Teaching Wiser—and Younger

For the last decade, Linda E. Ginzel has been teaching Executive MBA students how to form their own definitions of leadership. In 2018, she published the Choosing Leadership workbook, a vehicle to help everyone from high-level executives to high-school students develop their leadership skills and potential.

“It’s not a book that gives you a leader to emulate,” she said on its publication. “It’s not a book you’re supposed to swallow whole, or put on your shelf. It’s a book you’re supposed to do.”

Now, on the eve of teaching her capstone Executive MBA Leadership Capital course, the clinical professor of managerial psychology is continuing to figure out ways to teach leadership to a younger audience. Her new endeavor is Leadership Is…, an adaptation of one of her workbook’s exercises that will help engage parents and their children in a dialogue around what it means to lead.

We sat down with Ginzel to discuss the community effort that brought this Little Champions picture book together.

Chicago Booth: How did the children’s book come to be?

Ginzel: Last spring, I was teaching my Executive MBA students in Asia over Zoom from 1:30 to 4:30 a.m. I decided to do open office hours after class, and so many students stayed. It was afternoon in Hong Kong, and their children were coming home, sitting on their laps. I know these students because I’ve taught almost all of them before. Being a mom is a big part of my identity; I love kids. I saw the daughter of one of the students and asked, “Stella, are you helping your mom with her homework?” She held up Choosing Leadership, and I thought, these kids need a book of their own.

Dennis Choi, ’21 (AXP-20), was also in my Zoom classroom. I had signed a book for his son when I was in Hong Kong the year before, so I asked his son, Chun Yin, what he thought about the book. Dennis said, “I’m going to save it until he’s 15.” The kid is three! I said, “Give it to him now. Let him eat it. Let him put it in his mouth.” It sunk in then that I needed a book for these kids that they can look at and learn from while their parents are taking my course.

Booth: Why is it so important for kids to have access to these lessons?

Ginzel: Another EMBA student, Lino Lee ’21, (AXP-20), is the CEO and founder of a preschool in Seoul, South Korea. During office hours, he asked what I thought was the most important thing to teach preschool children about leadership. At first, I didn’t know how to answer his question. Then I thought, “Stereotypes. We have to start countering leadership stereotypes younger.”

The whole reason I started teaching leadership in this way is that people have these stereotypic notions of what a leader is and looks like. “I don’t have a title. I’m not male. I’m too young. I’m not tall. I’m not an extrovert.” I’m talking about accomplished MBA students who tell me, “I haven’t had an opportunity to lead yet.” And I’m thinking, “How do they define leadership if my students don’t think they’ve had a chance to lead yet?”

Choosing Leadership is about developing your own definition of leadership. You can make a choice to lead any time. You don’t need a special credential or fancy title. People have stereotypes that a leader should be a certain type of person, say, gray-haired visionaries. But that’s very inhibiting. I’m trying to help people understand that leading is a behavior and there are many ways to lead. It’s the perfect lesson for children. What’s more important: the head or the heart, the sun or the moon? Neither, of course—both are necessary in different ways. Sometimes we need to manage, and sometimes to lead.