Aalto Leadership Lab®: unfolding the tenfold

PROFILE 03/2010

Aalto Leadership Lab explores opportunities to create new leadership. It looks into the unknown but imaginable and has the goal of making new frontiers possible in collective accomplishment.

Aalto University is well-aware of the groundbreaking nature of its Leadership Lab. The lab also forms a part of Aalto University Executive Education. Professor Liisa Välikangas explains that one of the key terms tied to the lab is 10X:
"We are creating pilots and experiments that will outline the contents of Aalto Leadership Lab. Right now, we are uncovering what can be learned from leadership in extreme situations and how we create extreme leadership, leadership 10X."

By 10X leadership, Välikangas means developing leadership to such a level that it will cause a tenfold increase in organizational competence and talent.
"We are combining scientific reach, experimental learning and pedagogic innovations. Our approaches include something we benchmarked from surgeons: 'See one, do one, teach one.' Learning in extreme environments and bringing the lessons learned back to every day practice is another example."

Once fully ap and running, the lab will welcome both middle and top management, "or even young talents who want to learn leadership in a totally new way", Välikangas promises.

An Innovation in Process

The Aalto Leadership Lab aspires to provide new insights to crucial questions. Välikangas presents just a few, as appetizers to what lies in the future: "Key questions include themes such as how does one lead a super-innovative organization? How to operate in extremely low-resource environments, such as developing countries? Can we find leadership models and lessons in these and other extreme situations that could be utilized in the global competitive environment?"

These and many more explorations take the Lab participants back to the drawing board. "We need to experiment on completely new approaches for learning and exercising leadership."

The Leadership Labs are currently being designed one at a time. Välikangas explains the rationale behind the method.
"Our Lab is an innovation process. We do not want to tie things down too soon. Our goal of 10X leadership is so bold that one can't expect to reach it immediately. This is a completely unique pioneer venture. I wish to emphasize that we are not seeking to enhance efficiency. We are enhancing impact. All this calls for courageous new thinking and many new approaches, " she explains.