1989)and others have recommended that key infor-mants, ideally, should be individuals who are ar-ticulate, thoroughly enculturated, and currently ac-tive within the domain-of-interest, in this casemanagement. Our previous discussions with moreexperienced leaders suggested that individualsoccupying more senior roles were no less likely toencounter significant leadership challenges ontheir way up. Rather, they were simply more likelyto have learned from the challenges they experi-enced (McCall, 2010). Ultimately our interviews ap-peared to support this claim: We discovered thatdespite their apparent success, many of our infor-mants had experienced significant setbacks atsome point during the first 5–10 years of their ca-reers. Last, we aimed to select informants repre-sentatively across industry and cohort (i.e., numberof years since graduation).

To the extent young managers were ableto figure out which assumptions andbehaviors to leave behind and whichnew ones to incorporate into theirevolving repertoire, they accomplishedthe learning necessary for makingimportant transitions in their leadership.


We sent e-mail invitations to 62 graduates, invit-ing these former students to take part in a 60–90 minute interview as part of our “Young Leaders”study. Fifty-five of the 62 graduates agreed to par-ticipate. One declined our request and six failed torespond to the invitation, possibly due to outdatedcontact information. Figure 1 reports the distribu-tion of respondents by class year, gender, and com-pany size. The sample reflects a representativedistribution of graduates by gender, with a slightoversampling of those who had graduated 4–6years prior to the study to ensure that we identifiedchallenges associated with newer managers.

Interviews

Once a graduate-informant agreed to be inter-viewed, we sent a list of discussion topics to re-view prior to the conversation. We conducted in-terviews in person at the informant’s workplace, ata convenient location nearby, or by telephonewhen the participant’s schedule or location mademeeting in person prohibitive. Phone interviewstypically lasted 60–75 minutes and in-person inter-views typically lasted 90 minutes, although a fewran as long as 2 hours. A single interviewer—oneof the coauthors—conducted all interviews tomaintain consistency.

Because our goal was to uncover patterns andgenerate new insight, we began each discussionwith some broad, open-ended questions that al-lowed the informant to set the stage for the rest ofthe discussion (Gilchrest, 1992; Spradley, 1979). Af-ter describing the career path since graduatingand the scope of current responsibilities, each in-formant was asked to recount the most challengingleadership issues faced in their career to date.These questions focused the discussion on the spe-cific situations, management dilemmas, and per-sonal issues that these early-career leaders foundas most challenging, surprising, or difficult. Weasked our informants to describe each situationin-depth and to articulate what made the issueparticularly difficult. We also asked how their

business education had either prepared or failedto prepare them to handle the challenges.

Last, we asked what, if anything, our informantshad taken away from their experiences—what hadthey learned or changed? We did not assume thatthe informants had learned anything from the ex-periences they described or that any of their take-aways were necessarily the “right” lessons. Theywere merely an accurate rendering of the manag-ers’ perceptions as they had experienced a givenchallenge. Once we exhausted our discussion ofthe first issue, we asked informants to recount oth-ers, repeating the process until the individualscould recall no additional examples or until we ranout of time.

After each interview, the interviewer transcribedthe discussion, creating a detailed set of interviewnotes. These notes included descriptions of the in-formants’ career histories, their characterization ofthe most challenging experiences they had facedsince business school, the context in which theseexperiences occurred, what actions they took, andany reported learning. In many cases, participantsdescribed their learning in terms of how their lead-ership views had changed and what they would dodifferently if the situation occurred today. Whenrelevant, direct quotes were included in the inter-view notes, capturing the participants’ experi-ences in their own words.

After all the interviews were completed, we in-dependently reviewed the transcribed notes toidentify and group the challenges and discoverthemes that emerged from the data. We iteratedback and forth to compare interpretations, discussthematic categories, and resolve any differences incoding or conclusions (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Thiscoding process yielded approximately 125 sepa-rate descriptions of incidents or problems.

As the final part of our study, we contacted 15 ofthe graduate-managers whose transitions, chal-lenges, and learning appeared to be most repre-sentative or informative of the full sample. Weconducted two additional interviews with eachparticipant, exploring and documenting in greater

FIGURE 1Sample Characteristics


depth the leadership issues they described. Thesecond interview was videotaped and used to pro-duce a series of leadership video vignettes that wecreated for teaching purposes.

THREE TYPES OF TRANSITION

The first goal of our study was to identify the situ-ations that MBA graduates struggled with early intheir careers. The logic driving our investigationwas simple: If leadership learning is cumulative,as some research suggests (Charan, Drotter, &Noel, 2001; McCall et al., 1988), then it is importantto understand what leaders must learn early intheir development if they are to progress and per-form well in more senior roles. To the extent thatdeveloping managers struggle early on or fail tolearn the right lessons from their experiences, theyare less likely to establish the foundation neededto navigate and learn from even more demandingexperiences later (McCall, 2010). Moreover, shouldthey handle the learning process poorly, the initialimpressions they make on others may have strongand lasting effects, which could easily limit orslow their access to subsequent opportunities (Wil-lis & Todorov, 2006). As we tried to characterize thesituations and challenges described by our keyinformants, it became evident that most involvedchange and transition. In almost all cases, theinformants described struggling with somethingthey had not encountered before, usually a new setof circumstances that required them to tackle mul-tiple challenges all at once. Often these chal-lenges included rethinking (and letting go of) oldassumptions, developing new skills and attitudes,negotiating new relationships, renegotiating exist-ing ones, and most difficult of all, changing theirbehavior and self-concept. As McCall (2010) haspointed out, “When situations change dramati-cally, as is the case when a person is given anassignment that is quite different from what he orshe has done before, either development or derail-ment may result” (701).

Previous research on careers and leadership de-velopment has demonstrated that transitions arecritical periods for learning and development andcan be a defining element in managerial successor failure (e.g., Ibarra, 2003; Nicholson & West,1988). When things go well, individuals move fromone level of mastery to the next. For example, Hill’sseminal study of first-time managers showed thatthe transition from individual contributor to man-ager was a time when individuals began develop-ing “not only managerial knowledge and skills,but also managerial interests and a managerialtemperament” (Hill, 1992: 159). That said, there is no

guarantee that the right learning—or any learn-ing, for that matter—will occur simply becausemanagers encounter a transitional moment. Thesituational and psychological demands of transi-tion can be quite taxing and, if experienced as toostressful, may preclude some individuals from ex-pending the cognitive energy needed to adapttheir existing routines. Indeed, research by DeRueand Wellman (2009) suggests that leadership skilldevelopment begins to diminish when experiencesmove beyond an optimal level of difficulty, whenthere is little access to feedback, or when an indi-vidual lacks the necessary learning orientation.

The extent to which a young leader successfullynavigated the leadership transitions described inour study depended on their ability to learn fromthe challenges brought about by a change in theirimmediate context—for example, a job change orchanges in important relationships. As we listenedto our informants’ accounts, we came to realizethat the experiences they described weren’t justabout managing transitions, they, in fact, createdtransitions.

There is an important distinction here that isworth clarifying, namely, the difference betweenchange and transition. Bridges (2004) observes thatchange is situational, whereas transition is psy-chological. The circumstances that create a newsituation—for example, a promotion, changingbusiness conditions, or differences with a boss—represent change. Transition, by contrast, is theprocess by which individuals work through, learn,and come to terms with the new challenges andconditions that change creates. The emergingleaders in our study had to contend with changesthat presented specific challenges, which in turn,forced them to reexamine some of their most fun-damental assumptions, working models, and prac-tices. In short, they were forced to reevaluate andoften adjust the very things that had made themsuccessful to date. To the extent young managerswere able to figure out which assumptions andbehaviors to leave behind and which new ones toincorporate into their evolving repertoire, they ac-complished the learning necessary for making im-portant transitions in their leadership. If theydid not, they would continue to struggle with thesame challenges until they ultimately masteredthe appropriate learning or derailed.

As we analyzed our data, we were able to groupthe transitions described by our informants intothree broad categories. Each category was (1) trig-gered by a particular change in context, (2) had thepotential to instill a specific type of learning, and(3) could be characterized by a single dominantquestion (Table 1).


