Leading through Unprecedented Times

For current student Erin Ibarra, the LEAD facilitators helped push her out of her comfort zone. Ibarra came to Booth from Shell, where she worked as an electrical engineer. She’s now completing a consulting internship in the energy and utilities practice at West Monroe in Chicago. “I’m a very positive, bubbly person, but I wasn’t normally somebody who spoke up a lot or took charge,” she says. “I thought I would have to change parts of me to be a manager or to be a leader. But the LEAD approach is to lead with your strengths. You’ll have weaknesses, but at the end of the day, let’s lean into the things that make you, you.” LEAD helped Ibarra learn what kind of a leader she wants to be, and that’s something she’d like to pay forward to new students. As a facilitator, she plans to advise her cohort to think critically about what they take on, so they don’t get too burned out.

Alexandre Lin, a former startup operator for the New York–based home renovation platform Block Renovation, reflects that the soft skills required to lead can be much more difficult to acquire than hard skills, but they’re so important to professional growth. In his first year at Booth, Lin cofounded the egg freezing service Ollipsis Fertility in Chicago. “When you come out of the MBA program, having these skills is a huge asset on top of the friendships that you’ve made at school,” he notes. “The best way to learn is to actually teach the stuff that you learned, and that’s why I thought being a facilitator would be the best way to practice.” He says he looks forward to forging the special bond that often imbues a LEAD cohort. “You get to know people at a deeper level.”

Facilitator Bhavana Karnik is excited to help guide her cohort to the best business school experience possible. Bhavana came to Booth with a background in consulting and analytics. She previously worked for UnitedHealth Group and McKinsey & Company and interned at Amazon this summer. She has experience getting people excited and working together from an appearance on the game show Family Feud. Her family didn’t win, “but we had a lot of fun with it,” she says. Unsurprisingly, she looks forward to bonding her cohort with games and get togethers in the city. “Nobody envisions coming into school with the uncertainty that the pandemic has caused, but I hope everybody can make the most of it and grow.”

Thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine, this year’s facilitators will have the chance to be with fellow students as Booth returns to in-person meetings. “We’re trying to bring in some COVID-19-friendly, in-person components,” McNally explains. That includes boat rides, neighborhood tours, and other outdoor events in Chicago—things that McNally says are fun while still being mindful of health risks.

When these LEAD facilitators reflect on the way COVID-19 is changing the leadership culture at Booth, they predict future leaders will prioritize empathy and flexibility in the workplace. “I had teammates this year at Amazon whose small kids were going back to school without the vaccine,” says Karnik, who’s currently an intern for Amazon’s leadership development program. “Empathy, flexibility, and adaptability are key for successful leaders.”

“It’s going to be different from expecting people to be in the office from nine to five every day,” Lee adds. “Deeper understanding of people’s circumstances is probably going to be more of a trend.”