Carla Harris, a senior client adviser at Morgan Stanley, eagerly shares lessons for success she’s learned in the business world from more than 35 years as an investment banker on Wall Street.
As an author and speaker, she has connected with readers and audiences in the United States and internationally. A recent effort brought her to Jacksonville.
Harris, who grew up in Jacksonville, promoted her new book during her visit Nov. 7-8.
She also raised money for Guardian Catholic School, which she attended in the 1970s when it was St. Pius V Catholic School.
The book, titled “Lead to Win: How to be a Powerful, Impactful, Influential Leader in Any Environment,” was published Sept. 13.
It targets skills needed to move from individual contributor to leader in the workplace. It includes advice on such topics as building trust, the value of diversity and creating other leaders.
Her guidance is frequently summarized in “pearls” and “gems” of wisdom she’s honed in her 37 years with Morgan Stanley. This includes observations like, “Every leadership vision, idea, and decision will impact others.”
It is her third book on workplace success, preceded by “Expect to Win: 10 Proven Strategies for Thriving in the Workplace” in 2009 and “Strategize to Win: The New Way to Start Out, Step Up, or Start Over in Your Career” in 2014.
Her target readers: “Anyone who aspires to be a leader,” Harris said in a Nov. 7 interview at Guardian in Jacksonville’s Brentwood neighborhood.
Today’s leaders cannot take the kind of “my way or the highway” approach that dominated the workplace in the 1980s and ’90s, Harris said. That environment doesn’t encourage collaboration or innovation.
“As a leader, I am one with the person I am working with,” she said.
“You don’t have a monopoly on intelligence, or creativity or innovation. And given how fast things are evolving, you should leave room for others to be contributors, especially when it comes to innovation. You don’t have to be the expert on everything.”
The world was a year and a half into the pandemic when Harris began writing “Lead to Win.” The phrase “the great resignation,” reflecting a trend in which dissatisfied employees voluntarily left their jobs, was by then part of the conversation.
In the book, she addresses what this can mean to business leaders.
“But I don’t call it the great resignation, I call it the great contemplation,” she said.
“It is up to leadership to provide a value proposition to answer the questions that became commonplace during the pandemic. ‘Why should I work for this company?’ It’s not just about money, titles, promotion and power.”
Millennials and Generation Z, who represent the future of a business, along with its creativity and diversity, “want a vibrant personal life,” Harris said. To keep talent, effective company leaders must consider employees’ overall needs.
Diversity “is what excellence looks like” to such employees, Harris said. “Their idea of success is multicultural.”
Her advice to a business leader: Embrace diversity.
“You need a lot of ideas. And perspectives. If you don’t start out with a lot of different people, it won’t happen. If all voices aren’t represented at the table, that won’t happen. We all reach for familiarity.”
There are other changes to consider as well, Harris said.
In the past, corporate leaders had three constituents to worry about: shareholders, customers and employees. Now there’s a fourth: community, influenced largely by social media.
That makes “community” global, she said. A company’s missteps can quickly damage a reputation or consumer loyalty, “and within seconds you can lose market cap or brand franchises.”
Born in Port Arthur, Texas, Harris moved with her family to Jacksonville when she was 8. She grew up in the Harborview neighborhood on the city’s Northside.
She attended St. Pius from the fourth to eighth grades. The school combined with Holy Rosary Catholic School in 2017 to become Guardian.
Harris had teachers early on who believed she showed leadership potential and shared that with her parents, she said.
Harris valued the encouragement.
“But my parents were big on the fact that I stay humble,” she said.
“My mother said, ‘You won’t always be in a leadership position,’” and reminded her as well to always treat everyone as an equal and with respect.
After graduating from St. Pius in 1976, Harris attended Bishop Kenny High School, then Harvard University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
She began working for Morgan Stanley in New York in mergers and acquisitions in 1987. She was vice chairman of wealth management from 2013 to 2021 and chair of the Morgan Stanley Foundation from 2005 to 2014.
She has been named to Fortune Magazine’s list of “The 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in Corporate America,” Fortune’s Most Influential List, American Banker’s Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance (2009, 2010, 2011) and Black Enterprise’s Top 75 Most Powerful Women in Business (2017), according to her website.
In August 2012, Harris was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council.
She is also a gospel singer. She has recorded four CDs and performed at such venues as the Apollo Theater and Carnegie Hall in New York.
Harris has maintained her Jacksonville ties and an appreciation for her education here.
“I am a product of St. Pius V, which was a great foundation for Bishop Kenny,” she said.
That appreciation has been returned. The Carla Harris Performing Arts Center at Bishop Kenny, completed in 2012, was named in her honor because of her commitment to the school, which includes a scholarship fund Harris created about 25 years ago, said Sheila Marovich, Bishop Kenny’s director of advancement.
Harris was keynote speaker Nov. 8 at the Florida Blue Conference Center on Deerwood Campus Parkway for an event promoting her latest book and raising money for Guardian’s scholarship program.
Nearly $1 million was raised for the school, said Lisa Luther, director of communications at Ruckus marketing and advertising agency in Jacksonville.
