How ID Lab Creates Connections and Busts Leadership Myths

Looking back on her first year at MIT Sloan, MBA candidate Winnie Monu-Azinge wishes she had known about 15.336 ID Lab: Individual Development & Interpersonal Dynamics as a prospective student.

“I knew about certifications and stuff like that, but I didn’t hear people talk much about ID Lab as a prospect. I think everyone should take it,” she says.

Monu-Azinge is one of 120 first-year MBA students who recently took the popular leadership development course designed and offered by the MIT Leadership Center last spring. Deeply rooted in core Institute ideas and values, ID Lab asserts “that being an effective leader requires a deep understanding of what it means to be human in a complex world.” In other words, ID Lab prepares students for a world in which they will mitigate climate change, develop and deploy pandemic testing and vaccinations, integrate artificial intelligence into systems, and much more.

And it all starts with the first “I” of “ID Lab”: the individual. To that end, ID Lab students simultaneously work one-on-one with a professional executive leadership coach to help translate their learnings into successful leadership behavior and skills.

“Leading others requires knowing yourself first. You need to be deeply familiar and comfortable with your strengths, limitations, personality, and communication style. Many leaders fail because they try to be something they are not, and the rest of the world can see this inauthenticity from a mile away,” says Nelson Repenning, PhD ’96 (School of Management Distinguished Professor of System Dynamics and Organization Studies; Faculty Director of MIT Leadership Center).

Along with Tracy Purinton (Senior Lecturer and Advisor, MIT Leadership Center) and the rest of the Leadership Center staff at the time, Repenning developed ID Lab and taught the inaugural section in 2019.

“ID Lab is a critical first step to becoming an effective leader because it focuses on developing self-knowledge, self-compassion, and the skills to develop as a leader throughout your life,” he says.

Creating meaningful connections

Dayquan Julienne, MBA ’24, who took ID Lab in the spring of 2023 and returned as a teaching assistant, says “one of the best value adds of the class is the sense of community it helps build among students.”

“[Enrolling in ID Lab] allowed me to dive deeper into understanding my peers and make friendships beyond the networking typically associated with MBA programs,” he adds. Julienne and other current and former students explain that it was not at all what they expected from a data-driven institution like MIT.

During the first week, students attend an opening class session and discussion on “Investigating Identity,” during which they consider and explore topics of consciousness, choice, social identity, and personal agency.

All sections then attend an evening forum—a tradition dating back to ID Lab’s inception—where students can meet the teaching teams and executive coaches and begin to form meaningful connections with each other. Think inverse of a conventional business networking event.

“You really get to know everyone and ask them very deep questions,” says MBA candidate Nicolas Correa. Echoing Julienne, Correa adds: “ID Lab gives you the space to ask these questions, to be more vulnerable, and to go into more depth with your answers.”

“It’s nice to see that you’re not alone with your thoughts about how you see the world,” he continues. “In ID Lab, you have the chance to see that resonance, that harmony with other people from vastly different experiences and approaches. It’s reassuring to realize that the path you create does make sense and doesn’t have to be like someone else’s.”

This space deepens throughout the semester in class sessions, small group discussions, and executive coaching sessions. It also extends beyond these formal meetings, like when Monu-Azinge, Correa, and fellow MBA candidate Grant Anhorn eat lunch together.

Though not all in the same class—Monu-Azinge and Correa sat in Section D with Lou Bergholz (Senior Lecturer, MIT Leadership Center), while Anhorn attended one of Purinton’s two sections—their camaraderie near the semester’s end is palpable.

“A very specific thing we talked about was being comfortable in uncomfortable situations. For me, one of those uncomfortable situations is showing vulnerability around others,” says Anhorn. To address this, ID Lab delves into the importance of trust.

“You build trust by being transparent and open, by trying to find the right balance of being vulnerable,” Anhorn explains. “I want to understand where I can and should be a little bit more open, learn when and where to share, and how to then translate that into building trust and improving my relationships with my teams.”

