Michigan Model of Leadership

Our world is filled with challenges. More than ever before, we need leaders across society and throughout organizations whose core purpose is to make a positive difference. They must have empathy, drive, courage, and the integrity to do the right thing even when it isn't popular. We need leaders who can balance the competing tensions inherent in organizational life; leaders with a bias toward action, who can mobilize the highest potential in others.

The Michigan Model of Leadership (MMoL) is rooted in cutting-edge, practice-oriented research by faculty in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business. It introduces the core purpose, values, and actions that are needed to lead in today's complex and dynamic world.

Core Purpose

At the center of the MMoL is a core purpose: making a positive difference in the world. It challenges leaders to:

• Approach every day as an opportunity to have an impact

• Find a higher purpose in their work, and use it to mobilize their teams to greater energy and performance

• Create a legacy for themselves by leaving people, organizations, and society better off
   

Values

Surrounding the positive core is a set of values that are essential to effective leadership:

• Empathy, to see the world through others' eyes

• Drive, to set and achieve challenging goals

• Integrity, to do the right thing when no one is watching

• Courage, to take risks and make mistakes in service of innovation and creativity

Actions

With a core purpose and values at its heart, the MMoL describes actions that enable leaders to succeed in today's complex and dynamic world. Leaders in the 21st century must balance competing forces. They must provide stability to enable execution, but lead change for innovation. They must balance their team's collaborative spirit with its competitive drive.

Building on groundbreaking research by Ross faculty members Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron, the MMoL represents these competing tensions through its four quadrants.

Robust Results (blue) -- Leaders:

• Exercise good judgment

• Foster healthy competition

• Perform under pressure

Collaborative Communities (yellow) -- Often in tension with the robust results quadrant, leaders engage in actions that:

• Empower people

• Foster teamwork

• Build positive relationships

Strategic Structures (red) -- Leaders:

• Design reliable systems

• Establish accountability

• Optimize efficiency

Creative Change (green) -- Often in tension with the strategic structures quadrant, leaders engage in actions that:

• Inspire innovation

• Enable change

• Co-create opportunities

The MMoL helps leaders recognize that these competing tensions are not problems to be resolved. Rather, they are inevitable paradoxes to be managed. It gives them the tools to lead positive change in people, organizations, and society.

 

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