I’ve been thinking a lot about organizational culture and leadership lately. Maybe it’s because I am managing a team in my current professional role, and it’s my first time outside of leading laterally on some projects previously. It might also be because I’ve recently been serving as interim lead of a volunteer team at my local church. Perhaps, I’m reflecting on my experience transitioning between organizations: how the quality of leadership – high or low – has a direct effect on what it means to belong and find purpose at work. While I miss my direct teammates and some driven faculty colleagues from my nearly two years at UNC Chapel Hill, I am grateful for the team I am working with at NC State over the last six months and wanted to give a shoutout to them.

Fran has been a pleasure to work with, and has shown herself to be an excellently organized professional and very attentive to the details needed for her to serve others in her role. I have really benefited from and enjoyed how she collaborates with us so far, especially given she is as new to the organization as I am, having been hired just two weeks before I did. It has been really nice to have someone else who can relate and understand what it’s like to be new – we are often able to process and think through some of our onboarding and orientation in tandem. This is all particularly impressive taking into account that she just moved to the country just over a year ago. I love that I have the privilege to be a part of Fran’s relatively new experience in the country, given I myself have been through that transition before.

Bruce comes in as the institutional expert with 20+ years experience at the college (and 10 years at my unit), and yet somehow has still kept a keen ability to be clear and accessible to newcomers like Fran and myself. I am also inspired by his willingness to be open minded about new ideas and still remain curious though he is so knowledgable already. Bruce has been exceedingly generous with his time and insight to pour his wealth of historical context into me, especially the parts of the organization’s history that might not be easily understood just looking at it from my limited experience. If I am half as sharp, open minded and gracious when I get to where he is in his career and life, I will call that a win in my book! It was my pleasure to get him nominated for a college level Staff Award this year for his excellence in customer service (call me biased, but I think he should’ve won).

Susanna hired me and is who I report to currently. She will be exiting the one-year interim leadership role she had been this past year in my unit at the end of this month. While it will have been just 7 months working together, she has exhibited highly effective leadership and has made a very strong positive impression on me in this time period. She has continually put others above herself and displayed high empathy for everybody in the department she had been entrusted to lead. This can’t have been easy with multiple stakeholder groups (faculty, staff, students, college level leadership she reports to) – but it has shown how sacrificial she has been in her role to make everyone feel valued. I did not always see eye-to-eye with every instinct she had, but I was on board to try any idea she proposed because she had built trust in the day-to-day interactions and because she has faith in how I perform work and lead the team I’m entrusted with. She made sure my team and I had ample opportunity to speak into the search for her replacement, so that we could land on a leader that would be a good fit to work with. This showed that she cares about our long term wellbeing well beyond her own time working with us.

Not pictured here, I also wanted to give credit to my leader one level up, Deanna, who is the head of our college. Deanna has been exceedingly generous with her limited time, making herself accessible and approachable to any stakeholder who is a part of the college. I don’t take for granted that I’ve had the opportunity to have access to be listened to, despite being new at the organization at just over six months. It says more about her quality of leadership and the health of the organization, rather than my importance.