I look at completing the online MBA, much like an athlete running a marathon. For a bystander, from the outside it would seem ridiculous, that a human would put his body through the unnecessary stress of running 26.2 miles for no rhyme or reason. However, the athletes set out to achieve their personal goals.

Many of my colleagues at work probably think like the bystander, “We are already overworked and add to that do an MBA? “. That would seem like piling on more to an already busy schedule. However, I believe that the MBA program to me would be as a sip of Gatorade™ to the marathoner. Just as the marathoner, I have a desire to run the distance, at a pace I can handle. I need the resourcefulness to find time to study, the initiative to look at every step as a step forward, and the persistence to say, “I may be slow, but I will not give up!”

To me hope and confidence are conflicting ideas. Both are positives, however, if you have the confidence that you can run the distance, you do not need to “hope” that you will get the finish line. Nevertheless, when you are not confident, hope is the emotion that can get you through.

Optimism is of paramount importance, as the opposite of this mindset could quickly eat away the positive spirit. (Matthew 26: 41) “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Resiliency as defined by Merriam-Webster is “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress”. I believe that rather than resiliency, we come out of this program better than what we started with.

The road that a Manager needs to run is much like a cross-country runner, there are up hills and down slopes, puddles, streams to cross, rocky ground to traverse and sometime even find a snake basking across the trail. With such diverse sets of elements to encounter, an effective leader needs an abundant supply of the qualities discussed above to help him reach the imaginary finish line.