The first category was role transitions. As thename suggests, these were transitions that oc-curred after a manager took on a new role. Thespecific role transitions described by our infor-mants involved the move from individual contrib-utor to first-time manager; from managing a fewindividuals to being accountable for a team; frommanaging teams to managing other managers;and, from leading one functional domain to lead-ing a different function or much broader businessunit. Through these transitions, emerging leaderslearned how to lead new and different types ofpeople and how to shift priorities as they assumedresponsibility for larger, more complex units. Sur-prisingly, new role requirements were rarelyspelled out for early-career managers. Althoughthey often discussed the business objectives of anew role with their superiors, and they generallyunderstood that the parameters of a new positionwould be different (e.g., more people, different peo-ple, and different objectives), they were not usuallyprepared for how their leadership would have tochange to address these differences. They had tolearn through trial and error about new demands,expectations, and ways of working. And, throughthis trial and error, they sometimes discovered thattheir previous leadership practices were not onlyinsufficient to the demands of their new role, butalso capable of producing unintended conse-quences that made the new job even more difficult.Ultimately, the fundamental question that charac-terized the transition around role change was“What does it mean to be a leader in this newrole?”

Business transitions—more specifically, beingresponsible for leading a significant change in thebusiness—were the second type of transition thatour informants struggled with. As with role

change, leading a significant business changechallenged implicit assumptions and renderedprevious leadership tactics insufficient for dealingwith new demands. The difficulties that managersexperience when leading during times of organi-zational change has been described by Greiner(1998) and others who have studied the organiza-tional life cycle. This research suggests that tran-sitions between an organization’s developmentalphases rarely go smoothly due to an inevitableparadox: The very leadership styles and practicesthat help organizations thrive during one evolu-tionary stage become entirely unsuitable for sus-taining them into the next. Consistent with ourinformants’ accounts, Greiner observed that thisparadox often “haunts and confuses the manage-rial psyche,” as leaders struggle to understandhow the practices they used successfully at onepoint “eventually sow the seeds of their own de-cay” (Greiner, 1998: 5, 8).

Business transitions appeared to be less aboutrole and more about context. Consistent with thetask-related characteristics of developmental jobsdescribed by McCauley, Ruderman, Ohlott, andMorrow (1994), these transitions were triggered bychallenges that emerged because of changingbusiness conditions. In some cases, our informant-managers remained in the same role, but the busi-ness around them changed significantly. These sit-uations often involved managing growth. In othercases, managers kept their role but were asked tohead up new organizational initiatives designed tofend off stagnation and enhance a company’s com-petitiveness. Last, some managers were placed innew roles specifically to lead a business transi-tion, for example, a turnaround effort. These lead-ership transitions could be especially difficult be-cause they challenged relatively inexperienced

TABLE 1Early Career Transitions

Role Transitions Business Transitions Personal Transitions

Type of instigatingchange

Change in Role Change in business/stage inorganizational life cycle

Situation creating values conflict

Incidents identified byinformants

• From individual contributorto first-time manager

• Taking responsibility forteam performance

• Managing other managers• Managing transitions in

function or scope

• Launching a new initiativeor business

• Managing growth• Turning around a group or

business• Taking a team/business to

the next level

• Managing strategic differenceswith a boss

• Navigating and correctingethically questionable practices

• Blending work, life, and family• Dealing with professional

setbacks

Learning Role Requirements“What does it mean to be aleader in this new role?”

New Strategies and Tactics“How can I get things done ina different business context?”

Judgment and Integrity“How do I stay true to myself?”


managers to master new role requirements whilesimultaneously requiring them to figure out how tolead strategic changes or organizational transfor-mation efforts. The fundamental question charac-terizing this type of transition was “How can I getthings done in a very different business context?”

We labeled our third category personal transi-tions. These involved personal conflicts that oftenput a developing leader’s values to the test. Thefundamental question characterizing personaltransitions was “How do I stay true to myself in theface of competing values?” Personal transitionswere often triggered by situations that requiredyoung managers to work their way through deli-cate issues such as managing strategic differenceswith a boss, dealing with ethically questionablepractices, or balancing the demands of work- andfamily-life. These transitions also sometimes oc-curred in the wake of major mistakes or setbacksthat forced young leaders to acknowledge limita-tions and carefully evaluate what was most impor-tant to them.

Personal transitions were often very emotionallycharged. In fact, several young leaders in our studychose to leave their jobs rather than deal with theemotional tensions surrounding a given situation.Unlike those who worked through the challengesmore effectively, managers who decided to leave

their jobs typically believed there was nothingthey could do to resolve the situation—they sawthemselves as essentially powerless. Unfortu-nately, leaving the situation tended to slow theirlearning. It allowed them to avoid self-examina-tion and sidestep issues they found particularlyupsetting. In contrast, when young managerschose to work through these values dilemmas orother emotionally charged situations, the learningappeared to be quite significant. Emerging leadersbegan to realize that managing values conflictswas not a one-time occurrence, but rather an inev-itable and fundamental part of being a leader.

FOUR CHALLENGES

To better equip graduates for these key transitions,we wanted to identify and understand the specificchallenges they struggled with. A review and pars-ing of the more than 125 incidents generated by the55 interviews suggested a host of challenges thatconfronted these managers early in their careers.Based on our coding and review, we identified fourmain themes or types of problems reported acrossa majority of respondents (see Table 2). These fourtypes could be further organized into two broadcategories: (1) Challenges associated with manag-ing others, and (2) Challenges associated with

TABLE 2Four Common Leadership Challenges

Managing Others1. Managing and motivating subordinates

• Understanding others with different values and motives• Appreciating the importance of B and C players—not just A players• Listening to others rather than problem solving• Establishing credibility—especially when others have more experience• Being clear about what your value added is as a manager• Dealing with poor performers and problem employees• Setting clear expectations

2. Managing relationships with peers and bosses• Recognizing the importance of relationships—process and content• An inability to resolve differences with a boss• The importance of understanding others’ priorities—not just your own• Balancing competition and cooperation among peers• Being right versus being effective—appreciating that peer conflicts taint all involved, regardless of who is “right”

Managing the Self3. Developing a leadership mind-set

• Understanding that individual skill and effort are no longer what makes you successful• Looking to solve problems—not simply identifying them• Developing others• Being intentional• Deriving satisfaction from others’ success

4. Coping with setbacks and disappointments• Maintaining poise and composure under pressure• Understanding how you react to a setback may be more important than the setback itself• Being overwhelmed• Balancing work and family pressures


managing oneself. Challenges managing otherscould be further segmented into difficulties man-aging and motivating subordinates, and difficul-ties managing relationships with peers and bosses.Similarly, challenges managing oneself could bedivided into developing a leadership mind-set andcoping with personal setbacks and disappoint-ments. Many of the individual challenges did notmap neatly onto specific transitions; rather, anyone transition might involve challenges from anynumber of these categories. Our data are too lim-ited to definitively assess whether specific chal-lenges were more prevalent during some transi-tions than others. Nonetheless, a preliminaryreview suggests that developing a leadershipmind-set and difficulties managing and motivat-ing subordinates were common challenges men-tioned when describing role transitions. Similarly,difficulties managing relationships with peers andbosses appeared to be more prevalent when nav-igating business transitions. Coping with setbacksand disappointments were central to successfullynavigating personal transitions.

Managing Others

When asked to describe their most difficult lead-ership challenges to date, informants typically be-gan by describing issues or problems they experi-enced in their efforts to manage subordinates. Thisis understandable because these issues frequentlycoincided with their very first managerial assign-ments. In addition, however, many informants alsodescribed problems managing difficult relation-ships with other individuals, namely, their peers orbosses. As such, these challenges required emerg-ing leaders to learn important lessons about man-aging laterally and upward, as well as downward.

Managing and Motivating Subordinates

The most common theme mentioned in one form oranother by almost all informants centered on thechallenge of managing and motivating peoplewith different skills and values from themselves. Acommon tendency of young managers, especiallyhigh achievers, is to assume that others share theirvalues and motivations. In her study of new man-agers, Hill (1992) came to a similar conclusion, not-ing that young managers often assumed theycould use themselves as role models in under-standing how to manage their subordinates and,over time, came to realize “how limiting it was touse themselves as models for predicting how oth-ers would interpret situations or respond to theiractions” (170).

Confronted with the reality that not all peopleshared their levels of motivation and skill, severalrespondents talked about the challenge of manag-ing “real” people—and the importance of gettingthe engagement of all employees. As one formerNavy SEAL said, “You can’t project your level ofmotivation onto others.” An entrepreneur with hisown start-up talked about the need to create a“crusade” to motivate his employees, since hecould not afford to motivate them with money. An-other young leader in the entertainment businessdescribed how important it was to not only find the“A players . . . but also about developing the B, C &D players.” Acknowledging these differences,many of the informants came to realize:

No one model works to motivate all peo-ple . . . You have to understand each personand their interests . . . My job is to get peoplenot to hit the snooze button on the alarm eachmorning.

