Completing an MBA degree is a typical first step for many people whose career goals include securing a leadership role. And this investment can pay off; in fact, MBA grads made up nearly 40% of C-suite executives on the 2022 Fortune 1000 list, according to proprietary research by Fortune.
And executives in three roles—CEO, CFO (chief financial officer), and CTO (chief technology officer)—were more likely to have an MBA than any other advanced degree.
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What’s more, top-ranked business schools yield top executives. The three top full-time MBA programs on Fortune’s ranking—Harvard University, the University of Chicago (Booth), and Northwestern University (Kellogg)—had the highest number of graduates in C-suite roles on the Fortune 1000.
“When graduates return to Northwestern to talk about how they achieved their level of success, they would all state that you have to be ready to question everything and have confidence in the fact that that you can solve today’s problems, if you’re adaptable, and lean into some of the general management skills from Kellogg’s MBA program,” Greg Hanifee, associate dean of degree operations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, tells Fortune.
The value of an MBA degree is evident beyond just the success of some grads who go on to lead some of the world’s largest companies. Globally, more than four in five candidates say that a graduate business degree helps you stand out at work, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council. And graduates from top business schools landed starting pay packages of $200,000 and up in 2022.
Even so, it’s what students learn—rather than the specific school they go to—that can translate to career success. Very few executives on this year’s Fortune 500 list graduated from Ivy League schools; rather, they attended a “diversity of colleges.” And many MBA programs aim to prepare students for real-life business scenarios, which includes things like live case study days for students, or infusing soft skills into coursework.
How MBA programs can prepare future executives to lead
Part of Kellogg’s success in producing a top number of C-suite executives at Fortune 1000 comes down to what students learn during an MBA program, according to Hanifee. “When you think about success in reaching the C-suite, one of the hallmarks of Kellogg has been our attention to building leaders that are general managers more than they are siloed experts in one field or another.”
There’s an element of understanding the value of a team, and equipping every student that comes to Kellogg with the opportunity to work in teams, Hanifee continues. “If you talk to some of our alums who are on this list, some of their key takeaways [from Kellogg’s MBA program] are going to be knowing when they need to lead from the front, and when they need to listen and lead from the back.”
In addition to fostering a team mindset—“that you can’t do it all on your own”—future executives need strong analytical skills to be adept at decision making, along with a “healthy” dose of empathy, says Hanifee. “It also means thinking about employees and staff, being able to get people to follow you,” he continues. “One of the key attributes of Kellogg alums is this combination of depth and analytical skills with what often start as people skills, but we tend to refer to it as empathy.”
Finally, students at Kellogg benefit from school research that’s turned into teaching material, such as crisis communications, says Hanifee. Courses focused on negotiations were started at Kellogg from what was then called the Dispute Resolution Center, he adds.
Why highlighting empathy in MBA programs can help leaders
Like Kellogg, other business programs are increasingly focusing on soft skills in their curricula to prepare students to become successful leaders. “When making pivots that often need to be made as a business leader, it’s those soft skills that help motivate people to be agile and flexible in taking on challenges they may feel are slightly beyond their current capabilities,” Joy Jones, CEO of the Graduate Management Admission Council, tells Fortune.
These types of soft skills—such as empathy and caring about your employees as individuals—can inspire teams to perform to the best of their abilities, versus being coerced into action, Jones notes. “Those are the intangible skill sets, when there is uncertainty and disruption that you really lean into.”
And the fact that an MBA is still such a sought-after degree by executives at Fortune 1000 companies shows that business schools are equipping students with a well-rounded set of skills to become leaders.
“You have to be able to complement this sort of critical thinking and judgment with the ability to motivate and inspire people in the direction you want the organization to go,” says Jones. “Because rarely are you trying to just be an individual contributor forever. When you have an MBA, you really are trying to lead people in a new direction.”
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