Why Future Executives Should Seek an Executive MBA

Reference & EducationCollege & University

  • Author Dr. John Mcdonald
  • Published July 26, 2010
  • Word count 588

If you are a seasoned leader, manager, business owner, administrator, or board member desiring to achieve unprecedented successes as you take on increasing responsibilities, then the time may be right to consider an executive MBA program. These programs combine value-based leadership with the rigor of challenging executive-level graduate business education.

An executive MBA program will teach the importance of leading self. Participants will develop a key sense of who they are and why they are leading. They will also begin to develop or refine their own leadership point of view. Students will solve leadership challenges at a higher level of complexity by using critical thinking and imagination to create new possibilities, and deepen an awareness of their personal leadership style. Case studies, discussions, exercises, guest speakers and a group service project will be used to address the internal challenges of leadership.

Executive MBA programs teach participants the importance of customer focus. These programs teach students how to build a customer-centric organization where the customer is the central focus of leadership and where customer needs and expectations influence organizational strategy as well as processes, systems, and culture. Upon completion of an executive MBA program, students will understand the role of organizational branding in creating competitive advantage as well as how to identify critical issues facing senior leaders today, including measuring marketing performance, managing customer information, building cross-cultural customer relationships, and leveraging the Internet.

Students will also be taught the importance of shareholder focus in their executive MBA program. These programs will teach students how to effectively address issues of importance to shareholders. Financial topics are coupled with an analysis of the ethical dilemmas faced by executives in balancing the short term financial results expected by Wall Street with longer-term sustainable financial performance. Business fundamentals such as understanding costs, financial reports, risk management, and valuation will be examined. Ethical issues, Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, outsourcing and downsizing will also be explored.

An Executive MBA program will also teach you how to lead others. An executive MBA program will teach students how to use the situational team leadership framework to make better decisions, solve more complex problems, and enhance creativity...with their direct reports. The characteristics and stages of high-performing teams and reasons why teams fail will also be examined. Examples of team leadership from the real business world will be explored.

Executive MBA programs will also teach you corporate strategy. Students will learn how to create and sustain a competitive advantage in the global economy. Students will examine the global competitive landscape in which today's organizations must operate and explore how real life CEOs' representing a cross-section of major industries have successfully seized opportunities in unexpected ways. Students will also learn how the international political economic environment can cause large-scale shifts in the global economy.

Students will also learn organization capabilities. An executive MBA program will introduce the "hard" side of building organizational capability, namely operations and processes. Students will focus on operational efficiency by examining both the internal operations of firms as well as the entire supply chain from product development to order fulfillment.

An executive MBA will also teach you transformational leadership and the themes of organizational culture and leading change. Students will understand how and why change efforts get derailed, why people resist change, and how to overcome these challenges as a leader. Real life lessons learned by top CEOs will be examined. Finally, students will gain the knowledge to build and sustain a resilient corporate culture that thrives on change and supports the ongoing implementation of change efforts.

Dr. John McDonald is the Executive Director at The Ken Blanchard EMBA Program at Grand Canyon University. For more information about our Executive MBA Program, visit our http://emba.gcu.edu.

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