[Business School] doesn’t prepare you to man-age a wide swatch of people . . . the mostdifficult part of my job is the people aspect.

One informant who was failing in his role as amanager lamented:

Managing people is a headache . . . you haveto deal with different personalities, perfor-mance reviews, and (all their) prob-lems . . . You feel responsible for their careerdevelopment and guilty if there aren’t oppor-tunities for them.

To succeed, young managers came to appreciatethe importance of listening without judgment anddemonstrating empathy to build trust. A young di-visional manager expressed surprise at the num-ber of personal problems he had to deal with. “Thetechnical aspect is not all that hard . . . my peopletypically come to me with problems about people.”Reflecting this challenge, another young managerin a large financial institution described how hekept an ongoing document with notes about each

The critical recognition for these newleaders was appreciating that theirperformance was no longer a function oftheir own skill and effort but contingenton their ability to unleash the talent ofthose who worked for them.


employee so that he could be more helpful in pro-viding feedback. Often, this feedback was notabout problem solving but simply about demon-strating interest and concern: “As a new manageryou have to recognize that your direct reportsdo not always want you to ‘fix’ or ‘solve’ their prob-lems. Often, they just want to be heard and under-stood.” The risk, as another observed, was that if amanager was always providing answers for sub-ordinates, they would fail to create a team that feltresponsible for results. Instead, the team wouldalways look to the leader for solutions.

But this advice, to listen and be empathetic, alsohad a downside when it came to dealing with poorperformers. Here, too, new managers often strug-gled. Confronted with a problem employee, youngmanagers often either ignored the issue or becameoverly involved in trying to help the poor per-former. Others unfortunately, often misinterpretedtheir attention as legitimating the problematic be-havior. As the CEO of a start-up noted, “One neg-ative person affects everyone.” In her study of newmanagers, Linda Hill recognized this problem.“When asked to identify what was most stressfulabout their jobs, most new managers replied with-out hesitation that it was the problem subordinate”(1992: 133).

With experience, young managers came to real-ize the importance of dealing with poor performersquickly. Many started to realize that “[i]n almostevery case, peers were relieved to see the poorperformer go.”

I delayed for 6 months in letting the persongo, which was regrettable and tainted theorganization. It slowed our growth rate andled to internal politics. Then the person quitwith only 7 days notice—which created ahardship for the team.

Saying “no” and discussing poor performanceis a challenge for a lot of [MBA] students be-cause most haven’t had setbacks. But, in thereal world, 7 out of 10 things go wrong. Youmust be able to discuss performance issuesand expectations without being an[expletive].

The common underlying theme when dealingwith people issues again had to do with beliefsand assumptions our informants had drawn fromtheir own past experiences and success. Often,their tendency was to assume that their subordi-nates held the same motivations and aspirationsthat they did when, in fact, the subordinates often

did not. A variant of this was to assume that sub-ordinates understood and agreed about what theywere supposed to accomplish. But young manag-ers frequently discovered that they had failed toadequately clarify expectations at the outset. Forinstance, one respondent described how he ini-tially treated his subordinates as “partners”(rather than underlings), only to realize that doingso confused people about expectations and, there-fore, made it more difficult to call people on poorperformance. Another informant echoed this les-son and talked about how she learned that beingclear about performance expectations helped herfeel “less guilty” when she had to fire people whoweren’t living up to those expectations. She wenton to note that letting go of poor performers wascritical because invariably poor performers af-fected their teams. “It is,” she said, “disrespectfulto the team not to let the poor performer go.” An-other young manager observed that unless he setclear standards, it was hard for people to hearcritical feedback.

In the absence of clear expectations, early-career managers tended to avoid performance is-sues or tried to solve subordinates’ problems them-selves. With their analytic skills and strong prob-lem solving capabilities, many MBAs simply forgotabout the people aspect: “The people part of myjob, it’s never top of mind for me . . . I need toconsciously think about it.” As they developedtheir managerial capabilities, some informants be-gan to realize that setting clear expectations wasonly part of the solution; it was also important toarticulate a vision that motivated subordinates topursue expectations by engaging them emotion-ally. “Employees see past the money,” said one.“You need to make people feel like they are invalu-able, irreplaceable . . . even though no one reallyis.” A young vice-president in a large financialinstitution confessed that she was initially uncom-fortable with the concept of a vision statement,considering such efforts as too “airy-fairy.” But asshe experimented with new approaches, she wassurprised by how much her employees respondedto having a well-articulated vision. “They’d beenin the desert and needed some water.” In talkingabout the importance of setting a vision, anotherinformant argued that it was essential for subordi-nates to see the big picture to get them motivatedand excited about their work. In short, a key lessonfor many young managers was learning how toexpress emotion in ways that allowed them to con-vey passion and create authentic connections withtheir subordinates.


Relationships With Peers and Bosses

Many of the managers we interviewed describeddifficult relationships with peers and bosses asanother significant challenge. As with the previ-ous theme, working through these challenges oftenproduced significant learning, which, in turn, facil-itated the leadership transitions described earlier.Once again, these difficulties often arose becauseof the propensity to prioritize task-related concernsover relationship-building concerns. Young man-agers initially had a tendency to apply their ownskills and effort to resolving problems rather thanundertaking the messier task of involving others.As with the first theme, these were sometimes ex-acerbated by the assumption that others sharedthe same goals and motivations as the rookie man-ager. Over time, however, young managers cameto understand that performance in organizationswas seldom a matter of individual achievement oreven a single group. They began to appreciate thatbeing successful often required coordination andcooperation across unit boundaries.

I was 2–3 years out of business school and Iwas used to being in situations where youcould get by on intellect and hard, diligentwork. I now realize how important social re-lationships are—if there are relationshipbuilding opportunities (i.e., social), youshould be there.

How well you work with peers is importantbecause you need to be able to get thingsdone and accomplish your goals. You don’tget anything done by yourself. You have to beable to work with others across functions anddivisions to be successful.

Even if you think you know the answer, youhave to bring others along. This is especiallycritical when you have to reach decisions thatcross functional areas. You have to win peo-ple over one by one.

One young manager described how in his firstrole in a business development function he viedaggressively to get visibility with his superiors. Asa result, he demonstrated he could do deals andwas subsequently promoted to head his unit. Buthis competitiveness alienated his peers, and threeof the five people in his group quit shortly after hewas promoted. As one might imagine, this didn’tsend a particularly good signal. Luckily, becauseof this experience, he quickly learned “[y]ou can’tbe successful in a new role if those below you with

critical knowledge and experience leave or don’tcooperate.” Afterward, his advice to younger man-agers was always to “treat your peers as thoughthey might someday be your boss or direct re-ports.”

Several informants reflected on how poor rela-tionships with peers made both sides look bad—regardless of who was actually responsible for aconflict. For example, one manager described aconflict with a peer who was heading another unitbut failing to provide the support she believed wasappropriate.

He wasn’t as smart as I was . . . I thought hewas a whiner. He wasn’t managing his teamwell. I thought he was an idiot. I didn’t see itas my job to solve his problem . . . he neededto [expletive] lead his team.

As she continued to struggle with her peer, shecame to realize, “my problem with my peer was aproblem for my boss, and you don’t want to be aproblem for your boss.” With more experience, shelearned to soften her interactions: “It doesn’t mat-ter who is right or who is wrong, if your boss has toresolve the conflict both parties are tainted.” Likeother managers, she concluded that it was moreimportant to be effective than to be right.

Perhaps the most troubling of these relationshipissues occurred when problems arose with the per-son’s boss. Several respondents acknowledgedthat problems with a boss had led to missed pro-motions or, in several cases, the manager’s deci-sion to leave the organization. For example, sev-eral graduates described taking jobs wheresubsequent disagreements with their bosses ne-cessitated their leaving, either because of whatthey felt were ethical issues or because the rela-tionship led to unfavorable performance reviews.In two of these cases, rather than emphasizingtheir achievements, the managers’ performanceevaluations highlighted their lack of teamworkand sensitivity to others. In a third case, the persondelivered what he believed to be a success only tolearn that he had failed to clarify important prior-ities with his boss, and therefore, missed the mark.

