Friba's Journey

IWF BC Fellows Program Update 

We want to ensure you stay informed about Friba’s Fellows journey, so we have asked Friba to keep a journal of her adventures and experiences. This month, we asked her some questions regarding her participation in the Detroit Leadership Conference. Here’s what she had to say.

INSEAD Report

This summarizes my learning experience as a 2023/24 fellowship program offered by the IWF from Feb 26th to Feb 29th, 2024.
The four-day executive leadership training was an excellent learning opportunity for me at INSEAD University in France.
While completing the assigned readings and attending the classes, I have learned that diagnosing and changing the organizational culture is critical for a leader to know and understand its dimensions. For instance, one dimension differentiates effectiveness criteria that emphasize stability, order, and control.

Furthermore, in this class, I learned about its flexibility and discretion, which are hierarchy, adhocracy, clan, and market.
While learning about the diagnoses, I also learned about the ‘culture protocol’ from a great instructor, Spencer Harrison. He talked about the importance of culture in organizational settings and how it shapes the overall team and workplace culture. Cultural accounting is crucial for leaders to have if they want to lead a successful team and, hence, the organization.

The lecturers at INSEAD also focused on leading in volatile times. The instructor gave an example of an exemplary and successful employer, where he adopted a new culture and system at the workplace to keep all the employees happy and provide them with leadership opportunities. The case study was Ricardo Semler, A CEO based in Brazil. This CEO adapted the adhocracy and clam based organizational behaviour which led to an award winning leadership of ‘Human Resource management/Organizational Behaviour’.

In addition to the academic learning, I was also assigned a designated coach to coach me on executive leadership skills, and we also talked about the 360-degree feedback from our leaders, peers, colleagues, and others. This was very valuable to me because I had the opportunity to spend time in a small group of four with the coach, who touched upon many essential elements of leadership while connected to oneself. She helped me discover the hidden skills and talent within myself and helped me utilize them in successful leadership.

Moreover, I had a great opportunity to connect with the other 39 fellows in the program even more this time. We shared our stories, laughter, and challenges and also built a sisterhood that we can count on. Sharing our stories with each other empowered us and also made us realize how similar we are; therefore, we can relate to each other, understand each other better, and lead together.

Friba Rezayee
2023/24 Fellowship fellow IWF