What’s Behind Your High Bar

Ask for support, not for the bar to come down.

A new chair was asked to raise her department’s four-year graduation rate within two years. When she asked what resources or support would come with that goal, her dean told her he trusted her completely, and to flag anything she needed along the way.

That kind of answer can be read in more than one way. It might be a genuine vote of confidence. It might also mean that the dean doesn’t have a clear answer either, or that real support isn’t available yet. The two can sound almost identical in the moment, which makes it hard to know how to respond, or what to even ask for next.

Often, the goal itself is reasonable. What’s missing is the support that’s supposed to come along with it. Naming this directly turns a vague sense that something feels off into a specific, concrete ask. A request like “I need resources for X,” or “I need a regular check-in on Y,” is much easier to raise than a general feeling of unease, and it’s also much easier for a supervisor to respond to.

This week looks at what it means to work in an environment like this, how to tell where you stand, and how to sustain that relationship over time. The place to start is naming what each version of this environment actually looks like.

When the Bar Is High and Support Is Low

If you’re in an environment where expectations are high but there’s little to no support, you mostly have to figure out how to meet goals on your own. In our Advanced Supervision program, we cover this as the Burnout Zone, because meeting high standards consistently without backup wears people down over time.

Example: A new program coordinator was handed an ambitious enrollment target in her first semester, with almost no onboarding or clear sense of what success looked like week to week. She hit the number. She also spent that semester wondering if the job was sustainable.

When the Support Is There but the Bar Isn’t High

In environments with lots of support but low expectations, it’s hard to know whether you’re doing a great job or just getting by. Check-ins happen, and people are kind, but with goals that are easy to meet, you may not be advancing the work of the institution the way you want to.

Example: A new faculty member described her department as collegial but wasn’t sure whether the program was offering relevant courses for today’s students.

When Both Are High

In our Advanced Supervision program, we call this the Development Priority Zone. This means that development occurs; you can build skills and grow in your role over time, since the challenge is real, and you have the support needed to meet it.

Example: That same coordinator, one semester later, has the same ambitious target, but now with a mentor check-in every other week, she has a clear sense of what’s actually being measured, along with a supervisor who removes blockers instead of just tracking outcomes.

Think about your current role or a specific project you’re on, and place it in one of the three zones above: Where you land helps to shape what to ask for next. We’ll focus on that on Wednesday.