Importance of Executive MBA for Senior Leadership

Senior leaders – and those who wish to be – need executive skills that stay with them throughout their careers. While undergraduate education and hands-on experience can equip these leaders with the fundamental knowledge and soft skills required to get started in the business, an Executive MBA is often the catalyst that transitions mid-level managers into senior and executive roles.

Researchers at the University of Bath studied the impact of an Executive MBA degree on mid-career managers’ role-based performance in Pakistan. They wanted to understand what employers believed were the most critical roles and how an Executive MBA could affect leaders’ performance of them. The researchers determined that work-related roles were most important, followed by team-related, career-related, innovation-related and organisation-citizenship-related ones. A Top Executive MBA from a prestigious business school can help leaders elevate their performance in each of these areas.

Students in a traditional MBA programme concentrate on sharpening their business and analytics skills, and they often do well since these programmes revolve around coursework designed to impart information. Unfortunately, some traditional MBA holders may not possess interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence equal to their analytical talents, and these soft skills are required for success in today’s global business environment.

In an Top Executive Education program, however, the program builds around the student and his or her experiences instead of a prepackaged curriculum. Executive MBA learners take an in-depth, multifaceted approach to business education that immediately applies abstract concepts to real-world simulations. They don’t just study cultural realities; they develop a global vision through their international experiences. Plus, the pluralistic, collaborative approach of an Executive MBA lets students practice the art of leading cross-cultural teams both in the classroom and in the boardroom.

Like other available executive MBA programs in Mumbai and India, The International Executive Master in Business program offered by SDA Bocconi at the Asia Center focuses on the above aspects.

Global Trends in Executive MBAs

Executive MBAs are a popular option for senior business leaders around the world. While part of their popularity may be due to their accessibility, much credit goes to the perceived benefits that candidates reap from the degrees.

• 93% of Executive MBA program now contain a global learning component. IEMB includes a two week immersion at SDA Bocconi Italy.
• Classrooms are evolving, thanks to technological innovation. Instructional technology not only allows students to access classrooms from anywhere, but it also equips learners with opportunities for experiential learning. At SDA Bocconi Asia Center, we have a state-of-the-art infrastructure that allows candidates to attend our classes Live from anywhere in the world.

IEMB is a global program in perspective, more diverse in enrollment and more focused on innovation, and thus allows students to reap increasingly large practical and intellectual benefits.

Indian Trends in Executive MBAs

While the executive education market in India remains highly competitive for students, the concept is still embryonic. The nature of the programs offered by the schools has to be bespoke made with advanced pedagogical tools that are matched to the needs of individuals and industry trends and with an emphasis on active participation rather than passive assimilation of candidates in the program. The Executive Master program has follows a Case methodology format majorly and has courses like Digital Transformation, Design Thinking and Business Analytics as part of the curriculum.

Other Executive Leadership Development Opportunities

Executives who seek to expand and sharpen select individual skills can take advantage of shorter, more focused educational programs. SDA Bocconi Asia Center, for instance, offers The Global Executive Programme in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a one-year modular programme that equips entrepreneurs with the tools to create or transform businesses.

In growing economies around the world, executive education remains the springboard to career advancement, professional growth and lucrative employment. According to the evidence, these trends will only solidify both globally and in the Indian market over the next five years.