A bit more on Visions of Leadership

What a week it has been! After my last blog, we have had quite an exhaustive set of practical, interactive and educational sessions on leadership values, crisis management, and a brilliant lecture on whether managers can be trained to become leaders given by the Dean. In-between, we had a dose of career planning advice from alumni members who ahd come in specially to listen to our career plans and help us polish them. OK, this was a fairly straightforward process in my case as I already have something lined up but I really did enjoy listening to my classmates discuss their career aspirations and how things are shaping up in this process or evolving oneself. To given you an idea of the discussions we had, leaders who came this week included Jack Stahl, former CEO of Revlon, Daniel Bernard, the man who turned Carrefour around, Paul Hermelin, the CEO of Cap Gemini, and Christian Streiff, Chairman of PSA Peugeot Citroën's managing board. We also had an interactive discussion-cum-training on Crises Communication from ACYAN, on Leadership Transition by The Turning Point and on Leadership in general from a few McKinsey consultants. There were, as in every learning process, one or two sessions which I felt could have been done better but, in the greater scheme of things, they were insignificant and I am really pleased with the week. And, yes, we do get credits from attending the sessions. In fact, we ahd to sit for an hour-long exam this afternoon to answer questions on key skills of leaders, especially one who is turning a company around, and how we would manage as middle managers. So, am I ready to be a leader? Well, that depends...one cannot learn leadership overnight but one can certainly prepare to become one with guidance, experience and training. Leadership is a question of context, when, where and what.

During the week, I also visited the venue where we will be hosting the grand party of the MBAT - the MBA Tournament that HEC Paris organises annually. The place is called Cap 15 and it a great venue for the party right by Eiffel Tower so, if you have not registered for MBAT, please do so...if not for the games, for the grand party at least! And, I will personally welcome you!

In the meantime, my son has got chickenpox so we have cancelled all our plans for the weekend. I think he got it from the nursery but one can't be sure. Nonetheless, we are being careful and disinfecting the spots so that they don't get any bacterial infections. And, we have cut his nails pretty short to stop him from scratching and hurting himself. I guess this brings me to the end of my blog for this week...au revoir et bon nuit!

Views from Cap 15's Pyramid Glass Lounge at the top