Why Career Moves Require No Heavy Baggage

While navigating your way through the ups and downs and transitions of your career, be sure to travel light, according to Harry Davis, Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor of Creative Management.

Leave the weighty baggage of old jobs and responsibilities behind and bring only an open mind and a flexible identity when transitioning to a new job or career, Davis advised during a back-to-the-classroom session on “Leadership in Transitions” during the 56th Annual Management Conference at Gleacher Center on May 16.

“Travel light; don’t hold on to stuff that’s not important to you anymore. Drop your agendas. Take wisdom with you. Listening is another important thing to take along. Develop a more flexible sense of self and personal agility. People become trapped in one particular identity,” he said.

Successful leaders also travel with a strong personal philosophy consisting of core values that make their decisions easier, Davis said.

“Core values are the bedrock of who we are. If your first priority is family, that’s a value you take with you wherever you go. It makes you much more sensitive about workers with family issues. If we can bring more of who we are into our work and lives, we can play our roles with more meaning, and we’ll be able to connect with people.”

Davis also challenged audience members to wear “new lenses” when moving to a new job role or career. “You understand somebody in a whole new sense when you walk a mile in their shoes. It gives you the ability to understand life from another person’s perspective.”

Transitions come about in different ways, Davis said. Sometimes we realize on our own that it’s time let go and move on to something else. Other times, we get the feeling that “there must be something more than this.” In other instances, transitions are traumatically forced upon us, such as when we get fired.

Davis used his own life as an example of how career transitions can reveal a person’s true passion. After 25 years as a marketing professor, Davis decided to accept the position of deputy dean at the GSB. Ten years later, he opted to teach again. While clearing out his office, without realizing it, he got rid of all of his marketing books, unconsciously revealing to him that he was no longer interested in teaching marketing. At the same time, he kept all his books on leadership and organization, convincing him to teach courses in creative management.

“It was a huge realization,” he said. “The books talked to me. There’s a sense of giving up something to move on to the next period of life.” Davis said transitional periods are difficult, but present an ideal opportunity to get in touch with what is in our heart. “Becoming an ex is one of the toughest shifts in a person’s self identity. Work needs to be done on your existing state and your new state.”

Once that difficult work is done, we can become truly successful leaders, connect with people, and inspire them to follow our vision, he said.

—Mary Paleologos