As you climb of the organizational ladder, you have to redefine your role in the value chain from player to captain to coach to manager, and for some, to owner. These are different roles and you won't be able to succeed as a manager when you're acting like a player.

For example, I wear clothes I buy at trendy shops because I don't care much about clothing. If someone wants to create a trend around clothing, I'll happily and blindly follow.

One of the easiest ways to solve your problems is to look at how others have solved a similar problem. So, in this regard, we are using the same thinking of others.

In the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, my grandfather got me a job at a local messenger company working on Wall Street. I was lucky enough to have been in the business during a stock market boom but just before the fax machine appeared on the scene, let alone email and the Internet. As a result, the messenger business was booming.

I know a lot of great success stories of those who were excellent problem-solvers because they had found a need that they could fill well. As a result, they built organizations around them and those organizations had belief systems that could be described as a form of leadership.

The problem is not the sentiment, it's the execution. When a company makes a mistake, the individual benefits because they've learned how NOT to do something while the institution had to pay for the mistake.

MBA programs are underwritten by large companies and they succeed at producing future employees of large companies. In that regard, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.