Center for Leadership
Studies

“The MAOL was nothing short of a life changing experience for me,” Alan Chapman says. “It empowered me to look at organizational context from a different perspective and began a personal transformation which enabled me to make the most of the program and bring it to my organization.”

Chapman’s breakthrough MAOL initiative consisted of taking a silo-based development group, regarded in the field as an “ivory tower,” and tying it directly to business and customer needs. He generated multiple initiatives that would integrate with the business, creating unexpected results. Now, a new type of service has grown out of many different possibilities, defining a new way of packaging and selling offerings. Chapman says that through this experience and the MAOL he learned that breakthroughs, rather than coming through application of management sciences, are achieved through mindful, artful leadership.

“MAOL has helped me journey forth into my own leadership,” Chapman notes. “For the passage it provides a map in the form of a diverse body of knowledge. My compass comes from faculty. Waypoints are cohort gatherings. Finally it provides a beacon for times when you feel lost. MAOL, like leadership, can at times be difficult and challenging. After all, the map only points to the terrain; the compass merely indicates possible direction, not absolutes. The journey is your journey.”

As Chapman sees it, one of the biggest challenges to transformation in organizations is the very vastness of opportunities. If one is not careful, this can make any single initiative seem difficult to thoroughly explore. The MAOL works as a lens through which leaders can view an entire landscape of possibilities, then not only focus on the best opportunities, but also realize them.

Since his graduation, Chapman has become an MAOL faculty member. He says that, for him, this step was part of a logical progression. Like many other MAOL alumni, he felt a tremendous drive to contribute to the program that has changed so much for him. Chapman values the opportunity to share his experience and help candidates with application of MAOL tools while deepening his thinking about the topics he teaches.

Chapman has also sponsored one of his employees through the MAOL. While working toward his MAOL degree, he realized his own commitment to leadership development, so it was very natural for him to want to pay forward the experience—one which he knew first-hand would generate substantial benefit for his organization. Chapman says that the MAOL is giving him a way to create a common language and culture within his organization.

“I like the way that the MAOL engenders change and the thinking behind it, so sending my people through the program makes a lot of sense,” says Chapman. “MAOL really does create more power and more opportunity to get to the breakthrough results.”