"A journey that starts with yourself" - Exploring the Full-time MBA modules

Lion Hummer, Full-time MBA participant, shares his experience on the programme so far and explores the first four modules.  

It feels like only yesterday that Warwick Business School welcomed us, the Full-time MBA students, to the 2021/22 class, and it is hard to believe that the Welcome Week happened three months ago. The first term is almost over and, so far, it has been an incredible and insightful ride. It is true what they say – time flies when you are having fun.

The importance of reflection.

Three months ago, my fellow students and I stopped our normal day-to-day working life to embark on a journey of personal growth and while most of us used the winter break for polishing up our individual assignments, it also provided time to reflect on the outcomes of the first term.

As part of the first four modules, Marketing taught us about the importance of the customer, how we can identify their needs and communicate our solutions. In the Operations Management module we learnt how to successfully increase efficiency by planning, designing, and monitoring our operations as well as processes. Strategic Thinking showed us how companies can navigate their ever-changing market to, not only survive, but grow and thrive. The theoretical frameworks have been complimented with practical case studies and insightful guest speakers, already leaving me with many powerful tools for use in my post-study life.

However, the module that surprised me the most was LeadershipPlus. At first, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I soon realised that this will be a journey in itself. In her book “Dare to lead”, Brené Brown says that “Self-awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead”. Self-awareness was the core of the first three months of our LeadershipPlus module. We learned early on that it will require a lot of self-reflection and learning from past experiences to, not only be successful throughout our studies, but also ready for our next leadership role.

A journey that starts with yourself.

We all started our MBA studies with a psychometric test providing us with an insight discovery report that shows personal preferences and the related behavior. Extrovert or Introvert? Thinking or Feeling? Sensing or Intuition? Those are all questions that have been answered by this report and that helped us to learn more about ourselves and our team members. Throughout the LeadershipPlus module we gained an understanding of how those personality traits affect the way we act, interact, and communicate, while roleplaying with actors that gave us an opportunity to reflect, learn and practice.

Being critical towards others is easy but being critical towards yourself is a challenge. Facilitators helped us to identify and assess trigger points and typical personal behavior we might not be particularly proud of. Going to my hometown over Christmas, meeting family and old friends, made me realise how much that helped me to grow.  

While the journey so far was challenging, physically as well as mentally, embarking on it has been the best decision I have made so far. Doing an MBA is an investment of time and money, but the first three months already showed – it is well worth it.

Find out more about our MBA programmes here.