In several other cases, however, differences witha boss were resolved successfully. In one instance,the subordinate was able to build a coalition of

For the MBA graduates in our study,transitional periods were a time of greatpotential and great risk.


others who helped to overturn what she believedwas an ethical breach by the superior. In another,the young manager was able to calmly articulatehis differences with his boss, which led his boss tochange his views. Because of these experiences,many informants emphasized the importance ofclarifying priorities and expectations with the su-perior as early as possible. This could be done in avariety of ways, such as putting priorities in writ-ing or getting to know the boss at a personal levelto facilitate open exchanges and keep the boss inthe loop with frequent updates. Studies of manage-ment careers have shown that the inability to crafta successful relationship with a superior can be asignificant derailer (McCall, 1998; Van Velsor &Leslie, 1995).

As with the previous theme, the challenges ofmanaging difficult relationships with peers andsuperiors again reflect the respondents’ earlierstrengths of problem solving and individualachievement. If unchecked, the tendency of manyof these young managers was to assume that oth-ers shared their focus on getting the right answerand to ignore or underplay the importance of rela-tionships. When faced with conflict, many resortedto logic and analysis. “I’m used to presenting apowerful case—the logic and course of action nec-essary—and it’s easy for me to fall into this patternand enter into a debate. I’m trying not to do this,”said a manager in the entertainment business. Formany, it was only after a setback that they realizedthe importance of clarifying expectations and nur-turing relationships.

Managing Oneself

Although the proximal problems described byyoung managers often began with the challengesof managing others, many of our informants ulti-mately recognized that their own thinking neededto change if they were to be effective leaders lon-ger term. Not only did they have to think differentlyabout their role, they also had to think differentlyabout their goals and priorities, their orientationtoward others, and the basis of their accomplish-ments. In short, to be effective they had to shifttheir mind-set about who they were and what theyneeded to accomplish. This also entailed figuringout how to weather the inevitable mistakes andsetbacks that would be a critical part of their learn-ing and personal growth.

Developing a Leadership Mind-Set

Having worked in roles where hard work, intelli-gence, and strong analytic skills were expected

and rewarded, most informants had become suc-cessful by demonstrating their ability to solveproblems on their own. However, as managers, thevery things that had made them successful in theirindividual contributor roles were no longer as im-portant—and in some cases were problematic.Many young managers discovered that trying togain visibility for themselves, demonstrating theiranalytic prowess, and simply working longer andharder would not serve them well when leadingothers. They had to change—not only their behav-ior, but the very assumptions that guided theirbehavior. What was required was a new set ofassumptions—a new leadership mind-set.

Looking back on some of their most trying expe-riences, many of these emerging leaders com-mented on the difficulty of letting go of old as-sumptions and work habits:

It was a big shift for me to let go of my exper-tise (i.e., doing things myself). My job becamesetting goals, motivating, holding people ac-countable, providing resources, and assign-ing projects. I didn’t get much training in this.If you continue to use the “just put your headdown and work approach,” you’ll shoot your-self in the foot . . . you’ll crash and burn. Youhave to get your work done through others,even when there are only 2–3 people.

For instance, one graduate described his atti-tude as a young manager: “I was a real pain in theass for my boss. I would fire off missives identify-ing all sorts of problems.” Later he realized that hisrole as a manager was not just to identify problemsbut to take responsibility for solving them, oftenwithout being asked and even when they werebeyond his formal scope of responsibility. Thisusually entailed working with and through others.The leader of a private school described movingfrom a mind-set of thinking about how he could getthe most out himself to one where “I can developothers and help them get better.” Making suchrecognitions required these emerging leaders tofundamentally shift their assumptions about theirroles from independence to interdependence.

The critical recognition for these new leaderswas appreciating that their performance was nolonger a function of their own skill and effort butcontingent on their ability to unleash the talent ofthose who worked for them. “[Y]our performance iscompletely a function of other peoples’ perfor-mance. Your primary responsibility is building ateam, not just fixing immediate problems,” saidone respondent. Several informants noted howthreatening this recognition was. If they could no


longer rely on those strengths that made them suc-cessful in the past, what was their added value asnew managers—especially when, as young man-agers, they were managing people who were moreexperienced and knew far more than they did?They began to realize that their earlier mind-setabout the importance of demonstrating their owncapabilities was less useful than a new set ofassumptions about the importance of helping oth-ers to develop. This new perspective often requiredmore listening and less problem solving.

It’s about listening, hearing and digesting,rather than reacting and debating . . . Youngerleaders often mistakenly think it’s more impor-tant to articulate their logic and demonstratethat they’re right. In many cases, there’s no up-side to this.

As they began to better understand the valuethey added as leaders, they also became moreaware of the significance of their words and ac-tions. As leaders they were constantly being scru-tinized and therefore had to be especially inten-tional about what they said and did: “Now I’m inthe spotlight where I can’t really afford to blow it”said one. Another described how she needed to becareful about making flip comments. When shejokingly commented in a public setting that “thebusiness was in the toilet” it was translated as“she’s saying we’re all t**ds.” One successfulstart-up CEO came to realize that what he saidwas often taken as gospel—sometimes with nega-tive consequences. Another noted how over time,he began to prepare more carefully for meetings,became less spontaneous, and learned to stay onmessage.

Leadership is all about “intention.” You mustthink carefully about how you want to “showup” and what you want to accomplish in eachinteraction . . . If I only have one interaction amonth with someone, I have to be intentionalabout what I want to accomplish.

A final element in the adoption of a managerialmind-set was the recognition that success no lon-ger came from actually doing the work but fromderiving satisfaction from the accomplishments ofothers. One respondent working for a pharmaceu-tical company noted that, unlike an individual con-tributor, managers often don’t get a lot of positivereinforcement from the people above them. “Thismeans you have to derive satisfaction from yourimpact on the organization and the people belowyou—you get 90 percent of your enjoyment from the

people below you.” For some, this is a difficulttransition and doesn’t provide the fulfillment ofbeing an individual contributor.

I’m the caretaker for something larger thanmyself . . . It’s not about me, it’s about findingthe right answer . . . It’s about somethinglarger than yourself . . . it’s something thatyou’re stewarding. It’s not personal.

There are a lot of things I hate about being amanager. I no longer get to do things thatallow a lot of self-expression and creativity.Now I simply set goals and oversee. I have toget satisfaction from corporate performance. Inow get more excited by the accomplishmentof team goals. It’s different—a shift in pride.

Overall, this required a shift in mind-set fromone that emphasized individual skills and visibil-ity to one that focused on growing others and de-riving satisfaction from their accomplishments. Itmeant changing their assumptions about whattheir roles were and what success looked like. Italso meant that they had to be more conscious andintentional in how they dealt with others.

Coping With Setbacks and Disappointments

A final theme that was frequently mentioned, es-pecially when discussing personal transitions,was the importance of learning from mistakes andpersonal setbacks. Prior to business school, mostparticipants had enjoyed a lifetime of professionalsuccess. They had yet to experience major set-backs or professional challenges that couldn’t befixed by simply working harder and doing more ofwhat they had always done well. Therefore, whenthey experienced setbacks, failures, and valuesdilemmas that seemed beyond their control itcame as a shock to many. In some cases, thesesetbacks came in the form of a surprisingly nega-tive performance review:

I got a 360 that showed that I didn’t involvepeers in decision making, I didn’t make peo-ple comfortable with dissenting views, Iwasn’t seen as collaborative, I hoardedknowledge, and didn’t coach others . . . I wastotally blind to this. From my perspective Iwas the heroic, decisive leader.

Things were growing, I’m getting awards, andmy ego went up. Then [my boss] called meinto his office. I was expecting thebest . . . that we would talk about growth


plans. What I got instead was some reallytough, slap-in-the-face feedback that [our di-vision] wasn’t going as well as we thought.The experience was really humbling. It wasthe worst day of my life.

In some cases, setbacks came in the form ofdisappointing business results or personal rela-tionships that caused young managers to feel un-appreciated or even betrayed. People responded tothese setbacks in a variety of ways. At one ex-treme, some young managers hit a wall and essen-tially fell apart. For example, one junior managerfound himself failing in a new position and didn’tknow how to turn things around:

“I was way in over my head . . . I was literallypushing paper from one side of my desk to theother, not knowing how I could impact the busi-ness.”

Without an understanding of the transitionalchallenges he was stepping into, the manager lostcredibility with his team and experienced a “totalloss of confidence . . . Life got out of control to thepoint where I ceased operating.” Luckily, such dra-matic reactions usually only lasted a short time.However, because the jolts were rarely antici-pated, they were particularly poignant and couldhave dramatic effects ranging from job loss to sig-nificant learning and self-discovery.

