Every year the second years get one more taste of the realities of leading: not only do we nurture, create, and accomplish exciting things with our groups, but then we have to turn everything over to the next group of leaders.
It’s a bit of a catch-22 in some ways. As March and April go by, our focus as second years has shifted a bit away from Goizueta and into the next chapter of our lives – that of newly-minted MBAs. We’re looking for jobs, housing, scheduling moves around Atlanta and around the world, several our classmates are getting married, others are looking forward to being reunited full time with their families and children and loved ones, and there are celebrations upon celebrations around graduation and all these other life events. So it is a good time to turn over leadership to the first years (and one years who are about to arrive).
On the other side of things though, these groups that we have been leading (it’s the Honor Council for me and participation with this blog among other things) have taken on special importance and significance in our lives. They have been the groups through which we have been able to affect our community and our classmates, through which we have been able to achieve goals of ours, and from which we’ve gained incredible experience leading and learning from our peers.
Other positions (at other schools and organizations) I have held in the past never made quite a point regarding transition. I think there really are two strong forces at work at the end of a term – not wanting to give up something you have nurtured for so long, and the natural tendency to be excited and focus on the next thing and consequently lose touch with the daily impact of a group and position. Goizueta is set with a history that makes transition a necessary and somewhat formalized process: Leadership March.
We all know we’re going to be giving up these opportunities to serve our community so directly, but through the Leadership March process we’re also going to be handing over our accomplishments, goals, and learnings to a group of students who are just as passionate and who will benefit just as much from leading as we did. Spring semester in general tends to turn into a time of clarifying logistics, processes, and documenting the last year and our lessons so that the next round of leaders can spend time nurturing and creating rather than trying to figure out the last year and reinvent the wheel. Leading at Goizueta is an incredible experience, and because of traditions like Leadership March, we get a taste of the entire cycle of leadership from start to finish.
Read the full article: Leadership March