EDHEC’s Online MBA is designed to help participants gain deeper insight into their career aspirations, foster personal and professional growth, and build essential leadership skills. Discover insights from Inge De Clippeleer, Head of Faculty, Management & Humanities, as she shares how the programme leverages Boost360 and other innovative components to support participants’ transformative 24-month journey.
How is leadership development integrated into the programme?
If you look at Boost360 and how we’ve integrated it into the Online MBA, we have integrated it really throughout the programme. So a first component now, then we have three months other courses coming in, then another course, and so on. So actually, the idea is that after every session participants have time to implement their learnings, where they go back to work, where they really try to apply some of the things that they learned, where we have reflection exercises so that they can really think, okay, what worked in my case and what didn’t and how should I maybe make adjustments so that it feels more authentic.
Because if you look at leadership nowadays, we really see that what we expect of our leaders is authenticity. We don’t expect them to play a role, we expect them to really be them and to embrace who they are, but then to also, of course, connect with people and to really make sure that people, their employees, feel seen. So, the idea is that they take some of the learnings of today, that they implement them, and then if they encounter boundaries or encounter pitfalls, and so on, to bring it back.
In the first session, we really focus on them, next session we’re going to focus on the teams, group dynamics and so on, then we shift to leadership. So, we’re every time adding some more complexity. We then, for example, also add components about conflict resolution, negotiation skills, and so on. That’s also the reason why they really have their individual coach assigned to them. So, it’s a person who’s literally going to listen; what are you facing, how can we change that? Not only from a career perspective but also very much from a leadership perspective.
What are the key foundation skills to start with in leadership development?
We see that if you look at research, self-awareness is one of the first foundational competences that people need to then also afterwards manage themselves, but then also to connect with other people. So, we start from self-awareness to build self-management skills. How can I really manage myself in different situations? How can I, for example, in situations of stress or in situations of uncertainty, do better? That’s one component. But it also helps if you understand yourself to also get an understanding of other people: Who are they? How are they different than me? If I want to connect with them, if I want to lead them, if I want to influence them, and so on. What are then some of the methods that I could be using to connect in differences, in similarities, and then also have an influence on their behaviour.
What can you tell us about the Boost360 programme?
Boost360 is a programme that we developed to support our MBAs in their personal, career, and leadership development. It’s integrated across the entire MBA programme, supporting our MBAs in different components. On the one hand, we have traditional courses —courses on, for example, creating strong relationships, courses on building effective teams, on organisational behaviour, on leadership coaching. So that’s one part.
They also have a second part where actually; we take a more coaching approach. For example, one of the elements in the programme is also a 360 that our participants must do. So, we look at 25 different competences that we hope they will develop throughout the programme. Competences, for example, on self-management, on functional, relational, and strategic skills. And then we look at how are they perceived at this moment on these competences and how can we support them further by coaching, by our courses, in making transitions, and in becoming more competent.
Why is leadership development so important to integrate in an MBA curriculum?
I think that’s an excellent question. Two components that I want to address there. The first component is very much the career perspective. We see that our MBAs, if they sign up for an MBA, they often are very ambitious people, proactive people, who really want to make the next step in their career. They want to grow in the company on the one hand or sometimes they also want to make lateral moves. They want to switch industries. They want to realise a very different career path. And we see to make that change happen, they not only need skills in terms of knowledge, theories, in strategy, in finance, in marketing, but they also need to figure out who am I and where do I belong, what would be the best fit. And so Boost360 on the one hand is really a very important programme to help them realise those career aspirations. To see who am I, where would I fit better.
Secondly, the higher up you go in a company, the more important your emotional intelligence becomes. In the first, let’s say, phases of your career, you really see that expertise and intelligence, and all those components are really impactful. But the higher up you go in a company, the more your EQ starts to matter in leading people, in influencing and inspiring, in weighing on decision-making processes and so on. So in that sense, Boost360 also really wants to give our MBAs those tools to really be influential on that level. So on a leadership, but also on a career perspective.
