Five Reasons Women Should Get MBAs

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What’s so wrong with an MBA? Over the recent years, article after article has explained why the degree is a waste of money and time. The thinking goes, networking with your friends and reading a few books is an easy substitute. What’s more, the article authors note that if you do get your degree, you end up in debt up to your eyeballs and without much more value than when you started.

Even so, for those who aspire to lead, the job outlook for business school graduates has improved, with more companies planning to hire recent MBA and master-level business graduates. And for women in particular, there are some converging competencies that we can learn in the B-school environment that train us uniquely to lead:

– The “bro-ski” culture of B-school prepares you for the male executive suite: Few environments are as thigh-slapping, beer-swilling and fraternity-like as the ones promoted in most business schools. While that fact may not send you rushing to fill out B school applications, the environment does teach you how to speak up, defend your position and perhaps most importantly – not crack when you’re challenged. You’ll hone your skills ribbing the guys and you’ll get more comfortable being outnumbered by men. In short, B school gives you a much thicker skin.

– It’’ll “up” your comfort with risk: Perhaps one reason that women are increasingly unenthused about law school is that law school education teaches you largely how to mitigate risk. Business school, on the other hand, teaches you that risk is constant and inevitable—and that you will always be working with partial information. As you learn to take bets on certain proposals, companies, and start-up concepts, you also learn to take bets on yourself. (You may be even more emboldened to take risks because of the dismal fact that only 8 percent of business school cases focus on a woman protagonist).

– It’’ll lessen your inner perfectionist: In business school, your ability to influence outweighs your ability to dot “I”s and cross “T”s. No one really values the “detail person” in a project team and if you are identified as such, you’ll quickly be relegated to the team secretary. Business school is the place to drop your perfectionist thinking and to embrace that adage that Sheryl Sandberg famously preaches: “Done is better than perfect.” You’ll become quicker and more agile at completing tough deliverables without sacrificing overall quality, something that generally speaking, will help you “round up” in terms of what you can achieve in your career, not down…