Some managers responded to setbacks by deny-ing responsibility and blaming their perceivedmisfortunes on others. When one manager waspassed over for a promotion, he responded by chal-lenging the person who was promoted ahead ofhim, constantly finding fault with his new manag-er’s decisions. Looking back several years later, heacknowledged that such behavior had simplymade him look cocky, uncooperative, and profes-sionally immature. He had missed an opportunityto better understand his own shortcomings andhad, in effect, reinforced the very impressions thatcaused him to be passed over.

Resigning or leaving one’s job was another com-mon, but unfortunate response to a setback or val-ues conflict (Gentile, 2008). Young managers wholacked appropriate coping skills appeared to beslower to learn from their setbacks and mistakes.Rather than reflecting on their behavior, acceptingfeedback, and believing they could change, theytended to feel victimized. For example, one youngmanager simply wouldn’t accept the feedback hewas given and subsequently decided to leave hisjob rather than acknowledge his mistakes:

I walked into my review and what really irkedme about the whole thing was he said, “Lis-

ten, you alienated your peers and you reallyneed to be careful about that. You really kindof missed the boat on culture.“ I stepped backand said “You’re kidding me, right? Let meask you this: If I had developed (the product)three months late, but was nice along theway, as opposed to bruising some toes . . . doyou think I’d be having a better review rightnow?” He said “yes” and I said “I frankly don’tagree with that.”

[Before] I fundamentally believed in meritoc-racy—that if you did good work and achievedyour objectives, the rest would follow. I don’tbelieve that anymore.

Young managers who had difficulty workingthrough setbacks often extracted lessons that hadless to do with changing their own behavior thanprotecting themselves from the behavior of othersthey saw as unreasonable or out for political gain.Nonetheless, they still tended to feel powerless orill-equipped to deal with the unpleasant issuesthey faced and often decided to avoid the situationaltogether by leaving. Ironically, escaping the sit-uation also denied them the opportunity to exper-iment with actions that would have helped to buildthe very influence skills they lacked.

Fortunately, several of the managers in ourstudy seemed to have developed critical copingskills early in their careers. It wasn’t that theseyoung leaders were somehow smarter or madefewer mistakes, they were simply hardier and didthings that allowed them to learn and recover fromtheir mistakes more quickly. We noted several sim-ilarities in the how these resilient young managersresponded to the mistakes and setbacks they ex-perienced. First, they all appeared to engage insome form of emotional regulation (Goleman, Boy-atzis, & McKee, 2002; Reivich & Shatte, 2002). Al-though the setbacks they experienced uniformlygenerated strong emotional reactions, resilientyoung leaders refrained from making rash deci-sions or acting impetuously. They took time to de-compress and get away from their emotionallycharged surroundings. As one disappointed man-ager remarked after being demoted to a less at-tractive position: “I didn’t go off the deep end. I wasgracious about the choices given me . . . I didn’tshow all of my hurt . . . I cried at home, not at work.”

Second, those who handled setbacks best soughtout feedback and social support. Rather than with-drawing or quitting, successful coping involvedgetting a realistic understanding of the situation,no matter how painful. This meant talking withothers, getting their assessment, and asking for


input. In almost all cases, reaching out helpedpeople to see the situation more objectively andreduced the tendency to interpret it as more cata-strophic than it actually was. Perhaps even moreimportant, young managers discovered that set-backs and mistakes could be an opportunity tostrengthen relationships rather than run from them(Maddi & Khoshaba, 2005). As one young managernoted, “I clearly failed; but others were very under-standing because they knew I would learn. Theytook it as a huge sign that I was capable of changeand development.”

Finally, those who weathered setbacks wellcame to realize that how they responded to thesetback was more important than the setback it-self. They took a longer term perspective, saw theirsituation as an inevitable part of the learning pro-cess, and recognized that the initial unpleasant-ness would ultimately lead to a better outcome forthe organization or themselves (Maddi & Kho-shaba, 2005). They also engaged in a great deal ofpersonal reflection and often came to terms withspecific shortcomings or errors. Through this pro-cess of self-examination, emerging leaders openedthemselves up to important learning, became moreskillful at managing their emotions, and ulti-mately gained greater self-confidence. They alsodeveloped a clearer sense of personal resolve andbegan to build the strength, judgment, and profes-sional maturity required to handle similar chal-lenges in the future. In other words, they learnedand worked their way through yet another impor-tant leadership transition.

DISCUSSION

We designed this study to explore the challengesconfronting MBA graduates as they moved intoleadership roles. Consistent with previous re-search (Charan et al., 2001; Dotlich, Noel, & Walker,2004; Hill, 1992), the 55 in-depth interviews con-firmed that to be successful, young managers mustdeal with both a significant set of transitions and aset of common challenges. These results reinforceseveral important findings from previous researchand highlight some new insights that have impli-cations for how we might improve leadership ed-ucation for MBA students and other managers inthe early stages of their careers.

First, adopting a leadership mind-set is not atrivial matter. It involves developing a fundamen-tally different way of thinking about one’s role andwhat it means to be effective and successful. Forthe most part, the MBA graduates in this studydid not appear to fully grasp the implications ofthese differences until they began managing peo-

ple after business school. It is important to pointout that relatively few of the graduates in our studyhad much direct management experience prior tobusiness school and few moved right into mana-gerial roles immediately after. Instead, most tookjobs as functional specialists, joined training pro-grams, or launched their own endeavors. Theseearly job experiences served to further reinforcethe notion that success meant distinguishing one-self from peers and others competing for opportu-nities. However, as these recent grads moved intomanagerial roles, they began to realize that self-promoting attitudes were counterproductive tomanagerial success. Difficulties motivating subor-dinates or gaining cooperation from fellow manag-ers often stemmed from perceptions that the rookiemanagers cared more about their own intereststhan those of their subordinates or peers. As youngmanagers began to shift their orientation in aneffort to understand and support the needs andmotivations of the people they worked with, theydiscovered that their teams (and colleagues) oftenreciprocated by taking more responsibility for theircollective success.

The enormity of this shift in mind-set was notalways immediately apparent to the new manag-ers. As individual contributors, their goal had beento stand out from others. As managers, their goalwas to help their subordinates stand out. Wherebefore they had labored intensely to perform at thehighest levels for their bosses, now they had totake responsibility for the mistakes and indiffer-ence of subordinates who didn’t always share thesame values or ambitions. Where before they hadrelied on their managers to coordinate their activ-ities and smooth the way, now they were expectedto resolve issues with their peers on their own. Forhigh achievers who had long based their self-esteem on being competent and doing things right,this responsibility-without-control was particu-larly unsettling. Having not yet internalized whatit meant to be a leader, they felt powerless—al-most victimized—when subordinates showed littleenthusiasm for work, ignored or challenged theirdirection or, in some cases, quit jobs or transferredto other units. Over time, they gradually came torealize that their power, and their success, restedin their ability to help others—both subordinatesand peers—become more effective and more sat-isfied in performing their own work.

This shift in mind-set had three significant ben-efits. First, it changed the way emerging leadersinteracted with their teams, as well as their peers.When they saw their role as growing and enablingothers, they reported becoming less competitiveand more collaborative. Second, it gave them back


some of the control they thought they had lost.With a leadership mind-set, they no longer felt likehelpless victims when their subordinates mademistakes or lacked motivation. Instead, they feltresponsible for developing people who had thecapacity to learn and improve. By valuing andaccepting people—rather than judging and dis-missing them—they discovered that they had farmore leverage to make their situation better. Last,when emerging leaders saw their role in terms ofothers (rather than themselves), they seemed to bemore adept at controlling their emotions and tak-ing difficult relationships less personally. Ratherthan viewing difficult relationships (or people) as astatement about themselves, they began to realizethat “it wasn’t all about them.” With this insight,emerging leaders were able to remain less emo-tionally embroiled and were better equipped toexplore conflicts dispassionately.

Another theme that was pervasive in our studywas the tendency for inexperienced managers toover-rely on previous strengths when entering un-familiar territory. This is especially troubling forjunior managers for two reasons. First, it has beenwell documented that under conditions of stress,people fall back on overlearned skills that haveworked well for them in the past (Fiedler, 1996).This can be quite effective when someone has abroad range of experiences to draw on but is farless effective when experiences are limited. Anumber of empirical studies suggest that whensituational stress is high, high leader intelligencecan impair performance (Fiedler, 1996; Fiedler &Garcia, 1987). In other words, leader intelligenceand experience may actually interfere with eachother when leaders perceive situations as highlystressful due to interpersonal conflicts or other-wise. Clearly this does not bode particularly wellfor intelligent business school graduates who aremoving into challenging (potentially stressful)leadership roles, especially when they have afairly narrow range of nonmanagerial experienceto fall back on.

