A recent Ernst & Young study suggests that the ethical leadership-oriented principle of 'empathy', in this case between business leaders and employees, can lead to increased efficiency, creativity, job satisfaction, idea sharing, innovation, and even company revenue.
That poll however also conveyed that empathy was a tenet today still in short supply.
A separate poll, carried out this time by SAS, in measuring the importance of another ethical leadership trait, 'business resilience', found that while 97% of business leaders believe it is important, less than half (47%) suggest their organization embodies it.
But let's take a step back - In the last few decades, applied learning has become synonymous with the MBA experience. As graduates of Kellogg School of Management and Sloan School of Management, we ourselves once imagined that our studies would be full of international consulting trips over the winter break or advising tech start-ups on their go-to-market strategy.
What we hadn’t imagined was the transformational experience we would undertake through the McGowan Fellows Program, a leadership development initiative of the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund - a Chicago-based philanthropic organization that serves the dual purpose of promoting ethical leadership in business and in life while also addressing family mobility from poverty through multigenerational programming steeped in brain science.
In honoring the legacy of the Fund’s benefactor, former MCI Communications CEO, Bill McGowan, the program believes that leaders are made, not born, and that ethical leadership is crucial for the sustainability of both business and society.
In this vein, the Fellows Program is designed to engage ten Fellows, second-year MBAs at the top of their respective classes, in a unique blend of experiential learning, developmental coaching, and structured coursework. Fellows reflect on their own values and cultivate a community of like-minded peers who aim to leverage business and leadership to benefit society.
The central element of the Fellowship is the Social Impact Project, its experiential learning component.
Our cohort worked on the complex societal issue of homelessness in Chicago. We collaborated with Chicago-based nonprofit organizations serving individuals experiencing homelessness. We gathered in Chicago in late-January for the “Winter Retreat”, where we interviewed individuals at several shelters, food banks, and workforce development projects on the barriers preventing them from reaching their fullest potential. We also participated in the national Point-in-Time Count, an annual census of the unsheltered population of Chicago.
This hands-on, practical education was a visceral experience that we’ve carried into our post-MBA careers.
Before visiting homeless encampments around the city, we had a nice meal downtown. But then, we went out into the coldest night of the year.
The contrast between the warm restaurant and frigid streets alone shed light on our privilege.
When we went out, we met people who were seeking to live their lives safely and with dignity in the face of seemingly insurmountable and often surprising barriers. That night, we weren’t thinking about business models and process efficiencies. We were expanding our empathy for a community different from our own lived experiences, and redefining our understanding of autonomy.
We learned that sometimes it can feel safer to sleep outside alone in sub-zero weather, than in a warm shelter with strict rules and a room of strangers.
And we reflected that we could lose our jobs one day and find ourselves on the other side of the Point-in-Time Count.
MBA consulting projects often connect MBA students with a business facing a discrete challenge. Students then work on a short timeline to map out the challenge using classroom-taught analytical frameworks and models, and produce a report or slide deck with a bulleted list of solutions.
The Social Impact Project presented us with an expansive societal challenge already being tackled by many public and private organizations - a challenge that could not possibly be solved by a group of MBA students in the span of a few months. It was a humbling time that made us reflect on the privilege we carry throughout the MBA experience and into our future careers.
We learned a valuable lesson: leaders must listen intently and walk with humility. That insight ultimately led us to build “journey maps” for people experiencing homelessness to highlight the biggest pain points for people interacting with the large system of service providers.
While we were not able to resolve this complex problem and put it into a neat package, we were able to see things from the perspective of the communities we aimed to serve and shed light on the challenges they face with the very support systems put in place to help them.
This human-centered approach forced us to confront our own leadership values. And we carry this approach into our post-MBA careers to this day.
Perhaps most importantly, our cohort together with other McGowan alumni has become a close community of socially-conscious and values-driven peers who conduct business with consideration for the world’s most pressing issues, including income inequality, climate change, and healthcare delivery. We hold each other accountable and navigate challenges together.
We encourage other MBA students to step outside of their comfort zones and explore their own values and privilege.
Frankly, how can business leaders help repair society if they don’t know what is broken?
