Knowing how to develop others is a crucial leadership competency. The Arbuckle Leadership Fellows program teaches second-year Stanford MBA students how to effectively develop others by coaching and mentoring first-year MBA students.
Students apply and are selected to become Fellows during their first year in the Stanford MBA Program through a highly competitive process. Fellows then spend two quarters of their second year deepening their interpersonal skills and developing facilitation, coaching, and mentoring competencies.
Arbuckle Leadership Fellows work closely with first-year MBA students — both in small team settings and one-on-one. In the autumn quarter, each Fellow is assigned to a squad of six first-year MBA students in Leadership Labs, a requirement of the Stanford MBA curriculum. The Fellows guide their squad through the learning process in lab sessions, as well as provide individual and team coaching to squad members.
In addition, Arbuckle Leadership Fellows provide in-depth, one-on-one coaching to more than half of all first-year MBA students. This coaching takes place over a period of 15 weeks — beginning after autumn quarter midterms and continuing through the end of the winter quarter.
Armed with an in-depth understanding of fundamental coaching and mentoring concepts, strategies, and tools, Arbuckle Leadership Fellows will be able to help future employees develop new capabilities, build skills to solve their own problems, and achieve professional growth.
The Arbuckle Leadership Fellows program was established in 2007, as part of the Stanford MBA curriculum redesign, which placed a greater emphasis on personal leadership awareness and skills development. It is named in honor of former business school dean Ernest Arbuckle.
