I assigned a reading to my MBA students. Then they gave me an earful about misogyny

As some of you know, I teach in Boise State’s executive MBA program (which, in the interest of shameless promotion, has been ranked No. 15 in the country by Fortune magazine! Ahead of Cornell, Columbia and many others you’ve heard of! We’re thrilled. But back to my point). I love teaching these intelligent, motivated and questioning participants. The group includes people from health care, nonprofits, agriculture, manufacturing, green energy and more. Needless to say, they keep the instructors on our toes.

Early this semester, I assigned a reading on leadership — it was a collection of lectures done by a Stanford professor over 15 years. He used literature to illustrate leadership principles. (It reminded me of a course I taught more than 20 years ago with the late English professor Carol Martin. We called the course “Iacocca and Shakespeare in the Boardroom,” so you know how long ago that was. We too used literature — e.g., King Lear, Billy Budd — to talk about the challenges of leadership).

I felt a little uncomfortable assigning that reading, but these participants are highly capable of tough readings so I went ahead anyway. I did have a concern about some of the dated language. But again, I thought the message was more important than the language, so I plowed ahead.

Was I wrong. I always ask at the beginning of class what people’s takeaways from the readings were. I got an earful from some very outspoken women.

“I can’t believe how misogynist this writer is. How hard it was to read. Much harder than other things we’ve read in the program.” (Unspoken: How could you assign this?)

“I agree that the language was offensive to women. I really was bothered by it. ... but I have to admit, I kept thinking about the reading for over a week after I finished it.”

Boom. What a teaching moment.

I used the challenge to talk about how far we’ve come (that language would never make it in a published piece today), how much society has changed, and how reading something a little harder might not be a bad thing. If all of our readings are made simple, so easy to read, do we come to expect easy answers as well?

I had asked each of five groups to read one excerpt and do a short presentation on what they learned about leadership. The presentations blew all of us away. They “got” the message. They transformed their readings into insights that were brilliant, insightful, and far beyond what I’d expected when they first talked about the assignment.

In the end, I think I might use the readings again but will probably alert them to be ready for the language. We’re all learning.

Nancy Napier is a distinguished professor emerita and coach for the executive MBA program in the College of Business and Economics at Boise State University in Idaho. nnapier@boisestate.edu. She is co-author of “The Bridge Generation of Vietnam: Spanning Wartime to Boomtime.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2022 at 1:24 PM.