How has your experience shaped your intention of how to participate in future MBA courses?
Congratulations to all for wrapping up another class toward your educational goals. My
experience in this class was one that I feel will help me tremendously in the future. The topic of
Leadership in an educational realm is not new to me as an active-duty military member. We do
a lot of time studying and teaching leadership techniques. However, this class allowed me to see
leadership outside of the Command-and-Control world that I live in and will help prepare me
for when I retire. Personally, the class came at a challenging time, as I am stationed away from
my wife and kids, but have tried to balance work, travel to spend time with the family and class
requirements. The personal assessment and personal development plan were especially useful
for me to reflect on the leader I am today. I have been successful as a leader in my past but
identifying leadership shortcomings and how I view myself as a leader was immensely helpful.
One of the assignments required use to talk to someone unbiased and ask where we are good
leaders. That assignment was perfectly in a week that I had one Soldier and Sailor under my
charge departing my command. While “Check Out” interviews is our normal practice, and the
dynamic of the military is one where junior service members are reluctant to give honest
feedback to their Officers in Charge. I ask both members to spend some time thinking and give
me something they think I need to work on as a leader, somewhere I can approve. I value the
feedback that ensued and intend to incorporate that practice of asking for that for the rest of my
career.
How has your experience shaped your intention of how to participate in future MBA courses?
As a student, the biggest change will be just staying on top of the course work. While I did not
submit any assignments late, I found myself at the end of the week catching up with schoolwork
more than I like. While this is mostly due to my Work/School/Life balance. I know it impacts
my performance as a student. Much like I am doing with this discussion, I have really got to
work a week ahead to give cushion for unexpected events. I have also got to get better at using
Student E-mail. One of my classmates requested me to give some guidance on an assignment,
and I completely whiffed on that opportunity to help and network, because I do not check the
student e-mail regularly. f
Another item that I put into considering as a student is the interaction on the discussion boards.
Though out any online course I have taken the “Discussion” really is always the same. It is
submitted an initial post, reply to two people, and then the “Discussion”. I would say, most of
the time I do not even look at the responses I get. While in this course we were asked to engage
in the discussion and that engagement was included in the grading rubric. This force me to read
responses and to respond to those responses, making it an actual discussion. f
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?
I would say the challenge I had with the course was investing into the content. To avoid looking
too confident, I am confident in my experience as a leader. I have been in leadership positions
most of my life, from sports to different positions in the Military. I never feel like there is not
something to learn about leadership, but I did not dive into the class with the right mentality.
While my grades have been good in the class, my approach was not.
f
Realizing that approach or lack thereof was important for this class and my future in the VUCA
environment. While I have had experience as a leader, I cannot say I was adaptive to the
different challenges the world has. This was extremely important for my future as I prepare to
retire from the military and enter the civilian workforce. f
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?
Our society has continued to transition to a world that provides immediate results mostly due to
the advances in the fourth industrial revolution. However, the cornerstone of being a good
leader is credibility, and that takes time to develop with subordinates. The challenge we face as
leaders is the desire for immediate results in an area that requires consistent pressure to achieve
success. Additionally, 1 in 4 workers quit their job this year (reference). In this industry, other
job opportunities are at a finger type, and social media drives employees to see a false reality of
people being 100 percent happy with their employer. This makes the challenge of retention
harder than ever before. This also makes your ability to gain credibility as a leader even more
challenging (Liu, 2021). 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 continue to work through my MBA, I hope to continue to be challenged to think about
business problems in the civilian workplace. I believe putting thought into this environment is
better preparing me for the complexity’s the VUCA world provides. When I’m finished with
my core MBA classes, I look forward to getting more specific on the Supply Chain
Management portion of my program to put thought into the current challenges we face in that
area. f
The program is providing tools in both the leadership toolkit and ability to forecast strategic
planning for an organization. While the idea of a leadership toolkit was not new to me before
this class, the Personal Development Plan with a SMART goal is absolutely something I will
carry with myself as a leader in the future. f
This course was a good experience overall; I was able to reinforce and better define many
leadership behaviours I picked up over the years. This course has not had any impact on my
pursuit of an MBA, I still plan to complete one. As I am already in a leadership position, this
course will not have much effect on my career in a VUCA world; I am already leading in it.
The 4th industrial revolution is a huge influence on my career, as I am in cybersecurity and IT
leadership. The 4th IR mostly makes my job harder, but it also provides opportunity,
particularly in areas such as remote work.
I would describe my experience in participating in this course as educational and reflective.
