How would you describe your experience in participating in this course? How has your
experience shaped your intention of how to participate in future MBA courses?
My experience participating in this course has been like that of other SNHU online courses.
Though this course is the beginning of the MBA curriculum, I have taken a few classes a few
years ago. What this course offered differently than I remember are the resources. I do not recall
having digital resources listed or available for every module and there was not any additional
certification offered with the course material. What was most surprising about this course is that
it was strictly focused on interpersonal leadership and not management. Though this was a
welcomed distinction in the course, it did make the course more difficult for me.
What were some of the challenges you faced in this course, and how did these challenges help
you prepare for challenges in today's VUCA world of work? How do you think future courses
will help you deepen your ability to work in the VUCA world?
During this course, I experienced two large events. First, I got covid which was unexpected.
Two days after being discharged from the hospital with Covid, and two weeks sooner than
planned, I delivered my third child. Experiencing these events while in the middle of a class was
tough. In this specific class, we are learning that today's workforce requires managers to have
empathy and understanding for the circumstances of their employees. This lesson allowed me to
have compassion for myself and push through and not quit the course. This is a lesson that I will
take with me in the future. Sometimes, inconvenient circumstances stack themselves upon an
individual, but as long as that individual is willing to try to push through them, the opportunity
should be there. This time, it meant not giving up on myself, next time it'll mean working
through difficulty with an employee.
The fourth industrial revolution has introduced early advances on the internet of things;
artificial intelligence (AI); and the production of smart equipment that can analyse, diagnose,
and fix issues without the need for human intervention. How do these complex technological
developments challenge leaders to adapt their leadership styles and behaviour?
Because of the advancements of technology human beings are faced with excelling at the
aspects of humanity that cannot be automated or genuinely duplicated by artificial intelligence.
This means that we will be utilized less for the doing of things and more for the feelings of
things. Artificial intelligence is challenging human beings with being better humans to each
other in many ways across a number of forums and leadership is no different. Currently, AI
customer service reps aren't perfectly equipped to handle nuance and regional slang or sarcasm
but eventually, that will change. When it does, human leaders will be responsible for taking
action when they feel the shift in motivation or enthusiasm.
Considering those challenges, what do you want to learn to help prepare you to lead more
effectively? How will your future work in this program benefit you and the people you lead?
To be an effective leader, this course has taught me that I need to improve my ability to inspire
others to work for a shared vision. I want to learn how to motivate teams confidently. Learning
these things will help me to be pulled more often to lead the people mission and not just the
technical or operational mission. As I learn more about people management and work through
this program, I feel I will learn the techniques needed to better display my preparedness for the
roles that I'd like to have. For my business, this course will allow me to fill in my blind spots
with team members that display the characteristics that are missing from my leadership and/or
leadership team.
My take from this course is it honestly was not what I really anticipated it would be when I had
signed up for it. This is not necessarily in a good way. This is not a critique of Dr. Parikh as he
has been great and responsive but I largely felt the course was just a bunch of buzzwords which
from my own experience in the real world has been. What I mean by this is this course is all
about ideas on how to be a better leader, lots of focus on including various ideas but I hold true
the belief that leaders are natural not taught. Maybe that is my own bias, but I look at stories
from people such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and countless other wildly successful
leaders that founded companies and for lack of a better word everyone who worked for them
said they were hard asses and ruthless leaders. I almost felt like the things in this course really do
not always work in real life for companies to be super successful. As far as intention on how to
participate in future courses, I guess just keep an open mind.
My biggest challenges were feeling like Toolkits are worth it, I got my Bachelors from SNHU
but I did feel as this course was not nearly as organized or clear. Hard to explain but I felt more
lost than other courses. I think acronyms such as VUCA make a lot of sense as the world is
becoming more fast paced and those adjectives are super necessary skills to adapt in leadership.
Summing up how the Fourth Industrial Revolution will affect leadership styles could require a
whole course. My gut instinct is that this is going to create a lot of friction between employees
and leadership. Jobs are going to be replaced and people will need to be trained in a more
specialize way. This is going to require leadership to have skills around training and
compassion for other individuals that may struggle more.
I think what I need to learn the most is having compassion. One of the things in the news
recently is the company Better.com laying off 900 via Zoom meetings. From an optics point of
view, it looks bad especially before the holidays. I feel bad for everyone that loses their jobs; I
have a couple times in the past. I find myself having lack of compassion for these workers
because its 900 going into a hot job market while they kept jobs during 2020 when nearly 25
million were laid off in 8 weeks. My work in the future of this MBA hopefully allows me to be a
little more compassionate towards others from a leader perspective.
