Leadership Lab
Organizational change for a sustainable future
The Leadership Lab (L-Lab) tackles critical issues of organizational change in global business sustainability. The L-Lab course combines an all-encompassing approach to systemic change, an on-site field project experience with leading-edge sustainability initiatives, and numerous opportunities to develop personal leadership skills.
L-Lab teams are typically composed of four to six graduate students, primarily from the MIT Sloan School of Management's MBA and Sloan Fellows programs. However, due to its stellar reputation, the L-Lab attracts students from across MIT every year.
How the L-Lab Works
The L-Lab uses experiential workshops to instruct students on how leaders can drive innovations that generate both social responsibility and business-sector success. Student teams meet one another and host companies during an initial kick-off session at the beginning of the course, organize their teams, select a project, and begin working with their host company.
Beginning in the fall semester, the L-Lab provides students with an opportunity to influence global sustainability efforts by partnering with business leaders who assist in assessing complex situations and in finding new ways of collaborating across traditional corporate and cultural boundaries. In January, student teams will spend three weeks on-site working closely with organizational leaders. Throughout their project work with the host companies, student teams work with MIT faculty mentors who help the students integrate classroom learning as well as provide coaching to support their work with organizational leaders.
L-Lab Opportunities
Student teams partner with organizations at the forefront of today’s thinking on systemic change and sustainable systems, in locations that may be local, national, or international. Previous L-Lab projects have included organizations such as Nike, Starbucks, BP India, PepsiCo, Oxfam, WWF, and the Cambridge Energy Alliance.
“Because of the diversity of our backgrounds, when we hit the ground in Tanzania it almost was a natural play where different people assume different roles.”
“I love being in a place that is such a nexus of people and ideas — people coming to learn something new and to define themselves. Being a part of that process is a real honor and a real gift.”
“Our mission, along with the mission of MIT Sloan, is to both develop leaders who make a difference in the world, and also to make a contribution to thinking about the topic of leadership.”
"The relationships that we forged helped us to turn out a better project. We were able to test our hypotheses with the people that we spoke with every single day. And really, I think the friendships that you develop really propel the work that you’re doing."
“It was really rewarding that they wanted to know what we thought. We left there being fairly certain that they will do some of the things that we suggested.”
“I can honestly say that when I was planning on coming to business school I never thought that witnessing the birth of a child would be included in the education. It was definitely an experience.”
“The conditions in the neighborhoods we were visiting were different than what we realized before getting there. Beyond that, what was surprising was that there weren’t surprises!”
“One of the reasons I came to Sloan was because I wanted to be at a top MBA institution worldwide. But I also wanted access to working with the latest innovations and the highest technology that was coming out of the MIT labs.”
“I knew about American business, but not enough about what’s really become a global economy. … You can read about it all you want, but there’s no substitute for being there and seeing the context and seeing how completely different these [other countries] are.”
“The concept behind enterprise architecture is that you have all these machines, you have all these business processes, you have all these people doing things, how do you make sure they all come together and achieve business objectives that make you more competitive.”
“At MIT Sloan you have a lot of opportunities to explore entrepreneurship. Especially in a place like Kampala where you have a lot of development, entrepreneurship can be very exciting.”
“I came to Sloan because of its high rankings within the sustainability community, specifically the professors. The S-Lab class itself is part of what drew me to Sloan. And the reason I came to business school was to learn the business speak that really is what connects with people."
“We’re very interdisciplinary. Among the faculty in the group are an economist, a political scientist, a sociologist, and an industrial relations specialist. We’ve always made a big effort to be open to a variety of perspectives, but also to go beyond being open to them, to want to bring them in, because it makes for a richer environment.”
“These companies are really excited to work with MIT students.They reach out to the community to set up these projects and are great to work with. They give us access to all their resources and are very open to us.”
“MIT Sloan is a serious research environment, and that reverberates in the classroom. Students are eager to participate in research, not just review finished case studies. They have the opportunity to see research unfold.”
