Are You Being Launched or Just Leaving?
Thinking about making a career move?
Before you do, read this.
Zach Harter, Development Director at BlueSky Global Ministries, has navigated his share of career transitions, and his first question isn't about the next opportunity. It's about why you're leaving your current one.
In this edition of Landed Not Handed, he shares what separates a good transition from a reactive one, what hiring managers are actually looking for, and how to walk into your next role as someone who's been launched, not just left.
Read the full newsletter below:
What's the biggest thing you'd want someone to think about before making a move?
Know whether you're leaving something or being launched into something. There's a big difference between trying to escape a situation and feeling a genuine pull toward what's next.
I would always encourage people to be conscious of what is at the core of why they want to explore something new. And when in doubt, if the answer is I'm just trying to get out of something, explore what’s behind that before you take action. A mindset shift could keep you planted and blooming where you're planted.
In all of my transitions, I have felt this compelling draw toward the next thing. I never felt like I was trying to escape something. I always felt this pull toward a mission and a purpose that my unique contribution might be able to add value to.
And for leaders, the same question applies on the other side. Know whether you're leaking people versus launching them into the next thing that's best for the company and best for them. There's a huge difference between those two scenarios.
How do you actually know the difference in practice?
There are some signs. They might be relational. It could be a relationship that's ruptured, and the call might actually be to invest in that and see repair there, not to leave.
It might be about performance. Sit with that. Ask yourself, am I partnering with my leader to see success here, or am I trying to go solo? Because if it's more about me than about the mission, I might just find that waiting for me exactly wherever I go next if I'm not careful.
I'm a person of faith, and I believe strongly that a relationship with Jesus is the only way to navigate the woes of life. But whether you share that or not, every person needs consistent time set aside for reflection. You never know that you're going to need that rhythm to the extent that you do until you're faced with a hard choice. And then you're going to be so glad it's already there.
What's made the difference in the hires that actually worked?
Team chemistry. I've seen highly skilled people of high character come into a team and completely disrupt the chemistry norms that were already there. So we committed to setting up informal settings with top candidates after a job simulation, things like taking them to lunch, where the team is still in assessment mode, but it feels natural. The best hires we made, we made time for that. Did it push an interview back two weeks sometimes? Yes. Fight for it anyway.
Job simulation. Put the candidate in as realistic a situation as you can. I'll never forget one of my team members going through ours. She crushed it. The moment she joined, she immediately exceeded expectations. It helps candidates, too. I've had people opt out after a simulation and say this isn't for me, and it saved everyone a lot of trouble down the line. That's a win-win.
What does your ideal team player look like?
Lencioni hit the nail on the head. Hungry, humble, smart.
Hungry because they want to grow and are willing to be shaped by their experiences; because the skills you don't have, you do the hard work of acquiring.
Humble because you can quickly tell in a team setting who is out for themselves versus who is putting others or the team's results first.
Smart, because they have the baseline or foundational set of skills to be successful in that specific role within the first 6 months (e.g. problem solving, interpersonal skills).
Beyond that, someone who is mission-minded and someone willing and able to build healthy relationships.
What damages team culture?
Pride, fear, and selfishness being allowed to just get in the way. High-performing teams build antibodies against those things, where it's not just the leader having the hard conversations. The whole team is involved in calling attention to what doesn't belong. That happens through relationship. You don't get there without it.
What does a healthy working relationship actually look like?
Some of my most transformational moments happened in relationships with other people. Oftentimes, it was through the hardest ones, where how you're wired and how I'm wired seem like opposites, and you find a way for that to be complementary instead of always being sharp edges with each other. Relationships can be very sanctifying and refining. We can be sandpaper to each other's sharp edges.
Hard conversations where there's a lot of relational equity built between two people tend to win out in the long term. Being overly guarded for the sake of making accountability easier is a short-term play.
If someone only takes one thing from this conversation, what would you want it to be?
Is this about me, or is it about what I can contribute?
That question applies to both sides. If you're heading into an organization and your motivation is really about you, you're signing yourself up for a tough journey. And if you're the one hiring and you're choosing the candidate who feels easier to manage over the one who's genuinely the better fit, that's also about you. Both parties lose when that happens.
What skill will matter most in the next decade?
The ability to build relationships and the knowledge of how to invest in them in a virtual or hybrid environment. That's the problem to be solved. The minutes that would have turned into hours of bumping into people in an office just aren't there anymore.
One practical thing someone shared with me recently: turn off your self-view on video calls. Everyone else can still see you, but you stop seeing yourself in real time. We're not designed to see ourselves while we're supposed to be engaging with someone else. That one small thing transformed my experience of virtual meetings.
Pair that with critical problem-solving. AI can get you maybe 60% of the way down the road. But we need the other 40. Someone who can invest in healthy relationships and think through hard problems without handing them off to a tool, that's going to be critical for at least the next decade.
Thank you so much for sharing, Zach.
If you'd like to connect with Zach or learn more about his work, find him on LinkedIn here.