Winnie Monu-Azinge | MBA candidate

ID Lab makes me go outside my bubble. It pushes me to be a deeper person.

Dismantling popular myths

Another big thing, Anhorn continues, is identifying and debunking the myths of leadership.

From the belief that leadership is a natural ability and not a learnable skill, to the assumption that good leaders are extroverts who know everything, leadership myths are quite pervasive in management culture.

Like many first-year MBAs, Anhorn often found himself adopting an “observer role” due to these myths. He worried about making mistakes and disappointing his classmates. Thanks to ID Lab, Anhorn, Monu-Azinge, Correa, and the other students learned to break these beliefs down and move past them toward something more productive and real.

“Leadership doesn’t mean fooling people. It means knowing how to steer the ship with and for people,” says Anhorn. “I’ve been working to understand how I can bring out my authentic self, share more, be more collaborative and open, and not feel like I can only speak if I’m 100% certain.”

“We try to instill in the students the notion of intentionality,” Purinton explains. “When you become more self-aware, you are then able to be more intentional about how you either leverage that strength or manage that challenge—whatever it is.” She adds, “It’s kind of counterintuitive, but while the process is deeply individual, it is amplified by doing it with other people who are working on the same thing. It is not something that is easy to do alone.”

In other words, ID Lab provides students with the space to forge new, long-lasting connections with each other so that, together, they can dismantle the popular myths of leadership through interrogation. “Individual Development” may be an important part of the class’s subtitle, but so too is “Interpersonal Dynamics.”

Purinton, Bergholz, Kara Blackburn (Senior Lecturer, Managerial Communication), and past lecturers do not simply lecture from the podium while ID Lab students sit and listen. From the opening forum and the individual sections to the final meetings and the executive coaching sessions, the ID Lab experience is one of push and pull.

Or, as Nicki Roth (Coach Lead, MIT Leadership Center) puts it, ID Lab is a “conversation.”

“ID Lab students are at a very different point in their careers and developmentally. It is a very personal journey into understanding themselves, in a way that leads them to better define who they want to be as a leader,” she says.

The class accomplishes this, Roth adds, by facilitating a conversation that is both internal (through learning, group work, and executive coaching) and external (via group and classroom meetings and extracurricular activities) for students. Both routes coalesce in the discovery and development of intra- and interpersonal leadership skills—the very things the so-called “myths of leadership” previously known and believed by Anhorn and other young MBAs.

“ID Lab makes me go outside my bubble. It pushes me to be a deeper person,” says Monu-Azinge, “[and] allows me to have deeper connections and actively listen to others. I’m grateful for that.”

Nelson Repenning | PhD ’96, School of Management Distinguished Professor of System Dynamics and Organization Studies

Leading others requires knowing yourself first. You need to be deeply familiar and comfortable with your strengths, limitations, personality, and communication style.

An ongoing process

While most people will define leadership as a position or a person, the MIT Leadership Center and ID Lab treat it like a process. Leadership is a tableau of skills that, with enough space and intentionality, can flourish across a lifetime of career advancement.

Which is why, more than anything, the students who have completed it in accordance with MIT Sloan’s MBA Leadership Elective requirement are more excited for the future than they are sad that the class is over.

As Steve DeSandis, MBA ’21, explains, “It is hard work to put in the effort of self-discovery but the benefits in learning and growth you experience will last long after the semester ends and help drive your life and career forward.

Monu-Azinge, Correa, and Anhorn wrapped up ID Lab in the spring and are in their second and final year of the MBA program. Like DeSandis, Julienne, and other Sloanies who came before them, they are ready for what comes next.

“ID Lab is always going to come with me,” says Monu-Azinge. “I don’t want it to end, but I am looking forward to seeing a new version of me and applying these tools to my second year of the MBA and beyond.”

Correa adds, “Life doesn’t end if you don’t take ID Lab. There are always other ways to approach these lessons.”

However, he continues, if you want to invest in yourself—and you’re willing to take a vulnerable leap of faith—then ID Lab just might be the class for you.