A message to all emerging leaders from Professor Rittenberg.

Contributed by Dr. Mark Rittenberg

To all the emerging leaders that I have had the pleasure to work with; I praise you for your courage in class - in the words of my great friend and colleague, Dr. Homa Bahrami, for moving from the safety zone to the stretch zone and taking the risk to enter the danger zone. I commend you for your willingness to be vulnerable - the stories you tell are of universal learning and impact. I praise your hard work, your tenacity and your fear - your fear of forgetting the words of your business passion speeches, yet, taking in the words of Nelson Mandela "a long stride of spirit" in order to stand in the center of the world. 

I acknowledge you embracing the concept of "I have the right to be here" as the voice in the head is getting louder. I praise the fact that you have overcome these great obstacles and enter a space that you can truly call you own. 

I especially would like to congratulate the MBA students of 2013. You have undergone undergraduate programs of great rigor and are expecting the same in your graduate programs. When you hear that in Leadership Communications, you will be working on EQ, human connection and vulnerability, a wall goes up. You become resistant and fearful and the self-confidence assumed is not there. You are thrust into the world of spontaneity, extraneous, thinking on your feet. You are asked to be a storyteller. Because you have not experienced introspective self-development, this is a foreign world. Though you have a huge mountain to climb, you end up having creative breakthroughs and massive moments of learning due to your openness, willingness to change, ability to admit emotion, acknowledge success, and learn from your failures. You gain a sense of pride, presence, strength and courage that you never knew were there, and see your missing skills. These specific skills give the new leader a competitive advantage over other new emerging leaders, who have not be exposed to self-reflection. You become an inspiring leader, a people leader as well as an analytic leader.