The Michigan Model of Leadership, developed at the University of Michigan, was highlighted on Mar. 31 by professors from the Ross School of Business as a key framework for leadership in both classrooms and workplaces.
The model was created to address gaps in traditional management theories and is now used worldwide. Its application comes at a time when organizations face significant change and uncertainty, making effective leadership models especially important.
Gretchen Spreitzer, professor at the Ross School of Business, said, “We have it embedded in many of our executive education courses. The executives who are in the courses really resonate with it. I was in India last month working with a company and they got so excited about the Michigan Model of Leadership. This is their high potential program, but they want to cascade it throughout the other levels of their organization in terms of using the model to help create the right kind of culture that they want for their organization.”
Monica Worline discussed how leaders often discover strengths and blind spots through this approach: “When leaders find the space in the model where they’re most comfortable and they most feel strength, they’re also quite often seeing their blind spot because it will be the pulling or competing tension on the opposite quadrant of the model that they will most often overlook.” Mike Barger added his perspective on technology’s role: “I think AI will do a great job of helping us kind of aggregate and collect the hard data, but I think we all subscribe to this notion of business being ultimately a liberal art. It’s about people. It’s about, you know, engaging them and helping them kind of feel like it’s all of our responsibility to get on board with this thing and move the organization forward.”
The University operates its main campus in Ann Arbor with additional campuses located in Dearborn and Flint according to its official website. The institution offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across various disciplines according to its official website.
Business & Society is co-produced by Judi Melena Smelser from Ross School of Business and Jeff Karoub from Michigan News office.