As we saw in this study, it was not unusual forMBAs to be placed in roles or situations that chal-lenged them in significant ways. However, aswe’ve discussed, it is precisely when situations areperceived as stressful (as these early managementtransitions often were), that leaders tend to drawless on their intellect and more on their experi-ence. Because rookie managers have relatively lit-tle experience, it is especially important that weprovide metacognitive strategies (Clark, 1992) thatcan help them to anticipate and prepare for stress-ful periods and that will allow them to leveragetheir cognitive strengths and analytic capabilities

more effectively. Arming them with an understand-ing of the key transitional periods they are likely toexperience, knowledge of what those transitionalexperiences may feel like, and strategies for han-dling them more productively may vastly improvethe efficiency and effectiveness of a young leader’searly-career development (e.g., Bridges, 2004;Maddi & Khoshaba, 2005; Reivich & Shatte, 2002;Watkins, 2009).

Without question, transitions represented partic-ularly critical moments in a young leader’s devel-opmental journey. As McCall (2010) notes, whileone can debate the number of transitions that areneeded on the path to effective leadership, there islittle question that these are times when much ison the line. For the MBA graduates in our study,transitional periods were a time of great potentialand great risk. For some, working through difficulttransitions, making mistakes, and learning fromtheir successes and failures produced significantgrowth and development. For others, the transi-tions were more disorienting. It was clear thatsome of these young managers struggled with theadaptive challenges of specific transitions formonths, and even years, as they tried to makesense of their personal experiences.

One of the most striking findings in our investi-gation was the sheer number and diversity of tran-sitions that our emerging leaders weathered. Thisis important because recently it has been arguedthat understanding and improving key transitionsprecipitated by early job experiences could go along way toward improving development over anentire career (McCall, 2010). The results of thisstudy take us a step in that direction. When manypeople think of leadership transitions, their firstthoughts go mainly to role transitions, much likethe first category we describe in Table 1 (e.g., Cha-ran et al., 2001; Hill, 2004). The early-career leadersin this study pointed to a variety of situations—beyond role changes—that produced significanttransitions in the way they thought about andpracticed leadership. These included leading sig-nificant business changes, much like those de-scribed by Watkins (2003), and dealing with situa-tions that required clarifying and standing up forpersonal values and interests (Gentile, 2008).

One of the reasons we think that emerging man-agers sometimes struggled with their transitions,or failed to complete them, was because they typ-ically didn’t recognize that they were actually go-ing through one. Transitions tend to take placeover a period that often begins before people arefully aware of what is happening (Ibarra, 2003).Moreover, these can be particularly confusing andlonely times, even when the changes that sparked


the transition are seemingly positive ones. For ex-ample, although an exciting new job with a biggertitle can feel good initially, later it can seem like amistake as a (previously successful) managerstruggles to understand a new role, tries to navi-gate a new culture, and misses the old colleaguesand well-worn networks of the previous job. This isbecause people interpret events partly by theirpast experience and expectations (Fiske & Taylor,1991), which means that managers at differentpoints in their development are likely to have dif-ferent transitional experiences in response to thesame change. One young manager may reflect onthe circumstances, reevaluate old assumptions,and use the experience to learn and move on. An-other may not yet have the knowledge base, learn-ing orientation, or skills needed to draw out theappropriate learning and will likely repeat the pro-cess in a different context or with different people(Bridges, 2004; DeRue & Wellman, 2009). Unfinishedtransitions are destined to repeat themselves be-cause when the necessary learning does not hap-pen, inexperienced managers tend to exit—men-tally or physically—without realizing that it is notthe situation that needs to change, but themselves.

Perhaps one of the most critical transitions forearly-career leaders was the personal adaptationrequired to cope successfully with a professionalsetback. Those in our study who had done partic-ularly well in terms of career advancement almostinvariably mentioned the valuable lessons theyhad learned in dealing with a significant mistakeor failure. In fact, most credited these transitionsfor subsequent promotion opportunities or job of-fers. To the extent that young managers developedresilience and professional maturity in workingthrough these transitions, they built not only con-fidence, but credibility. However, if they let theiremotions rule and failed to take the actions neces-sary for learning, they sometimes lost confidenceand credibility and, at least for a time, lost theirway. As such, the personal transitions that oc-curred in response to life’s inevitable setbackshad perhaps the greatest impact on an emergingleader’s career, either opening up new andgreater opportunities or substantially derailingtheir development.

Implications for MBA Education

The raison d’être for MBA programs is to preparestudents to be managers and leaders of organiza-tions. Unfortunately, as Pfeffer (2009) observes,many faculty in business schools choose to focuson topics that have only minor implications for theproblems that managers face. Of equal concern is

the lack of attention to the significant challengesand hurdles that managers do have to overcome,especially those that occur early in a career. It isn’tthat our research is irrelevant but rather that, un-like our colleagues in medical schools, faculty toooften are unfamiliar with the actual problems thatmanagers encounter in their day-to-day business(McGrath, 2007). In Jean Bartunek’s terms (2007), ourresearch and teaching often lack “intended ratio-nales for action.”

If we are to help our MBA students acquire theskills, abilities, attitudes, and knowledge neededto be effective leaders, our challenge is to ensurethat our curricula not only provide abstract con-cepts and frameworks but are also grounded in thereal problems that our students will have to navi-gate. McCall (2010) asserts that this requires“[s]tarting from what managers do rather thanwhat they are like” (681). Hill (2004) echoes thissentiment, noting that “[s]pecial emphasis shouldbe given to matters on which new managers areprone to make mistakes” (256). The data from thisstudy can help in this respect by informing usabout some of the most difficult challenges thatyoung managers struggle with and the importanttransitions that must occur if they are to develop asleaders. By understanding these challenges, wecan design highly relevant content that can bedirectly applied in their new roles, and therefore,have a greater impact on their performance (Con-ger, 2004).

Assuming that we have identified the right chal-lenges and transitional experiences, the next taskis figuring out how to design our pedagogical ma-terial to adequately support the development ofsomething as complex as leadership. To under-stand how, we need only turn to the work on hu-man performance technologies. Based on morethan 40 years of research, cognitive scientists striv-ing to improve human performance in the work-place generally agree that there are two very dif-ferent types of knowledge that people can acquire:(1) procedural knowledge, which tells us howthings are done, and (2) declarative knowledge,which tells us why things work the way they do(Clark, 1992). People use procedural knowledge tomaster job tasks that can be accomplished in dis-crete steps or stages; whereas they use declarativeknowledge to understand (or explain) why thingswork in certain ways or to predict how things willturn out if we engage in certain actions. Proceduralknowledge has the advantage of becoming auto-matic with practice and can be accomplished with-out attention. Declarative knowledge has the ad-vantage of being more flexible and allowing forcreativity, but people can only think about a lim-


ited number of declarative things at once becausedeclarative knowledge requires conscious atten-tion (Clark, 1999). This is likely why people revert tooverlearned behavior when dealing with stressfulsituations—it requires less cognitive expenditure.

Leadership is best characterized as a combina-tion of both procedural and declarative knowl-edge. The declarative aspects of leadership allowmanagers to apply principles, concepts, and factsto creatively address problems in each new situa-tion. They also help managers form proceduresand decide when to use them. Over time, as pro-cedures are applied consistently and produce pos-itive outcomes, they become automatic. So, for ex-ample, young managers may learn about theimportance of establishing clear expectations andproviding feedback (declarative knowledge) andreceive instruction on the discrete steps involvedin conducting feedback conversations (proce-dural knowledge). If they practice consistentlyand receive feedback on their performance, overtime, the steps involved may become more orless automatic.

