The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how necessary career agility is in today’s workplace. Many workers all over the world had to adapt to working from home, and with that shift, came changing relationships to their professional networks and industry goals. Other professionals needed to alter their companies’ focus, commitment, and client base, which in turn, altered their strategic plans.
Whether the pandemic changed your industry for better or worse, a shift in day-to-day operations has been nearly universal. This crisis has also revealed both challenges and potential that remained buried under our business-as-usual mindsets for too long.
As Bobby Leu, Partner and Chief Operating Officer at SELISE, notes, “But what if the future is already here, and by learning valuable lessons throughout a life-altering pandemic, we can best adapt to the new ways an economy could run with the help of the technological tools at our disposal?”
Instead of simply waiting for a better future, Leu’s idea invites us to be introspective, creative, and innovative.
Still, even if we have the best of intentions, it can be helpful to have resources and a group of like-minded people around you to drive significant change in yourself and others. You can connect to these support and thought networks by pursuing your Executive MBA this year.
Your time in the EMBA programme can drive you to become a forward-thinking innovator ready to meet the challenges of the current and post-COVID-19 business world. Here, we’ll discuss the benefits of pursuing an EMBA programme during these peculiar times.
The Benefits of Pursuing an EMBA During Times of Crisis
1. Structure in uncertain times
Disruptions to our work environment and traditional job roles during COVID have created uncertainty about the world of work. An EMBA will ask you for rigorous self-reflection, as well as encouraging you to focus on your goals for your industry and career.
Having a programme schedule with concrete milestones laid out for the next 18 months provides a sense of structure and continuous growth which has multiple mental health benefits such as enabling you to cope better with change and unpredictability. An EMBA is often described as a transformational experience, and at the end of your journey awaits a well-respected and globally recognised postgraduate degree, which opens up a myriad of new opportunities.
2. A pursuit of ideas beyond your comfort zone
A programme like the INSEAD EMBA challenges traditional thinking and pushes you to consider new perspectives through a customised Leadership Development Programme (LDP). The LDP is founded on the belief that leadership is much more than management. Today’s leaders, more than ever, must strike a balance between reflection and action to help their organisations adapt to the unknown. They must be flexible, aware of their context, and able to adjust their leadership style to the situation.
3. Career development support
An EMBA can offer you the career development to become a driver of strategic change, even during current times when many are experiencing career stagnation. If you’re at the middle stage in your career, you may feel like you have ideas that will improve your company’s outlook, but no seat at the table to share them.
This is why Victor Cuadros, a regional operations manager for an oil and gas company, will start his EMBA programme this year. “I feel the EMBA will help me achieve the career development I need in order to have my voice heard higher up in the organisation,” he notes.
An EMBA not only earns graduates a significantly higher salary but can also boost your experience in a few years’ time, earning you more influence and a faster upward trajectory at your company.
Through a wealth of resources, events, workshops and tools INSEAD’s Career Development Centre for Working Professionals provides support throughout the programme and beyond.
4. A peer and professional network
Connecting with accomplished peers from a broad range of industries and faculty with decades of research experience tackling today’s challenges offers you direction in troubled times. Professors in EMBA programmes are certainly thinking about disrupting industries hard hit by COVID-19, as well as specific leadership challenges in times of crisis. They will ask you to engage with these challenges, as well as to consider practical solutions.
Further, your peers will have unique insights about their own experiences opening up your horizon to new ideas and solutions. The bonds fostered with one another during the programme often translate into lifelong friendships and business opportunities. Upon graduation you will be joining a powerful global alumni network which holds a whole new world of possibilities.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly caused an upheaval in our timeworn practices of business as usual. As scary as some of these challenges are, we can also view this time as an incubator for a more thoughtful and more global world of work. Using this time to pursue an EMBA can help you to further your potential, redefine your leadership skills, and be empowered to embrace current and future challenges.
