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West Point Professor Visiting BiMBA

Apr 18-2013   



 

by James WU

On the afternoon of July 16th, Beijing International MBA (BiMBA) was honored to receive Professor Thomas Kolditz  from the United States Military Academy (USMA) to deliver his speech at Zhifuxuan Auditorium in Langrunyuan, Peking University.

The USMA head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership had just finished his visit to Japan and continued his tour to China. Professor Kolditz could not help but recall his last visit to China nine years ago, which impressed him greatly, and regarded his second visit to China as an even more fabulous one.

Professor John Yang, the US dean of BiMBA was present as the host and delivered his welcome address before the formal speech. Among the audience were PKU scholars, visiting professors and BiMBA students, who took it as a golden opportunity to learn the essence of USMA.

Professor Thomas Kolditz is a world-renowned professor on leadership. His recent book “In Extremis Leadership” is extraordinary for its massive on-the-ground research data-collection and interviews with more than 60 persons.

Mr. Kolditz first gave a brief introduction of the world-renowned USMA to the BiMBA audience, saying that the USMA always attaches great importance to exchanges and bilateral ties with BiMBA, Peking University.

Professor Kolditz’s speech was divided into two parts. The first part is related with major views on leadership from West point with some fundamental characteristics of leader developments systems introduced, while the second section mainly focused on Mr. Kolditz’s own perspective on leadership building and in extremis leadership theories. Mr. Kolditz’s presentation won great interest and attention from the BiMBA audience. During his three-hour speech, Professor Kolditz not only illustrated the major aspects of leadership but also gave vivid examples to demonstrate his viewpoints.

During the first part of the speech, Professor Kolditz detailed on the topic “Why the 206-year-old West Point has kept its momentum to foster the most brilliant US figures?” One of the reasons could be the excellent leadership building of West Point, which is definitely a long-term strategy for all schools and companies. He also explained the six domains of development and the four identities of being an officer. Then, Mr. Kolditz elaborated on the mission and standards of the West Point and shared the essence of leadership from his perspective with the audience.

Professor Kolditz believed that the core part of leadership lies in authenticity. Being authentic is most important for future leaders. Leadership is not merely an act, he said, but rather a notion to automatically do things correctly. An authentic leader would be full of charm and charisma no matter where he leads his team.

The environment in a business is sometimes similar to that in the military. You command to change people’s life and even their lives, Mr. Kolditz explained. Leadership must be both taught and caught with teaching and training as the short-term interventions and development as the long-term goal. It is the senior leader’s unshakable responsibility to produce mature models for leadership development.

Mr. Kolditz also introduced to the audience the leadership model of the West Point. With Duty, Honor and County in the center of the Leadership Rope, the six domains of competence as the six strands of the rope, namely military, intellectual, physical, spiritual, ethical, social competence are strengthened by educating, training inspiring and feedback. Leadership building is just like the making of a rope. It just takes time. Mr. Kolditz complemented.

The second part of Professor Kolditz’s speech featured in the in extremis leadership. At West Point, we train leaders to fight and win in the most extreme environment; Mr. Kolditz showed his confidence in USMA’s leading position in leadership building in extremis. When danger occurs, followers believe that leader behavior will influence their physical well-being or survival, and that’s why in extremis leadership is so importance to the whole team.

Before the second section started, Professor Kolditz kindly explained all the badges on his uniform. During this small interaction, the audience got a better understanding of the US army ranks and more interesting army stories. With PPT slides shown on the screen, the audience obtained a vivid image of how tough it was to carry out the on-the-ground observations data-collection and interviews in battle filed such as Baghdad. Indeed, all the efforts are not in vain. The final outcome of the marvelous book “In Extremis Leadership” is gaining more and more popularity in the world and has become one of the classics in leadership teaching.

Professor Kolditz established his research in extreme circumstances when money is of no use except for being burned for warmth, when there’s no shower, no adequate food and when people around you are losing their lives. Professor Kolditz impressively illustrated what leadership is alike in crisis settings, pointing out that in extremis, only competence matters, as is quite different from the traditional notion of leadership based on influence. Mr. Kolditz explained that this is because followers in extremis only trust those who are capable of saving their lives. In extremis leader should be calm and few of words, when crisis does break out, he should share the risk with his team and take even more responsibility and danger that is facing the whole batch. A leader should know about the simple things as well as the bigger things, chiefly to ensure his followers that he is the one that make everything possible.

To prove his point of view, Mr. Kolditz carried out interviews with different professionals. He compared the leadership in football and parachuting and found that in motivated sports such as parachuting motivation is of no use and only deepens the nervousness, while competence and risk sharing help the leader effectively command and push forward the whole team. With many examples supporting his views, Professor Kolditz concluded that competence, inherence motivation, learning orientation, shared risk and common lifestyle are the top four factors involved in effective leadership in extremis.

For the Q&A section, the West Point Professor provided his own answer to questions from BiMBA students concerning integrity building of West Point students, argument on transactional leadership and transformational leadership and in extremis leadership of the Chinese government during the flooding seasons. Mr. Kolditz also offered his personal tips on effective leadership to BiMBA students, which won great appreciation from the audience.

The cheers and applause from BiMBA students ended the whole three-hour exchange with a successful ending. The hosting BiMBA presented gifts and souvenirs to the distinguished West Point guest from afar for his excellent speech and generous help. The two sides find it of profound influence to further their cooperation in all aspects.