There are problems, however, with how theseseemingly straightforward aspects of leadershipare taught in many business schools. First, there isa common misconception that skill developmentand knowledge development are best learned—and should be taught—in different ways. As such,many business schools relegate skill developmentto special classes, labs, cocurricular modules, andso on, that are largely experiential, and knowledgedevelopment to more traditional classes, whichare largely case-based. The experiential classesemphasize practice and feedback with a light con-cept introduction, while the case-based classestypically focus on frameworks and strategy, leav-ing skill development to others. The problem isthat when it comes to learning, our minds make nodistinction between knowledge and skills—theyonly pay attention to the procedural or declarativeaspects of what we’re trying to learn. Most impor-tant, both skills- and knowledge-based tasks (e.g.,active listening and empowering others) requireprocedural and declarative knowledge to supportsuccessful application (Clark, 1999). As such,classes focusing on one or the other type of task orknowledge may be insufficient for learning thecomplex bundle of knowledge that translates intowell-performed leadership acts. Moreover, simplyassuming that students will be able to combineand integrate knowledge across classes on theirown is not only unrealistic, it is unfair. As manyfaculty will acknowledge, the coordination of ped-agogical material across classes is typically looseat best, even if the school’s marketing efforts claim

otherwise. And, even if our coordination were bet-ter, expecting novices to accurately integrate com-plex knowledge introduced from varying perspec-tives devoid of any real context or cross-curricularsupport seems unreasonable.

Second, just because novice leaders rememberand understand a concept does not guarantee theywill be able to apply it effectively. And, just be-cause someone can apply a concept does not meanthat they are necessarily fully aware of how theydid it. Memory and application of both proceduraland declarative knowledge operate independently(Clark, 1992). Again, this has two implications forcurrent pedagogical practices. First, teachingleadership principles without sufficient applica-tion opportunities runs the risk of making complexleadership concepts appear simple and obvious.Certainly, it is easy to cognitively grasp the impor-tance of being empathetic or making other peoplesuccessful, but it is difficult to appreciate the chal-lenges or subtleties involved without actually try-ing to do it when other things are at stake. Thismay lead some students to underestimate thevalue or significance of our leadership offerings.Second, many business schools attempt to bridgethe application gap by having practitioners teachleadership electives or speak in classes abouttheir leadership experience. While this can havemany benefits, such as exposing students to real-life situations and different leadership styles,practitioners with extensive experience have oftenreached the point of automaticity. That is, theymay not be able to accurately articulate exactlyhow they do complex leadership tasks such asdelegation or trust building, even when they thinkthey can.

Last, the transfer of knowledge from the educa-tional context to the work setting is a complicatedprocess. It involves both near transfer—routineuses of knowledge—and far transfer—creativeuses of knowledge (Clark, 1999). We know frombehavioral psychology that near transfer is greatlyfacilitated when the specific problems presentedin the training context closely mirror the applica-tion setting and corrective feedback is provided.We also know that far transfer is enhanced wheneducators help students to link seemingly unre-lated, yet actually similar events to new problems,thereby clarifying a broader concept or honing apractical insight (Conger & Xin, 2000). But there areways that far transfer can actually be inhibited ifthe pedagogical approach overemphasizes neartransfer and vice-versa. The increasingly behav-ioral orientation of many schools’ skill-buildingefforts—much like the overuse of competencies inthe organizational context—runs the risk of throw-


ing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.While leadership skills, such as giving feedback,setting goals, active listening, communication andinfluence techniques are certainly important, re-peatedly practicing a specific skill on similar typesof problems (e.g., role-plays with peers) can inhibitcreativity and give young leaders the false impres-sion that by following recommended steps to theletter, they are in fact practicing good leadership.Without the relevant declarative knowledge andinterpretive frames (i.e., mind-sets), young leadersmay lack the capacity to reflexively adapt theirresponses in ways that are consistent with theconcepts they are trying to apply.

One solution to these pedagogical misalign-ments is to create courses and other offerings de-signed to enhance creative problem solving whileat the same time promoting the development ofpractical skill. Approaches that combine proce-dural and declarative knowledge building in-crease the chances that students will be able toapply what they learn in the classroom to the ever-evolving leadership challenges they face on thejob. To this end, we created a series of short(10 min) leadership video vignettes designed pur-posely to develop both forms of knowledge rele-vant to leadership. Our goal was to truly integrateproblem solving and skill development.

These video vignettes portray early-career lead-ers trying to manage their way through real situa-tions fraught with the challenges described by theyoung managers in our study. They also capturesome of the emotion that these problems contain,which enhances engagement and learning (Bar-tunek, 2007; Weick, 1999). The videos are interac-tive, allowing students to analyze the situation inclass, discuss what they might do, and then seehow it might play out. Faculty moderate the dis-cussion, often incorporating role-plays so that stu-dents gain practice applying their suggestions, us-ing specific procedures, or experimenting withconcepts. Faculty can selectively combine vi-gnettes in a way that allows them to build onprevious learning or, more importantly, vary spe-cific parameters of a given leadership challenge.By changing aspects of the problems, faculty canhelp students learn how to adapt their responses todifferent circumstances and contexts which, inturn, makes future managers more adept at apply-ing the leadership concepts to real situations.1

The video vignettes can also be used to under-score the importance of a leadership mind-set. Inour experience, the topic of leadership mind-setgets relatively little attention in many businessschools. We know from a long tradition of researchin social cognition and other fields that individu-als actively construct their own reality based onthe organized beliefs or social schema they hold.Schemas about roles and self shape our percep-tions and the inferences we make (Fiske & Taylor,1991). Recently, Dweck (2006) has argued convinc-ingly that the mind-sets leaders hold about abilitycan dramatically shape many of the practices theyput in place in their organizations, as well as thequality of their interactions with peers and subor-dinates. When students see firsthand through thevideo vignettes how mind-sets play out in very realsituations and how they can undermine their lead-ership efforts in tangible ways, the learning can bequite powerful. When they begin to actively exper-iment with leadership mind-sets, they becomemore self-aware and better able to regulate theirbehavior in ways that are consistent with the lead-ership concepts we emphasize in class.

CONCLUSIONS

In recent years the debate about the relevance andlegitimacy of business schools and what we teachhas increased (e.g., Khurana, 2007; Pfeffer, 2009).Tushman and O’Reilly (2007) argue that businessschool faculty face a more difficult challenge thanfaculty in disciplinary departments. We are re-quired not only to develop new knowledge (rigor),but also to ensure that this knowledge can be ap-plied (relevance). This applies to our teaching aswell. Unlike students in conventional academicdepartments where the goal is the acquisition ofknowledge per se, we need to provide our studentswith knowledge and skills that can be applied(Tyson, 2005).

To succeed at this, we need to understand atsome level of granularity the specific problems ourstudents struggle with as young managers. Thisstudy has identified three significant transitionsand four common challenges faced by young man-agers. These challenges, and the associated tran-sitions they require, are both conceptual (e.g.,adopting a managerial mind-set, dealing with set-backs and failure) and practical (e.g., motivatingothers, resolving difficult relationships). As such,they challenge us as educators to both make ourstudents aware of these issues and to help themdevelop the skills needed to confront the issuessuccessfully. Part of this can be done through acurriculum design that highlights these chal-

1 The course syllabus and teaching notes are available from theauthors. The video vignettes are available for free from theStanford Center for Leadership Development and Research. Seewww.leadershipinfocus.net for a further description and accessto these materials.


lenges. We can also benefit from a better under-standing of the cognitive processes that enable thedevelopment, transfer, and application of complexknowledge. Pfeffer and Fong (2004) argue that“[b]usiness schools could be more relevant to themanagement profession they ostensibly serve,possibly even more relevant and useful than theyare today . . .” (1515). We agree. By identifyingspecific challenges that young manager’s face andcreating teaching materials that help studentsconfront these challenges, extract the appropriatelearning, and make the necessary psychologicaltransitions, we can improve the relevance and therigor of leadership development in the businessschool context.

REFERENCES

Avolio, B. J., Avey, J. B., & Quisenberry, D. 2010. Estimating thereturn on leadership development investment. LeadershipQuarterly, 21: 633–644.

Avolio, B. J., Rotundo, M., & Walumbwa, F. O. 2009. Early lifeexperiences and environmental factors as determinants ofleadership emergence: The role of parental influence andrule breaking behavior. Leadership Quarterly, 20: 329–342.

Bartunek, J. M. 2007. Toward a relational scholarship of integra-tion. Academy of Management Journal, 50: 1323–1333.

Bennis, W. G., & O’Toole, J. 2005. How business schools lost theirway. Harvard Business Review, May: 96–104.

Bridges, W. 2004. Transitions: Making sense of life’s changes.Cambridge, MA: DaCapo Press.

Carroll, P. B., & Mui, C. 2008. Billion dollar lessons: What you canlearn from the most inexcusable business failures of the last25 years. New York: Portfolio.

Charan, R., Drotter, S., & Noel, J. 2001. The leadership pipeline.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Chia, R., & Holt, R. 2008. The nature of knowledge in businessschools. Academy of Management Learning and Education,7: 471–486.

