Author: Sarah Adams

How Leadership Actually Develops in Higher Ed

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab), Beth Rotach (opens in new tab)

Higher ed is full of people who never had to learn leadership before they were suddenly doing it. You became department chair because your scholarship was strong. You moved into a VP role because you understood the budget model better than anyone in the room. Then, almost overnight, you were responsible for leading people, and the skills that got you promoted were not the skills the job actually required. That gap is not a personal failing. It is a structural one. Higher education trains people deeply in their discipline and rarely in leading other people. The good news is that leadership is learnable, the same way any complex skill is: through a framework you can build on, and a method you can practice. A Framework That Scaffolds Leadership At Academic Impressions, we organize leadership into four levels, each one building on the one below it. Systems Mastery Teams Mastery Interpersonal Mastery Personal Mastery Personal mastery: self-awareness, knowing your strengths and gaps, and defining what leadership means to you. Interpersonal mastery: communication, collaboration, and working through conflict, the level most people picture when they hear the word “leadership.” Teams mastery: psychological safety and the kind of trust that makes a group […]

Fix the Meetings That Are Draining Your Team 

by Terry Coleman (opens in new tab), Sarah Adams, PhD (opens in new tab)

Sophia Meetings Resource – Intro Most leaders know which meetings aren’t working. There’s the standing weekly that could be an email, the decision-making session where nothing actually gets decided, and the all-hands where half the room has checked out before anyone even reaches the first agenda item. The problem isn’t that higher education leaders don’t care about running good meetings. It’s that there’s rarely time or space to step back and think critically about them. Poorly structured meetings don’t just waste time — they erode trust, fragment team culture, and signal to people that their time isn’t valued. In environments where faculty and staff are already stretched, that signal lands hard. This is a good use of Sophia. Watch the video below for more on how to log in and use Sophia. Sophia Meetings Resource – Prompts How the Activity Works Sophia is your AI leadership coach inside My Path. She’s built to think through real leadership challenges with you, not to offer generic advice — and meeting design is exactly the kind of applied, context-specific problem she handles well. Here’s how to approach it: 1 Identify your meeting pain point. Look at the categories below and pick the one […]

Summer Is a Gift. Don’t Let It Slip By.

by Corinne Nicolas, PhD, PCC (opens in new tab)

A Quick Activity to Make the Most of Your Summer as Faculty   You’ve made it to the end of the year, and you’ve earned the exhale. Take it.  But here’s the thing about summer: that open calendar can feel like freedom and then, quietly, like drift. The weeks blur, the to-do list grows, and by August the breathing room is gone.  A little planning now—not a lot, just enough—changes that. Not to pack summer full, but to make sure what matters to you actually happens.  That’s the idea behind this simple Summer Planning Activity. It takes about 30 minutes, and it’s designed to help you do three things: get concrete about your goals, take stock of where you are right now, and map out what it will actually take to close the gap.      Want to Go Deeper? Try These Prompts in Sophia  Sophia, Academic Impressions’ AI leadership coach, is a good thinking partner for the kind of reflection this activity asks for. Once you’ve worked through the document, consider bringing one or more of these prompts into a conversation with Sophia:  These prompts work best when you’re specific. The more context you give Sophia, the more useful the conversation will be. Sophia is a member-exclusive tool, so make sure you’re logged in to your Academic Impressions membership to access her through My Path.   […]

50 Conversations to Have with Sophia

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

Your AI Leadership Coach for Higher Education Sophia is designed to meet you where you are and support you through the complexity of leading in higher education, where all of us have more responsibility than authority. She works best when you’re specific.   The more honest you are with Sophia, the better she’ll be. Sophia does not store your responses. Nothing you share is logged, tracked, or traceable back to you. This is a completely confidential space. You can bring the real situation, not the polished version.  To access Sophia, log into your Academic Impressions membership, and go to My Path. To give you a way to start, here are 50 conversations you can start with Sophia. Feel free to modify these to suit your context. Navigating Difficult People & Relationships  Team Dynamics & Culture  Leading Change  Communication & Influence  Career Development & Self-Awareness  Managing Up & Sideways  Faculty Relations & Shared Governance  Personal Leadership & Well-Being  Strategy & Organizational Effectiveness      Sophia is at her best when you bring her the real situation. The more context you give, the more specific and useful her guidance will be.  How will you use Sophia today? Go to My Path to use one of these prompts or ask another question. Reach […]

Five Skills We Need to Be Teaching Leaders Now to Prepare for an Uncertain Future 

