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Leadership Insights
There’s a belief quietly circulating among higher ed leaders that goes something like this: If I can’t offer my people a promotion, there’s not much point in having a development conversation.
It’s understandable. Institutional budgets are tighter. Headcount is flat or shrinking. Traditional advancement pathways that used to give these conversations a clear destination have narrowed or disappeared entirely. If growth means moving up—and moving up isn’t an option—why raise expectations you can’t meet?
Here’s the problem: That logic conflates two things that are genuinely different. Advancement is a change in position. Growth, on the other hand, is a change in capacity, contribution, and engagement. You can have one without the other, and your team members are already living proof of that—whether or not you’re having the conversation with them about it. Our research finds that 88% of employees are motivated to pursue professional development simply to be better at their current jobs. Not to get promoted. And not to leave for somewhere else. But to do their work better and feel more capable doing it. That motivation is already there—the question is whether you’re meeting it or letting it go unaddressed until it turns into something else.
The Cost of Waiting
What happens when leaders don’t have growth conversations? The motivation doesn’t disappear—it redirects. People start looking for that sense of progress and investment somewhere else, often outside the institution.
The data on this is direct: 72% of higher ed staff say that increased access to professional development opportunities would make them more likely to stay. Not compensation. Not title changes. Development.
And yet 40% of unit heads report believing that there’s no need for professional development conversations because there’s no option for growth or upward mobility. That gap—between what employees say they need in order to stay, and what leaders believe is worth offering—is where a lot of preventable turnover quietly happens. The irony is that the leaders who feel most constrained by the lack of advancement options are often the ones whose teams most need to hear that growth is still possible, still valued, and still worth investing in.
What Growth Conversations Actually Are
A growth conversation isn’t a performance review. It isn’t a check-in about deliverables or a chance to deliver feedback. It’s a separate kind of meeting entirely, one that prioritizes engagement, development, and the longer arc of someone’s professional life.
The model we use at Academic Impressions for structuring these conversations has four phases: Start with You, Meaningfully Engage, Find Alignment, and Follow Through. We’ll spend more time this week on what those phases look like in practice. But the first move—the one that makes everything else possible—is simply deciding that the conversation is worth having, regardless of what you can or can’t offer at the end of it.
Your team isn’t waiting for a promotion to appear on the horizon. They’re waiting to find out whether you see them clearly enough to have the conversation at all.
Pause and Reflect
Think about the members of your team. When did you last have a conversation with each of them that was specifically about their growth? Not their performance, not a project, not logistics—but where they want to go and what they want to learn? If you can’t remember, that’s worth sitting with.
Pro Tip: Try this prompt in Sophia: “I want to prepare for a growth conversation with a team member. Help me think through what questions I should be asking and what I should be listening for.”
Join us July 28 to learn more about Career Growth Conversations, and come practice on October 7.
Lead from the Middle. Lead with Impact.
If you’re navigating the space between vision and execution, Academic Impressions’ Leading from the Middle workshop (September 21-22 | Boise State University) gives you the frameworks to do it well. Discover your leadership style through the Five Paths to Leadership® Self-Assessment, build your influence, and leave with a Personal Leadership Development Plan.