Business today is looking for a few good leaders. And they are hoping to find them in the ranks of tomorrow’s MBAs.

What an MBA proves to a prospective employer is a willingness for continuous learning and an eagerness to transform that learning into winning impact on the organization. What Tomorrow’s MBA learns from his or her MBA studies is how to handle challenges with the tools and confidence to take calculated risks, characteristics coveted by consulting firms and businesses alike when looking for employable candidates.

“Plenty of people on MBA campuses can be an entry-level consultant, which is a wonderful thing,” says Peter Sullivan, Director of Recruiting for Booz Allen Hamilton, a global strategy and technology consulting firm that provides services to major international corporations and government clients. “What we are looking for is people who have the potential to be with Booz Allen over the long term, and over the long term at Booz Allen you will become a senior counselor to senior management.”

To fulfill that role, Sulllivan says, requires a whole host of skills that build upon analytical horsepower and basic thought-leadership.

“You’ve got to be able to build relationships personally, professionally, with the client and throughout Booz Allen,” Sullivan says. “You’ve got to be that leader. You’ve got to be able to hold a room. You’ve got to have presence. You’ve got to have polish. And so I think these days there is more emphasis — happily — in business school on creating these well-rounded business leaders.”

If there is one thing that is valued by today’s employers it is the capacity to provide insightful leadership when the world around you is changing. Without that leadership our businesses will founder.

From ‘Good to Great’ Leadership

The workplace in the United States has undergone a spiritual revolution of a sorts, at pace with the mood of the times. Tomorrow’s MBA will face a workplace that will demand that he or she bring her whole self to work and this includes personal values and convictions. From the dotcom bust and newsworthy corporate scandals, business has realized that the two best tools for navigating the gray areas of business are strong personal values and a keen sense of what is right and what is wrong.

In his book, “Good to Great,” business guru Jim Collins defines the traits of “Level 5” leaders — those exceptional chief executives who managed to take their companies from mediocre to phenomenal in financial performance.

“Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless,” Collins says. His research crew struggled to find the right language to describe these executives because in our culture, words like humility and modesty are often confused with weakness. But Collins found that it was exactly these traits combined with what he termed “ferocious resolve” that led to their remarkable achievement.

Collins found that these chief executives demonstrated ambition first and foremost for the company and concern for its success rather than their own riches and personal renown. “Level 5 leaders want to leave a legacy,” Collins says. “They want to see the company even more successful in the next generation, and are comfortable with the idea that most people won’t even know that the roots of that success trace back to their own efforts.”

Tomorrow’s MBA will emulate the Level 5 leader’s commitment to building a responsible, global business organization that thrives well into the future, whatever that future might hold. It is a commitment to living a life that contributes to the common good.