Clark, R. E. 1992. How the cognitive sciences are shaping theprofession In H. D. Stolovich, & E. J. Keeps (Eds.), Handbookof human performance technology: Improving individualand organizational performance worldwide (1st ed.). SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass.

Clark, R. E. 1999. The cognitive sciences and human perfor-mance technology In H. D. Stolovich, & E. J. Keeps (Eds.),Handbook of human performance technology: Improvingindividual and organizational performance worldwide (2nded.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Conger, J. A. 2004. Developing leadership capability: What’sinside the black box?. Academy of Management Executives,18: 136–139.

Conger, J. A., & Xin, K. R. 2000. Executive education in the 21stcentury. Management in Education, 24: 73–101.

DeRue, D. S., & Wellman, N. 2009. Developing leaders via expe-rience: The role of developmental challenge, learning ori-entation, and feedback availability. Journal of Applied Psy-chology, 94: 859–875.

Dotlich, D. L., Noel, J. L., & Walker, N. 2004. Leadership passages:The personal and professional transitions that make orbreak a leader. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Dweck, C. S. 2006. Mindset: The new psychology of success. NewYork: Ballantine Books.

Fetterman, D. M. 1989. Ethnography: Step-by-step. NewburyPark, CA: Sage.

Fiedler, F. E. 1996. Research on leadership selection and train-ing: One view of the future. Administrative Science Quar-terly, 41: 241–250.

Fiedler, F. E., & Garcia, J. E. 1987. New approaches to effectiveleadership: Cognitive resources and organizational perfor-mance. New York: Wiley.

Finkelstein, S. 2003. Why smart executives fail and what you canlearn from their mistakes. New York: Portfolio.

Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. 1991. Social cognition (2nd ed.). NewYork: McGraw-Hill.

Friga, P. N., Bettis, R. A., & Sullivan, R. S. 2003. Changes ingraduate management education and new business schoolstrategies for the 21st century. Academy of ManagementLearning and Education, 2: 233–249.

Gentile, M. 2008. Giving voice to values: Ways of thinking aboutour values in the workplace. www.AspenCBE.org.

Ghoshal, S. 2005. Bad management theories are destroyinggood management practices. Academy of ManagementLearning and Education, 4: 75–91.

Gilchrest, V. J. 1992. Key informant interviews In B. F. Crabtree,& W. L. Miller (Eds.), Doing qualitative research. London:Sage.

Gladwell, M. 2008. Outliers: The story of success. New York:Little, Brown.

Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory:Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine deGruyter.

Goetz, J. P., & LeCompte, M. D. 1984. Ethnography and qualita-tive design in educational research. Orlando, FL: AcademicPress.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. 2002. Primal leadership:Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston: Har-vard Business School Press.

Greiner, L. E. 1998. Evolution and revolution as organizationsgrow. Harvard Business Review, May–June.

Hackman, J. R., & Wageman, R. 2007. Asking the correct questionsabout leadership. The American Psychologist, 62: 43–47.

Hannah, S. T., & Avolio, B. J. 2010. Ready or not: How do weaccelerate the developmental readiness of leaders? Journalof Organizational Behavior, 31: 1181–1187.

Hill, L. A. 1992. Becoming a manager. Boston: HBS Press.

Hill, L. A. 2004. New manager development for the 21st century.Academy of Management Executive, 18: 121–126.

Ibarra, H. 2003. Working identity: Unconventional strategies forreinventing your career. Boston: HBS Press.

Johnson, J. C. 1990. Selecting ethnographic informants. NewburyPark, CA: Sage.

Kerr, S. 2004. Introduction: Preparing people to lead. Academy ofManagement Executive, 3: 118–120.

Khurana, R. 2007. From higher aims to hired hands: The socialtransformation of American business schools and the unful-


filled promise of management as a profession. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

Lombardo, M. M., Ruderman, M. N., & McCauley, C. D. 1988.Explanations of success and derailment in upper-levelmanagement positions. Journal of Business and Psychology,2: 199–216.

Maddi, S., & Khoshaba, D. 2005. Resilience at work: How tosucceed no matter what life throws at you. New York: AMA-COM.

McCall, M. W. 1998. High flyers: Developing the next generationof leaders. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

McCall, M. W. 2004. Leadership development through experi-ence. Academy of Management Executive, 18: 127–130.

McCall, M. W. 2010. The experience conundrum. In N. Nohria, &R. Khurana (Eds.), Handbook of leadership theory and prac-tice: A Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium.Boston: Harvard Business Press.

McCall, M. W., Lombardo, M. M., & Morrison, A. M. 1988. Thelessons of experience: How successful executives developon the job. Lexington Books.

McCauley, C. D., Ruderman, M. N., Ohlott, P. J., & Morrow, J. E.1994. Assessing the developmental components of manage-rial jobs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79: 544–560.

McGrath, R. G. 2007. No longer a step-child: How the manage-ment field can come into its own. Academy of ManagementJournal, 50: 1365–1378.

Miller, W. L., & Crabtree, B. F. 1992. Doing qualitative research.Newbury Park: Sage.

Mintzberg, H. 2004. Managers not MBAs: A hard look at the softpractice of managing and management development. SanFrancisco: Berrett-Kohler.

Navarro, P. 2008. The MBA core curricula of top-ranked U.S.business schools: A study in failure? Academy of Manage-ment Learning and Education, 7: 108–123.

Nicholson, N., & West, M. 1988. Transitions, work histories, andcareers In M. Arthur, D. Hall, & B. Lawrence (Eds.), Hand-book of career theory: 188–199. New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

Pfeffer, J. 2009. Renaissance and renewal in management stud-ies: Relevance regained. European Management Review, 6:141–148.

Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T. 2002. The end of business schools? Lesssuccess than meets the eye. Academy of ManagementLearning and Education, 1: 78–95.

Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T. 2004. The business school “business”:Some lessons from the U.S. experience. Journal of Manage-ment Studies, 41: 1501–1520.

Porter, L. W., & McKibbin, L. E. 1988. Management education anddevelopment. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Reivich, K., & Shatte, A. 2002. The resilience factor. New York:Random House.

Spradley, J. P. 1979. The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt,Rinehart & Winston.

Tushman, M. L., & O’Reilly, C. A. 2007. Research and relevance:Implications of Pasteur’s quadrant for doctoral programsand faculty development. Academy of Management Jour-nal, 50: 769–774.

Tyson, L. D. 2005. On managers, not MBAs. Academy of Man-agement Learning and Education, 4: 235–236.

Van Velsor, E., & Leslie, J. B. 1995. Why executives derail: Per-spectives across time and cultures. Academy of Manage-ment Learning & Education, 9: 62–72.

Watkins, M. 2003. The first 90 days: Critical success strategies fornew leaders at all levels. Boston: Harvard Business SchoolPress.

Watkins, M. 2009. Your next move: The leader’s guide to navi-gating major career transitions. Boston: Harvard BusinessSchool Press.

Weick, K. E. 1999. That’s moving: Theories that matter. Journal ofManagement Inquiry, 8: 134–142.

Willis, J., & Todorov, A. 2006. First impressions: Making up yourmind after a 10-MS exposure to a face. Psychological Sci-ence, 17: 592–598.

Wren, D. A., Halbesleben, J. R., & Buckley, M. R. 2007. The theory-application balance in management pedagogy: A longitu-dinal update. Academy of Management Learning & Educa-tion, 6: 484–492.

Beth Benjamin is the former di-rector of the Center for Leader-ship Development and Researchat the Stanford Graduate Schoolof Business where she was alsoa lecturer. She is currently anindependent consultant work-ing with private equity firms,nonprofits, and academic insti-tutions to improve their leader-ship offerings. She received aPhD from the Stanford GraduateSchool of Business, MA from theUniversity of Maryland, and BA

from Cornell University.

Charles O’Reilly is the Frank E.Buck Professor of Managementand the Hank McKinnell-PfizerDirector of the Center for Leader-ship Development and Researchat the Graduate School of Busi-ness at Stanford University. Hereceived his MBA and PhD fromthe Haas School of Business atthe University of California,Berkeley. His research spansstudies of organizational demog-raphy, culture, executive com-pensation and organizational in-

novation and change. Address: Graduate School of Business,Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.


Copyright of Academy of Management Learning & Education is the property of Academy of Management and

its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's

express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

academy of management learning & education becoming a ...€¦ · berg (2004) notes that the...

Documents