How would you describe your experience in participating in this course? How has your
experience shaped your intention of how to participate in future MBA courses?
I would like to first congratulate everyone for a job well done in completing this course! I have
not been in school since 1997 and I am very satisfied with how pursuing an MBA in this
juncture in my life can greatly benefit me for years to come not only from an education
standpoint but also in my career as well. I have applied the lessons I have learned from this
course in my role as a mentor to help lead and develop other individuals on my current team
using a more conversational approach. Understanding my own weaknesses as a leader, having
the ability to create a plan using smart goals to turn them into strengths, apply better ways to
interact with people and utilizing skills such as delegating in a positive way to help team
members enhance their skillset, will help me to become a more effective leader. This course has
taught me to engage more with my classmates during the discussions which will help me to
challenge myself and not being afraid to make mistakes when attempting to learn new ideas.
What were some of the challenges you faced in this course, and how did these challenges help
you prepare for challenges in today's VUCA world of work? How do you think future courses
will help you deepen your ability to work in the VUCA world?
One of the biggest challenges I faced is the ability to see myself as a future senior leader at my
current company. When I was a manager at Enterprise-Rent-A-Car I was always focused on the
business itself instead of people. I realized throughout this course that people should always
come first and started to apply that same philosophy at my current job when interacting with
people. I felt like when I completed the journal assignment, I finally figured out who I could
become as a leader using better approaches and was quite surprised when my manager pointed
out that my greatest asset was the ability to earn trust from others. For me, it was great to hear
that from my manager knowing trust is a key component in building any sort of relationship. In
today’s VUCA environment, being able to adapt to different changes we may face to address
any incoming challenges, will be crucial for success. A good leader should always embrace
change and adapt on a moment’s notice to come up with attainable steps to help focus on any
challenges that lie ahead. In addition, I believe being able to accept criticism is a great key for
developing yourself to help make you a successful leader. I think any future courses I take in
this MBA program will surely help provide the additional guidance and tools needed on how to
be successful working in this VUCA world.
The fourth industrial revolution has introduced early advances on the internet of things;
artificial intelligence (AI); and the production of smart equipment that can analyse, diagnose,
and fix issues without the need for human intervention. How do these complex technological
developments challenge leaders to adapt their leadership style and behaviour?
Adaptability and being able to engage a team are crucial to any leader’s success. I think the
biggest challenge leaders face today is the lack of face-to-face communications. Due to the
pandemic, zoom meetings are becoming the norm. In these meetings, leaders mut determine the
best way that they could get their message across while ensuring morale, engagement and
retention do not suffer. The key is being able to keep the employees engaged by connecting with
them in some way that allows them to maintain focus as management attempts to showcase a
vision. Keeping the message simple for everyone to understand is an excellent way to navigate
through the pandemic and the issues we are currently facing. f f
Considering those challenges, what do you want to learn to help prepare you to lead more
effectively? How will your future work in this program benefit you and the people you lead?
As I move on through the program, I want to learn more about becoming a more effective leader
with the use of additional strategies that I can help me achieve my long-term goals.
Understanding the why around the importance of utilizing leadership tools to help focus on the
identified areas and correct those issues will only improve my own skillset and provide the
confidence to succeed. I need to also remember that teamwork and the ability to build trust
should continue to be focused on. I believe that staying in this program will only help me
expand my knowledge of how to become an effective leader by developing my own tools to use
as part of the toolkit and apply these great techniques in my current role not only to help develop
myself but others on my team as well to help generate success for all in the company.
How would you describe your experience in participating in this course? How has your
experience shaped your intention of how to participate in future MBA courses?
This course has been a valuable experience for me. This was my first term for the MBA program
so it has shaped what to expect in my future terms. One aspect that really stuck out to me was the
use of the self-assessment throughout the milestones and in the final project. I enjoyed having a
follow up beyond the normal experience of just taking a personality test and then doing nothing
beyond that. The discussion posts have been quite valuable to gain perspectives from my
classmates, though do wish I had done more follow up with responses to my posts.
What were some of the challenges you faced in this course, and how did these challenges help
you prepare for challenges in today's VUCA world of work? How do you think future courses
will help you deepen your ability to work in the VUCA world?
