Becoming a Leader: Early Career Challenges Faced by MBA Graduates

Leadership development is often cited as an important organizational priority. Despite the criticisms of MBA education, MBA graduates represent one important source of future leaders. Although we have amassed significant knowledge about the roles and functions of senior leaders, we know far less about the challenges faced by younger ones. Indeed, Linda Hill's seminal work on new managers is predicated on the study of only 19 recently promoted sales managers from two companies (Hill, 1992). Our work here investigates the early career challenges of 55 young leaders who had graduated from an MBA program in the past decade. Based on in-depth interviews, we identified three types of transition that these young leaders described as particularly important to their development, and the four most common challenges they struggled with throughout these transitions. The process of working through these challenges led many of these young leaders to fundamentally change the way they thought about and practiced leadership, thereby facilitating their evolution from individual contributor to experienced leader. Drawing on these observations, we provide suggestions for how MBA programs can be modified to help students prepare for the experiences they will likely have to navigate early in their careers.