June 5, 2001

Business schools place an increasing emphasis on developing students' leadership skills. Leadership, however, is a difficult subject to teach and innovative schools are adopting more hands-on teaching methods.

At Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, students learn leadership the hard way: at a military boot camp.

In early April, 80 MBA students travelled to the US Marine Officer Corps Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, to participate in a two-day event entitled "Learning leadership and decision-making under uncertainty and complexity".

It is at Quantico that newly enlisted Marine officers receive their initial 10-week training, a programme designed to evaluate and enhance their potential for leadership in combat situations. The FBI also conducts its training there.

Vincent Martino, an MBA student who was a captain in the Marines before attending Wharton, helped initiate the event.

As a Wharton MBA, I was invited to attend the event, which started inauspiciously. On our arrival at the military base, two drill sergeants stormed our coach and started barking orders. In a state of shock, we quickly formed orderly lines on the parade ground and obeyed them as best we could.

We were then marched into the barracks where the MBAs stood to attention in front of their bunk beds. Any student foolish enough to make eye contact with a drill instructor soon had two or three of them screaming in his face.

Adopting a British interpretation of the business casual dress code, I was the only student dressed in a blazer, which gave the drill instructors plenty to shout at me about. Another student wore his uncle's belt from the Russian navy. He soon regretted this as the drill sergeants set upon him. It became apparent that the international cultural differences that are celebrated on the Wharton campus became a liability in the barracks, as everyone sought to relinquish their individuality and conform to the group norm.

My usually assured classmates did not know what had hit them and were soon shouting "Sir, yes, sir" at any given order. Our first task was to make our beds with razor-sharp, 45ý folds and no creases. Those who finished early were ordered to help others. One such classmate came to my rescue. Unfortunately, a drill sergeant saw the creases in my bed and barked at him: "Is this your bed?" My friend replied, "Sir, no, sir" while I hid shamelessly - but the drill sergeant continued to berate him. We were later told that this was to teach us to take collective responsibility. My friend joked that he learnt, rather, never to trust a journalist.

We were then issued our Kevlar helmets and canteens before being ordered into the icy cold communal showers. Lights out gave us only five hour's respite before we were woken at dawn by a drill sergeant banging a waste-paper basket.

After breakfast we were sorted into five-member "fire teams" to complete the combat course, which was used to prepare the Marines for service in Vietnam. Together, my team successfully negotiated an 18ft wall, several rope bridges and the combat crawl. The most notorious obstacle on the combat course is a swamp known as the Quigley. We moved silently through the freezing, filthy water, pausing only to take breath before ducking under floating obstacles. Following the Quigley, one of our team members' legs gave out. The other team members rallied round to support him.

After we had waded through a second swamp, the course culminated in the storming of a machinegun nest. During the debriefing, our marine commander told us that in a real combat situation we would all have been shot.

In the afternoon, we tackled the Leadership Reaction Course, a series of 20 problem-solving exercises designed to simulate battlefield conditions. Our fire team completed three such scenarios, one of which was to cross a river using only a couple of 55-gallon fuel drums, two short planks and a rope.

We spent 20 minutes unsuccessfully grappling with the problem, after which our Marine commander gave feedback on each team member's strengths and weaknesses. As a team we were too cerebral and took too long to make decisions. Marine candidates are trained to take informed decisions on the basis of less-than-perfect information and to implement them quickly.

What lessons in leadership did the business school students learn from the event? There are obvious differences between military and corporate leadership. Modern managers could never adopt the drill sergeant's approach to instilling discipline, nor do they expect employees to subjugate their individuality to that of the team. However, my classmates felt that they had learnt some valuable lessons.

Daniela Matson, a Wharton student who wants to work in marketing management after she graduates, said, "What the Marines are looking for is a leader who trusts the team and who earns the team's trust. Once that bond is formed, leaders can take decisive decisions that are implemented quickly. This is incredibly important in corporate America."

Josý Tamer, a first-year student who wants to work in multinational management, said he was impressed by the way the Marines emphasised training colleagues who would become their future leaders. The drill sergeants are from the enlisted ranks and consider it a great honour to train the incoming officer class. "The challenge in the business world is to get experienced employees to share their knowledge with younger high-flying managers," he said.

Sajal Agarwal, a graduating MBA student who is set to become a management consultant, said: "The Quantico experience showed me that effective teamwork is crucial. For the Marines, once a common goal is established, everyone is fully committed to realising it. This contrasts with the business world, when teams underperform because managers often cling to their own agendas."

In addition to the lessons in leadership, the students benefited greatly from a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the US Marine Corps.

Although none of the Wharton students wanted to exchange their MBA programme for the officer training course, everyone left with insights that they would not have gained in the classroom. Mr Martino attributed the success of the event to "getting MBA students out of their comfort zones to really learn about leadership and teamwork".

"Outside business school, MBAs will have to lead in unstructured environments and be prepared to apply themselves fully. Quantico is designed to prepare soldiers for the battlefield but it offers many lessons for managers heading for the boardrooms of international corporations."