Some of the biggest challenges have be balancing work, school, and life. This has been
especially true with having sick toddlers a few times during the semester. This past semester has
been another season of finding an acceptable balance between each of these competing
priorities. This is a useful skill to continue refining as the VUCA world will have changing
priorities. I will need to determine how to best balance out my focus. I expect that future courses
in the program will help me build the skills that I can lean on as I adjust and adapt to today’s
VUCA world.
The fourth industrial revolution has introduced early advances on the internet of things;
artificial intelligence (AI); and the production of smart equipment that can analyse, diagnose,
and fix issues without the need for human intervention. How do these complex technological
developments challenge leaders to adapt their leadership style and behaviour?
The rapid and complex technological developments from the fourth industrial revolution
challenge leaders to focus on effective communication. Without effective communication
leaders will fail to adapt and leader their constituents to adapt to the changing environment.
Leaders must deal with so much data, it is critical that they know how digest this data into useful
information.
Considering those challenges, what do you want to learn to help prepare you to lead more
effectively? How will your future work in this program benefit you and the people you lead?
Considering these challenges, I think it is crucial to learn and practice self-assessment and
communication skills. These are both broad skills that I will need to continue growing myself. A
specific skill I want to develop right now is sharing the vision. I want to be able to clearly define
and communicate what our company’s vision is to inspire those around me. We often are too
busy keeping up with the day to day needs that we rarely have time to think about our larger
vision.
I had an interesting experience participating this course. I did struggle throughout the semester
because of personal reasons including getting a promotion at work and getting covid right after.
Overall, I had a great experience because of the professor, Dr. Raj Parikh. He never managed to
miss an email from me and always responded with an uplifting attitude which helped me get
through. It changed my intention on how I participate in future courses because waiting til the
last minute or submitted assignments late has not given me the best insight on business and if I
am more diligent getting my work done, I will gain more knowledge moving forward especially
from my peers during discussion boards.
Some challenges I faced in this course were the complexity of the work I did not know or
understand. For example, there were many concepts that were not something I am used to as I do
not have a prior degree in business or a related field. I have a degree in Sports Medicine so to me
this degree has has kept me in a place of uncertainty and given me a complex mentality when it
came to doing my work. Although, this may be true I was able to overcome these challenges and
move forward throughout the course. I think future courses will deepen my ability to work in the
VUCA world because business is always going to be uncertain and complex but learning more
about the basics and understanding situations will help me thrive in the field.
With the fourth industrial revolution, the introducing of early advances on the internet of things;
artificial intelligence (AI) and the production of smart equipment that can analyse diagnose and
fix issues without the need for human intervention has pushed us to do better than. For example,
I was watching an episode of ‘Bones’ and within the show there was a program called V.A.L.,
and this program was created to be a medical-crime detective basically replacing Sweets, an
FBI psychologist. In this episode, sweets had to overcome the use of his peers using the program
and figure out the murderer on his own which he did. The program even chose the wrong
murderer and was returned to the company that made it in the end. This may be a case that shows
that machines and programs cannot replace humans but in some instances they can and we need
to prove how valuable we truly are. I believe that when we are facing a challenge, we always
adapt our leadership style and behaviour because if we need more of a team dynamic, we choose
to proceed with a comforting group mindset when leading or when we need to get to work and
move forward an appreciative and motivating behaviour is exhibited. I have seen this in my
team at work lately because a lot the work is out of our hands when it comes to permits in review
in specific jurisdictions but our job is to use these leadership skills and behaviours to possibly
get them moved up quicker so they can be approved and issued.
Considering these challenges that come with the internet of things and AI, I want to learn how to
be more ahead of the process rather than trying to figuring out more solutions after the fact. I
specifically want to focus on “A Better Brain leader learns in which situations to balance his
brains’ action modes to avoid stress and conflict, but instead help his workforce to develop and
thrive.” This future work in this program will benefit me and the people I lead because as a new
leader with one person under me I need to be able to communicate effectively and be confident
enough to give him tasks to do to make both of our lives less stressful and not just have
everything be done with me until I can no longer handle all of the tasks and I am forced to give
him work to do which he may not have the skills to do.
Muttke, M. (2020). Build Better Brains: A Leader’s Guide to the World of Neuroscience.
http://a.cloud.igpublish.com/iglibrary/search/BEPB0001016.main.html?0
