Leadership Camp. Just hearing the words remind me of life long aspirations and ambitions that has led me to Frankfurt School. So when I saw that the opening week of our Full-time MBA programme included a Leadership Camp, I was very excited. I had never attended a leadership camp before and did not know what happened in one! My curiosity was beyond imagination. Early in the morning of 3rd October 2020, the day after our very exciting Opening Day, the Full-time MBA class of 2021 gathered on campus to begin our journey to the Lufthansa Conference Hotel in Seeheim. Not far from Frankfurt, the modern and very functional facility amidst the natural beauty of hills and forests was breathtaking.
When we reached the destination, the energy, excitement and joy of starting a new journey in life was palpable amongst the students; we were ready to become the leaders of tomorrow. Our training Instructors from Challenge Learning understood this and we were soon led to our designated training locations after a short debrief and refreshments. We were quite a large group, as both the Full-Time and Part-Time MBA students were at the facility for the Leadership Camp. In favour of efficiency and mindfulness towards the COVID-19 pandemic we were divided into smaller groups for the activities.
The challenges prepared for us were fun, interactive, competitive yet in retrospect held valuable lessons that are applicable to our current academic and future professional lives. While the games were seemingly simple, for example building an Ikea shelf or getting from one tree to another in the woods wearing blindfolds, how we planned and executed the tasks in these games taught us relevant information. It taught us about our thought process, communication, team coordination, and organizational skills.
During this time we also had other activities such as a photoshoot, a welcome toast from our Programme Director, Professor Dr. Horst Löchel, and the opportunity to learn about and bond with our fellow classmates while hiking through the woods around the hotel. We ended the weekend with a closing briefing where both the Full-time and Part-time MBA classes presented
our takeaways from the Leadership Camp in the form of guiding principles.
So what did we learn from our Leadership Camp? On the positive side, we discovered that we had high levels of trust in our classmates and great mutual support. We also found that the atmosphere during our collaborations was very positive. On the other hand, we found that we had room for improvement in communication, efficiency, process, and goal and task transparency during challenges. We collectively summarized our findings in form of guiding principles and prioritized 5 of them that we thought would benefit us in enhancing our experience during the MBA programme and aid us in developing characteristics necessary to succeed in leadership roles. The guiding points were respect, honesty, (active) listening, collaboration, and goal orientation. These are, in essence, the very fundamental building blocks of a good business leader, that we all agreed we needed to have ingrained in our characters. In closing, I would like to thank Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and our wonderful MBA Team for organizing such a fun and eventful leadership camp, even with the strict Covid-19 restrictions in place. It will be a shining memory of our MBA year at this prestigious school for years to come.
Frankfurt School gGmbH
Adickesallee 32-34
60322 Frankfurt am Main