West Point Professor Visiting BiMBA

Apr 18-2013   



 

by James WU

On the afternoon of July 16th, Beijing International MBA (BiMBA) was honored to receive Professor Thomas Kolditz  from the United States Military Academy (USMA) to deliver his speech at Zhifuxuan Auditorium in Langrunyuan, Peking University.

The USMA head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership had just finished his visit to Japan and continued his tour to China. Professor Kolditz could not help but recall his last visit to China nine years ago, which impressed him greatly, and regarded his second visit to China as an even more fabulous one.

Professor John Yang, the US dean of BiMBA was present as the host and delivered his welcome address before the formal speech. Among the audience were PKU scholars, visiting professors and BiMBA students, who took it as a golden opportunity to learn the essence of USMA.

Professor Thomas Kolditz is a world-renowned professor on leadership. His recent book “In Extremis Leadership” is extraordinary for its massive on-the-ground research data-collection and interviews with more than 60 persons.

Mr. Kolditz first gave a brief introduction of the world-renowned USMA to the BiMBA audience, saying that the USMA always attaches great importance to exchanges and bilateral ties with BiMBA, Peking University.

Professor Kolditz’s speech was divided into two parts. The first part is related with major views on leadership from West point with some fundamental characteristics of leader developments systems introduced, while the second section mainly focused on Mr. Kolditz’s own perspective on leadership building and in extremis leadership theories. Mr. Kolditz’s presentation won great interest and attention from the BiMBA audience. During his three-hour speech, Professor Kolditz not only illustrated the major aspects of leadership but also gave vivid examples to demonstrate his viewpoints.

During the first part of the speech, Professor Kolditz detailed on the topic “Why the 206-year-old West Point has kept its momentum to foster the most brilliant US figures?” One of the reasons could be the excellent leadership building of West Point, which is definitely a long-term strategy for all schools and companies. He also explained the six domains of development and the four identities of being an officer. Then, Mr. Kolditz elaborated on the mission and standards of the West Point and shared the essence of leadership from his perspective with the audience.

Professor Kolditz believed that the core part of leadership lies in authenticity. Being authentic is most important for future leaders. Leadership is not merely an act, he said, but rather a notion to automatically do things correctly. An authentic leader would be full of charm and charisma no matter where he leads his team.

The environment in a business is sometimes similar to that in the military. You command to change people’s life and even their lives, Mr. Kolditz explained. Leadership must be both taught and caught with teaching and training as the short-term interventions and development as the long-term goal. It is the senior leader’s unshakable responsibility to produce mature models for leadership development.

Mr. Kolditz also introduced to the audience the leadership model of the West Point. With Duty, Honor and County in the center of the Leadership Rope, the six domains of competence as the six strands of the rope, namely military, intellectual, physical, spiritual, ethical, social competence are strengthened by educating, training inspiring and feedback. Leadership building is just like the making of a rope. It just takes time. Mr. Kolditz complemented.

The second part of Professor Kolditz’s speech featured in the in extremis leadership. At West Point, we train leaders to fight and win in the most extreme environment; Mr. Kolditz showed his confidence in USMA’s leading position in leadership building in extremis. When danger occurs, followers believe that leader behavior will influence their physical well-being or survival, and that’s why in extremis leadership is so importance to the whole team.

Before the second section started, Professor Kolditz kindly explained all the badges on his uniform. During this small interaction, the audience got a better understanding of the US army ranks and more interesting army stories. With PPT slides shown on the screen, the audience obtained a vivid image of how tough it was to carry out the on-the-ground observations data-collection and interviews in battle filed such as Baghdad. Indeed, all the efforts are not in vain. The final outcome of the marvelous book “In Extremis Leadership” is gaining more and more popularity in the world and has become one of the classics in leadership teaching.

Professor Kolditz established his research in extreme circumstances when money is of no use except for being burned for warmth, when there’s no shower, no adequate food and when people around you are losing their lives. Professor Kolditz impressively illustrated what leadership is alike in crisis settings, pointing out that in extremis, only competence matters, as is quite different from the traditional notion of leadership based on influence. Mr. Kolditz explained that this is because followers in extremis only trust those who are capable of saving their lives. In extremis leader should be calm and few of words, when crisis does break out, he should share the risk with his team and take even more responsibility and danger that is facing the whole batch. A leader should know about the simple things as well as the bigger things, chiefly to ensure his followers that he is the one that make everything possible.

To prove his point of view, Mr. Kolditz carried out interviews with different professionals. He compared the leadership in football and parachuting and found that in motivated sports such as parachuting motivation is of no use and only deepens the nervousness, while competence and risk sharing help the leader effectively command and push forward the whole team. With many examples supporting his views, Professor Kolditz concluded that competence, inherence motivation, learning orientation, shared risk and common lifestyle are the top four factors involved in effective leadership in extremis.

For the Q&A section, the West Point Professor provided his own answer to questions from BiMBA students concerning integrity building of West Point students, argument on transactional leadership and transformational leadership and in extremis leadership of the Chinese government during the flooding seasons. Mr. Kolditz also offered his personal tips on effective leadership to BiMBA students, which won great appreciation from the audience.

The cheers and applause from BiMBA students ended the whole three-hour exchange with a successful ending. The hosting BiMBA presented gifts and souvenirs to the distinguished West Point guest from afar for his excellent speech and generous help. The two sides find it of profound influence to further their cooperation in all aspects.