LFCE Faculty Profile:
Mike Muldoon
Leadership Coach’s Passion for Teaching Puts Students on Winning Path
Picture “Coach Muldoon” blowing the whistle, gathering players after a workout challenging both body and soul. This is a scene students of the real-life Mike Muldoon, a popular and longtime LFCE and LFGSM faculty member, can easily visualize. In fact, Muldoon dreamed of being a football coach and teacher, inspired by his drive to help others unlock their passions and reach their full potential.
Muldoon enjoyed a career in athletics coaching and working with special-needs children. Upon completing his MBA, Muldoon transitioned from the not for-profit to the for-profit world. Before launching his consulting and coaching practice, Muldoon amassed over thirty years’ experience with Fortune 100 companies and not-for-profit organizations. He devoted many years to Abbott Laboratories, where he distinguished himself with his management, leadership, and coaching expertise, and served as Director of Marketing, Director of National Accounts, and Director of Learning and Development. Currently Muldoon conducts leadership, business strategy, and development programs worldwide and coaches business professionals in positions ranging from entry-level to CEO.
Honest and direct, Muldoon challenges others to discover themselves, build key skills, and adopt new ways of thinking. “I’m a storyteller,” says Muldoon. Not without a bit of humor, Muldoon connects with students by sharing his own experiences. “I tell how I’ve struggled, taken risks, failed, and enjoyed success,” he explains. By offering a bit of himself, Muldoon creates a safe environment where students can plot their course for becoming better, more effective leaders.
A key element of Muldoon’s success in both building future leaders and challenging successful leaders to expand their capabilities is that he believes his message and practices what he preaches: Know yourself, venture beyond your comfort zone, and work to gain the skills you need to follow your passions and achieve your potential. These principles are particularly relevant for Muldoon as he leads LFCE programs designed to help scientists, engineers, finance specialists, and other technical experts build leadership skill and business acumen. Here Muldoon offers several insights into the opportunities and challenges these individuals and their organizations face.
We choose how to lead. We’ve all been on the receiving end of poor leadership. Left unchecked, new leaders tend to model past experiences. While leadership gaps appear across areas, the risk is particularly great when functional experts are rapidly promoted to leadership roles without having had sufficient opportunities to learn and practice effective management and leadership skills.
Hands-on learning, targeted to the needs and culture of the organization, is an important way to help new leaders succeed. During the learning process, individuals discover their personal leadership styles, adapt to meet the changing demands of their workplaces, and build the wider array of skills they need to succeed in their expanded roles. In the end, the most successful individuals discover they can choose their leadership style and then take steps to change, adapt, and meet the expectations they set for themselves.
Leadership tests comfort zones. Increasingly, companies expect their functional experts to drive business results by showing greater business acumen and taking on leadership roles that extend beyond their areas of expertise. Most of these experts have devoted a lifetime to advancing their specialized knowledge. Many will embrace the challenges of leadership and the opportunities it offers. Yet the personal demands of leadership will push many others well outside their comfort zones.
In addition to company sponsored training and development opportunities, two ways individuals might expand their comfort zones are seeking out mentors from different backgrounds for feedback and accepting leadership roles outside work that involve interaction with people having a variety of viewpoints and a range of skills.
You can’t go back. Neither technical expertise nor management ability alone guarantees continued success in our rapidly changing business environment. Clearly, the road to expanding one’s horizons and accepting the full demands of leadership is not easy. “I tell my students it’s up to them to decide whether and how they apply the skills we practice,” Muldoon says. “Regardless of what an individual decides after they leave the classroom, I explain, ‘Now that you know there’s a different way to approach your career, a different way to approach business decisions and to lead, you can never go back.”
Muldoon has helped put countless students on the winning path. As one measure, LFGSM’s MBA students selected him to receive this year’s Teaching Excellence Award. His impact is undeniable
