Standing in between one of America’s most strenuous leadership transitions, understanding how to grow through intellectual, diverse and political upheaval is necessary when becoming a leader.

Stressing critical thinking and life lessons, Provost Gayle Davis spoke at the Charles W. Loosemore Auditorium in the DeVos Center as part of the ongoing Grand Valley State University Wheelhouse Talk sessions.

Recognized as one of the “50 Most Influential Women in West Michigan” by the Grand Rapids Business Journal in 2006, Davis commemorated her final year as the provost and executive vice president for academic and student affairs at the Friday, Nov. 18 Wheelhouse session.

Davis used her personal leadership past and insights within the 15 years she worked with GVSU’s academic community to emphasize expanding interdisciplinary courses and reforming student advising to increase student retention.

As she approaches the end of her academic career, Davis said she is interested in looking back and reflecting how she got to this point in her career.

As an individual lives and learns, she said, their leadership style is formed from both self-awareness and the experiences they have faced.

“Leadership is largely a personal matter. It looks different on everybody,” she said. “It’s unique, even the best of leadership guidance cannot prepare you to be an effective leader if you do not couple those ideas with a fair amount of introspection.”

Influences are everywhere, she said, and effect if an individual becomes leaders and how they lead.

When Davis and her age group were in high school and/or college, including Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, she said a significant portion of the U.S.’s mainstream culture changed due to many social and intellectual movements.

Going beyond established values in the mainstream culture, Davis said movements like the civil rights movement, the second wave of the women’s rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war protests were just a few of the essential movements in her life.

Maria Beelen, a senior at GVSU in the Cook Leadership Academy at the Hauenstein Center, asked Davis about her work with the women’s movement and how she dealt with individuals who were against it.

“Where would you draw the line at just quitting and moving on to somewhere else to make everything easier – how do you work with that?” Beelen said.

There are ways, Davis said, to cross those lines in working with differences in matters of personal and political standpoints, while also learning to live with the opposition from others.

“My feeling is that success is the best revenge,” she said.

In regard to her position as provost at GVSU, Davis said it has been the biggest, most complex and intriguing position she has ever had.

“We know that Gayle has served this community, this university with great distinction and we are very proud of the leadership lessons she has learned,” said Gleaves Whitney, the director for GVSU’s Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies.

Working with the university community, she said, her leadership development never stopped and she continued to look within herself when judging how she can effectively lead her community.

“The aftermath of this presidential election and campaign season has called on all of us to intensify our search for positive ways forward,” she said. “The cultural changes I have mentioned here have suited me personally, really well, and I did not realize how I took them for granted until this election.

“The truth is that not all mainstream Americans were not happy with the social movements that began in the 50s to the 70s, but the influences of these changes continue to spread and influence our institutions up to present counter-movements.”

For more information about the Hauenstein Center and its events, visit www.hauensteincenter.org.