If the last five years in higher education have taught us anything, it’s that disruption is no longer episodic; it’s continuous. Financial pressure, demographic shifts, changing public expectations, advances in artificial intelligence, and growing questions about the value of higher education are no longer distant threats but daily leadership realities.  We cannot predict exactly what higher education will look like in five or ten years. But we can predict this: that change will be constant, that ambiguity will be the norm, and that leaders will be asked to make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information and competing interests.  That future offers profound implications for leadership development. If we continue to prepare leaders only for today’s higher education landscape, we will leave them underprepared to lead our institutions into the future.  The future demands leaders who can think strategically and expansively, who can engage in anticipatory thinking, and who can navigate complexity without defaulting to fear, rigidity, or zero-sum thinking. Following are five skills that leadership programs should be teaching now.  1. Design Thinking: Encouraging “Possibility” Thinking  Design thinking is, at its core, a disciplined approach to problem-solving that prioritizes curiosity, empathy, experimentation, and learning. It emphasizes divergent thinking, generating many possibilities, before moving into convergent thinking, where choices are narrowed and decisions are made.  The sequencing […]

Why Well-Intentioned Leadership Development Programs in Higher Ed Fall Short—And What to Do Instead 

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

Over the past two decades, I’ve had the privilege of designing and delivering more than 100 leadership development programs in higher education and supporting institutions as they launched dozens more.  These programs have ranged from single, cohort-based initiatives to multi-layered efforts designed to shape institutional culture over time. At Academic Impressions, we’ve worked with first-time department chairs as well as with presidents rebuilding senior cabinets. We’ve partnered with well-resourced research universities as well as with small and mid-sized institutions doing the best they can with very limited capacity.  The good news is that during this time, I’ve seen a growing recognition that leadership development is mission critical. More institutions are investing in helping leaders to build emotional intelligence, resolve conflict more productively, lead teams effectively, and navigate change with greater confidence. Many are also working intentionally to build pipelines for future leaders who will be ready when the moment calls.  And yet, because many institutions have limited experience designing leadership development programs, a predictable set of mistakes shows up again and again. Ironically, these missteps are usually rooted in good intentions—but they ultimately undermine the very outcomes these programs are meant to achieve.  Following are the five most common mistakes I see when institutions launch or attempt to sustain leadership programming.  1. Trying to Do Too Much  In an effort to be comprehensive, institutions often try to cover as much […]

Responding to Disruption Fatigue: Reaffirming Your Values and Purpose

by Sarah Adams, PhD (opens in new tab)

Higher ed leaders at all levels are experiencing an unprecedented amount of disruption right now: The day-to-day work in the classroom feels as if it’s under siege. The continued availability of funding for research and for students is uncertain at best. The very purpose of higher education seems to be on trial. You weathered the enormous disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that was different. As bad as it was, you were able to settle into a routine after several months of chaos. The current political disruption promises to continue to bring threats and changes to the higher ed and education sectors for years. Leaders are already exhausted, but the work of serving and educating students continues. So how do you manage the day-to-day reality of disruption fatigue?   What Is Disruption Fatigue? Higher ed leaders have long experienced burnout (see here, here, and here), so you might be thinking that disruption fatigue is just another flavor of the same problem. But it isn’t the same. It’s related to burnout and can contribute to burnout, but disruption fatigue is a disruption problem. While burnout results from things like sustained overwork and stress, disruption fatigue is a response to constant and […]

Responding to a Bad Employee Engagement Survey: A Call to Action for Higher Education Leaders 

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

Employee engagement surveys, if thoughtfully designed, are a powerful tool for understanding the lived experiences of faculty and staff. They can illuminate areas of strength and expose systemic issues that hinder inclusivity, belonging, and engagement. However, too often, leaders in higher education conduct these surveys infrequently, and when the results are less than favorable, they either bury the data or delegate the issue to a committee that produces little meaningful action. This approach not only wastes time and resources but also erodes trust and credibility. If your institution has received poor results from a climate survey, it’s time to take decisive action. But here’s the key: this isn’t a problem for senior leadership to solve alone. The best outcomes come from a dual approach—from transparent leadership from the top down, and from active engagement from the bottom up. Faculty and staff don’t just want to hear the results; they also want a role in shaping the response. When leaders both own the results publicly and empower their teams to develop solutions, they create a stronger, more engaged institution.   Own the Results The first step in responding to a bad climate survey is for leadership to create transparency by owning […]

Short on Time, Big on Impact: Leadership Development for Department Chairs

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

One of the biggest barriers we face in our work with institutions is the constant refrain that leaders don’t have time to do leadership development. We hear this about both faculty and staff leaders, but it’s most acute with Department Chairs. Even when institutions are willing to invest in providing leadership development to Chairs, they have a hard time getting them to participate.  Some institutions have resorted to paying stipends for Chairs to participate in professional development. I think paying people to do leadership training sends the wrong message and is ultimately ineffective at producing better leaders. To be an effective leader requires a commitment to ongoing learning, not a “check the box” approach.     So, What Can Institutions Do to Engage Chairs?  For starters, senior leaders like Provosts and Deans need to model the way. They need to signal their commitment by investing in their own leadership through ongoing professional development, participating in 360-degree feedback processes, and using leadership coaches. These signals aren’t just symbolic; they will yield an improved culture of leadership from the top down.  Academic Impressions’ research has found that when leaders model the way by investing in their own leadership and professional development, their direct […]

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