New Leaves

My husband and I have always had a daily work routine. After I finished work, I would call him and we’d chat about the day’s events on my drive home. Several years ago, during our daily chat, my husband told me he had news to share.

“Sad news, Nance. Yang is leaving” he said. “Yang, your boss Yang?” I replied. “Yes, he was recruited by Apple and he’ll be leaving the company in two weeks”.

My husband doesn’t often talk about people he works with and especially not his supervisor, however Yang was the exception. My husband admired Yang and enjoyed working with him. Later that evening, I asked my husband what made Yang such a great person to work for. His first response was “everything”. But after a while he shared what made working for Yang so great.

Yang was extremely intelligent, yet humble. He was able to take complex issues and break things down into manageable parts. Yang valued his team and did so by valuing their indivuality. He didn’t expect everyone to be the same or do things in the same way. Working with him felt like a partnership in which all ideas were considered. Yang was firm, but fair. He could be counted on to do the right thing, even when it was hard to do.

After I listened to my husband share about Yang, I realized that Yang was the kind of boss/supervisor/person I wanted to be. I began to look at situations and think to myself, “What would Yang do?” and “How would Yang handle this situation?” Yang became the role model and mentor I’d never met. I learned to not make quick decsions, and would take a deep breath and assess the situation in a calm, cool, “Yang” way.

Yang and his way of doing things guided me through many challenging times during my career. I can’t say my emotions never got the best of me, but I was successful at doing the right thing, even when it was hard to do.

Before I left my last job, I struggled to make a choice to leave or not. I felt several emotions and I couldn’t seem to put them aside to make a decsion. Then one day my husband gave a gift. He told me to open it at work. I opened the gift and made my decision to leave soon thereafter. I simply asked myself one simple question…