Contact: Carl Smith

STARKVILLE, Miss.—A panel of Mississippi State leaders said recognizing opportunities when they come, ensuring the timing is right for a new role and continuously developing skill sets that stand out from the crowd have helped them climb the ladder of higher education and land the jobs they currently hold.

MSU faculty and staff gathered Thursday [April 7] for “Let’s Talk About That!,” a panel discussion featuring Shackouls Honors College Interim Dean Tommy Anderson; College of Architecture, Art and Design Dean Angi Bourgeois; MSU Online Executive Director Susan Seal; Provost and Executive Vice President David Shaw; and Vice President for Finance and Administration Don Zant. The MSU Human Resources Management-sponsored seminar series highlighted the path key university leaders have taken to the positions they currently hold.

Each participant said they had no specific plan to obtain careers in higher education after graduating high school, but different opportunities presented themselves along their professional journeys and led them to MSU. 

“Some people, when they’re 5 years old, they know they want to be a veterinarian. My career path was not like that at all. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to have an impact somewhere. I wanted to make a difference,” said Seal, who previously held key positions in an Atlanta, Georgia-based marketing firm before joining MSU in teaching, communication and management roles at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Extension Service and Center for Distance Learning. “My career path is kind of all over the place, but all of those things had transferrable skills to the next thing. All of those seemingly disconnected things came together and created this path.”

Zant, who obtained numerous accountancy certifications and served as a senior auditor at a private firm before joining Texas Tech University as assistant director of internal audit, said his move to the public sector was made because of a need to readjust his professional schedule. At the time, the new father spent many days traveling for his job, and he wanted a work-life balance that would allow him to be home more often with his family.

“I would be a partner at my firm right now, but I would not have gotten to see my children grow up or gotten to see my wife very often,” he said. “The moral of the story is sometimes you have to roll the dice and do something that you’re afraid of or maybe you’re not prepared for.”

Each panelist also stressed the importance of improving their departments through utilizing empathy with internal and external stakeholders and by focusing on key issues paramount to the organization’s mission statement instead of the minor problems that bog down progress.

“It really boils down to trust, respect and vision. If you have not established credibility and have not demonstrated integrity, it is difficult to do anything in a leadership position,” said Shaw, who said he would have returned to his family’s Oklahoma farm after earning his undergraduate degree if not for poor market conditions and advice to continue his education in graduate school. “If you have a trust deficit, you’re always going to be working from behind, and it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to get out of the negative and into the positive without establishing trust and respect.

“I had someone tell me this a long time ago: The ability to be a good leader is driven by the ability to separate the urgent from the important,” Shaw added. “That had such a profound impact on me because in every position I’ve had, and especially in this one, the urgent will eat me alive and is a great distraction from what’s really important for the institution.”

Organizers of the “Let’s Talk About That!” lecture series are expected to announce future events as they are scheduled.

For more information on the series, contact Brad Skelton at bskelton@hrm.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.