The
Mission of LFM Leadership
The
leadership mission at ESD’s Leaders
for Manufacturing (LFM) program is ambitious: to develop leaders
across industry, regardless of position; and to create leaders who endeavor
to reflect, seek and provide critical feedback, practice set expectations
for excellence, and contribute to and lead in every setting.
With
each class averaging 50 students, LFM accomplishes this mission through
its Leadership Roadmap, which consists of over
300 hours of formal leadership training and development in a team-based
environment designed for experiential learning. Graduates of the two
year, dual-degree program earn an MBA or SM from MIT Sloan School of
Management and an SM from MIT’s School of Engineering.
 Jan
Klein, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management who teaches
leadership in LFM, describes leadership as an active quest for students
“to support each other in growing and developing as principled
leaders and people, across every industry, profession and position,
while maintaining balanced lives.”
Indeed,
LFM is known as the start of a lifelong journey as a leader, a team
player, and an agent of change -- at work, at home, and in the world
at-large.
 Claudia
Sonnet, LFM ’05, said that before coming to LFM she already had
a team-oriented leadership concept. “Early in my career I learned
there is no such a thing as a “wrong person” on a team,
but rather a wrong role for a person. Every individual has something
valuable to offer, and it is the leader’s responsibility to find
it, to develop it, and to make the most of it by assigning the correct
tasks and responsibilities.“
Sonnet’s
team-oriented leadership concept broadened when she joined LFM, as she
discovered that a good leader not only develops other people, but also
“his or her own self, both personally and professionally.”
Several
leadership experiences helped Sonnet formulate this expanded definition
of leadership. One of the first was climbing the 15’ wall during
LFM’s Outward Bound in her first week of the program. “If
I’d had the choice I wouldn’t have done it, simply because
I had never done it before. But the wall was there, and I just climbed
it.”
That
was a turning point for Sonnet but it was still only the beginning.
“Looking back, I’m amazed of how my personal leadership
skills developed over these last two years,” she explains. “I’ve
worked on truly multicultural teams, taken classes on completely new
subjects, worked in a different industry and function during my internship
than I had previously, and made friends with people from all over the
world.
“Learning
to lead multicultural teams was a great contribution to my professional
development . It enabled me to embrace different points of view, to
analyze new ideas, and to be aware that sometimes unconscious prejudices
may interfere with good judgment, so I must be alert to keep them at
bay.
Sonnet
concludes that her LFM learnings will have a definite impact throughout
her life. “I am sure that I will be a much better leader both
professionally and personally,” said Sonnet. “I know on
a very deep level that learning is a never-ending process and that my
own limits are beyond what I previously believed."
LFM
Leadership Roadmap
Summer
- 360º leadership
assessment survey (prior to entering LFM)
- Universe Within
- 15.317 (part
1) – Introduction to Leadership
- Creation of
2-year individual leadership development plan
- Leadership journals
- End of summer
leadership reflection session
Mid-stream Review
- Joint session
with SYs on leadership lessons from first three months of internship
FY* Fall Semester
- OP class
- Tiger Teams
- Don Davis seminar
- Sloan leadership
electives
- Plant tour prep
FY IAP
- Plant tour debrief
with strong emphasis on leadership
- Joint session
with SYs on leadership lessons from internship during Knowledge Review
FY Spring Semester
- Tiger Teams
– provide a hands-on educational experience in distributed leadership
and change. Teams, consisting or 3-5 students, act as "consultants"
on business and operations engagements in small-to medium-sized Boston
area organizations.
- Sloan leadership
electives
- Internship prep
Internship
- Virtual leadership
webcasts (July and October)
- Joint session
with FYs teaching leadership lessons from internship during mid-stream
- 360º leadership
assessment survey (comparative feedback between internship & responses
prior to LFM)
SY IAP
- Joint session
with FYs teaching leadership lessons from internship
- Knowledge Review
Presentations including leadership lessons
SY Spring
- 15.317 (part
2) “Leadership & Making Things Happen: Reflection &
Moving Forward”
* FY – 1st
year student
** FY – 2nd year student
|
