NEWS
Top three reasons to study the MBA (Executive)
Why should executives take the leap into postgraduate studies? Dr Paul Gibson, a Senior Lecturer within RMIT’s MBA (Executive), shares his insights on the career benefits.
Gibson, who coordinates the Leading People and Organisations subject within the MBA (Executive), says there are three key ways that the degree can boost a student's career, both professionally and personally.
1. You’ll learn a new language
The first benefit has to do with learning a new, contemporary business language. Increasingly, senior executives use language which reflects their knowledge of business, organisations, and people – so if you aspire to advance in your career, it helps tremendously to become fluent in that language.
What, for instance, is ‘big data’? What is ‘monetisation’? What forms of ‘digital disruption’ are likely to produce radical changes in your industry?
To take just one current example; banks are increasingly using their big data capabilities to enhance their ‘personal marketing’ to current and potential customers, so future leaders are expected to understand and use such concepts in their conversations and presentations.
2. You’ll learn to diagnose
A second benefit comes from understanding the interacting drivers of organisational performance. How can you lead and improve the performance of an organisation without being able to diagnose the causes of poor performance and then convincingly prescribe solutions?
For example we have recently seen Blackmore’s CEO, Christine Holgate, praised for the company’s remarkable performance on the share market; but what have been the drivers of that performance?
The MBA (Executive) gives students an opportunity to examine and discuss cases of success, and of failure, for we can learn from both. Use of the Harvard Case Study Method is one of the hallmarks of the program.
3. You’ll learn to grow
The third benefit has to do with personal and professional development. Often, students need to grow as people if they want to succeed as a leader of others. If you lack credibility, integrity, adaptability, transparency, confidence and humility, emotional agility, or reliability - why should anyone be led by you?
So the major piece of assessment in the Leading People and Organisation’s course is the design of a well-informed and feasible action plan for professional development which takes into account the leadership needs of each student’s organisation.
Implementing those action plans facilitates increased self-awareness and personal growth, so the benefits include but also go well beyond university grades and career advancement.
Success Begins Here: Study the MBA (Executive) in 2016. Applications are now open for midyear.
Story: Rita Truong