This course opened my eyes to how the MBA program fits into my life and how to use it to make
positive changes in my professional career. This is mainly due to the self-assessment and
connecting the course problem to my own life in multiple areas, especially with the personal
development plan. I now see the use of other classes as well in the sense that there are aspects
that can be taken and used currently, especially with the discussions taken during the course.
This course was overall very attainable and easy to follow with the steps outlaid nicely. I did not
find any real challenges while taking this course. This course did a nice job of preparing us for
today's VUCA world of work however, due to the incorporation of technology and instilling
new techniques to get to the same outcome faster. I believe future course will continue to use
these resources to enhance the education being provided and give a deeper look into typical
situations that can be mitigated.
The introduction of AI has really shifted the work force by evaluating what jobs need to be done
by humans and which can be done by artificial intelligence. Leadership has had to adapt in
many ways to incorporate technology into the workplace as well as change the way leaders
think about employees. Their style must shift to accommodate people's view on value in the
work place especially since AI has made it more evident when humans are not needed.
Additionally, leaders have had to adjust their outlook on managing people and AI together and
help find a balance between the two.
I would like to learn more about managing at a corporate leadership level in a way that
emphasizes the need for humans in the work place. Everyone deserves to know their worth in
the company and feel appreciated for the value they bring. In addition, I would like to learn
more about leadership within AI, in the sense that I would like to learn how to balance AI and
the human workforce in a way that benefits all. The continuation of my education in this
program will educate me more on how to deal specifically with people that I work with on a
consistent basis, engineers. As well as educating myself on how to bring out the best effort from
everyone and to be more adaptive the work force that may lead.
I have been proud of a few steps along the way this term. I started out taking the online
certification courses earlier, so I would have more time to devote to the weekly projects. It also
sorts of lit the fuse to motivate me for the class, it was just helpful in every way. This really set
me up to succeed and limit the impending doom of not finishing things on time. This is not to
say life did not have other obstacles to try to thwart my momentum, but I was able to weather it
because I prepped myself more in the two weeks before classes started than I ever have before. I
also actively choose discussion posts to respond to that may have not received responses yet.
This is not to say they hadn’t received a response yet because they weren’t good, that certainly
was not the case, it was just that someone else just found another post to respond to first. Maybe
it would have been easier to respond to another post after reading it, but I’d stretch myself to not
take the easy way out. Despite how busy I was during my workday (4 people in the first week of
this term were let go from my department and I was one of 2 that absorbed their work-it was a
lot) I still made sure to stick to my self-declared goals and stretch my limits and make sure I
didn’t skimp on my classwork, even when every bone in my body wanted to just once. I hit
many strides and hit some minor bumps along the way, so I’d say it was a great learning
opportunity. If I did everything perfectly out of the gate, I probably would’ve had learned as
much as I did this term.
As for the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world of work, I am deeply in it. The
goal for my current organization is to have my entire company at 70% outsourced and 30%
onshore. It is a tumultuous time to be sure. Being deep in the muddy waters of so much
transition, the class has helped in resetting my foundation. The class is providing me some
structure that I do not have day-to-day, it is providing me with tools to manage the chaos I am
already facing each day at work. It also just whispers in my ear each day, like the other day at
work. My supervisor was relaying the expectations of the team and really homing in on certain
steps she expects people to take to complete their work. However, the very next day she negated
all she said by not Modelling the Way. She did the exact opposite of what she was touting a mere
24 hours later and completely discredited herself. Side note, she is taking the same classes and
was telling me all she was getting out of it, but it might have only been in theory, because she is
aware of what is needed but not in what is happening. It would be an interesting study for the
both of us to do a self-assessment and then review it with each other to see where we think we
are excelling but where we might not be. Having taken this course, it opens my eyes daily, and
like I said it is the whisper in my head, when I am responding to coworkers there are times where
I immediately course-correct because of something I learned this term.
Regarding the fourth industrial revolution, I think with any position whether it be leadership or
any other, it is important to make yourself invaluable because you do not want technology to
replace all that you do. Diversify yourself in all that you do, in terms of responses, skill sets, and
every other facet of your job. Keep your hand in as many pots as you can and is reasonable while
maintaining the ability to provide quality results within your current position. It is also
important to jump on board and learn what you need to learn when it comes to technology
because there will always be someone willing to take your place given the opportunity. This
swings back to the question referenced above about VUCA, learning to diversify the work you
do will help you land on your feet as VUCA workforces become the norm.
References
Liu, J. (2021, October 14). 1 in 4 Workers Quit their job this year. Retrieved from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/1-in-4-workers-quit-their-job-this-year-according-to-new-
report.html
