Technology Is A Necessary Evil But MBA Without Interaction Cannot MakeValuable Leaders.

Face to face interaction is important for making good leaders

A Master's in Business Administration (MBA) is a very valuable degree. Technology is very important to tone up the program.

A combination of technology and face to face interaction is like a ‘bomb’. It is like injecting a drug to make it extra valuable. You do not need Marijuana or other actual drugs.

Just meeting one another does it all.

How can meeting each other help an MBA program? They say leaders are born but some say leaders are made.

This is the debate we generate in B Schools? Dr Mehmet Yildiz says that leaders are made. This suits the MBA course debate. If we say that leaders are made then it is most important to have interaction.

The basic quality of an MBA is that B-schools promote interaction.

A leader according to me is born and we polish and shape them in B-Schools to make them more presentable and able to communicate and sharpen other skills. Then they become good managers and good leadership skills are required to go up the ladder.

A manager becomes a director and a chief executive officer (CEO) only if he has good leadership skills. An entrepreneur is successful if he is a good leader.

According to Dr Mehmet Yildiz, a leader must have the following traits:

“He should be able to gain knowledge demonstrating extensive knowledge and unique expertise, producing with creativity, articulating with precision, depicting supportive behavior, embracing change with agility and optimism,learning and delivering rapidly, recognizing the greatness of others bringing people together, seeing the invisible, measuring with diligence,influencing by bridging gaps transforming end goals and outcomes”

All the above traits can be polished if there is an interaction between the peer group and the professors.

Debates and discussions are necessary for good articulation. This is possible only when students participate in group discussions and competitions.

Learning beyond the books is when you listen to others and understand each other’s viewpoint. it is also through class presentations and forums that the students get a chance to listen and give their views.

The meetings between the students and professors are vital to function and learn things that are going to be useful at the entry-level of one’s career.

These close interactions are a great way to build relationships to be able to plan and set goals and transform them into successful outcomes. They also help in bridging gaps between people of different cultures. It is a great method to learn new dimensions of life.

To understand the traits and to become leaders, technology has to be married with physical training and meeting. Thus uniting the physical and the virtual for success. The presentations, videos, digital learning are a great help to enhance the traits that are learned by the students through meetings and group work.

The takeaways:

#1. Leaders are born and then their skills are enhanced through learning from books and beyond it.

#2. Management schools are a great place to turn the leaders who are born into leaders of tomorrow as students imbibe knowledge and skill through learning.

#3. Learning is enhanced through the use of technology in classrooms and beyond it.

#4. The online teaching-learning process is a good value addition to the students but it cannot be the only way to learn. It requires the painstaking efforts of both the peer group and the professors to communicate and discuss different topics of management and life.

#5. In the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) world of business, technology has to be used for all transactions as well as for business competition.

#6. In the modern world of data analytics, everyone has to be technology ready to be a good leader.

Last words:

A marriage of technology through use of the techniques of Internet of Things and Artificial intelligence with the physical meeting of minds and discussions is the only way to making good valuable leaders.

Finally to quote the historian Christian Lous Lange “Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”

and

Social media entrepreneur Matt Mullenweg “Technology is best when it brings people together.”

Knowledge increases through proximity with people but with technology, it is enhanced for greater fruits. Use technology with care to enhance and not to detract from making galloping strides.

Do read about leadership traits by Dr Mehmet Yildiz: