Category: Blog

Historically, the pathway to the presidency in higher education has been through traditional academic ranks — tenured faculty or department chairs becoming a dean, and then later a provost. But as Academic Impressions president Amit Mrig notes, “the competencies required to ascend the academic hierarchy don’t necessarily match those required to lead increasingly complex organizations in an increasingly competitive marketplace.” Rather than increase reliance on the private sector as a source for future leaders, institutions may do well to take a cue from the private sector’s approach to leadership development. To prepare for a globalized economy where talent, ideas, customers, suppliers, and financing will come from different markets around the world, the best-managed corporations like General Electric, IBM, and PepsiCo are intentionally requiring emerging leaders to manage major projects or even run entire divisions in different parts of the organization — units that may be far outside their discipline or home town. This strategy of building horizontal career ladders not only builds cross-boundary collaborations and global connections, but gives these future leaders a systemic view of the organization. Horizontal Career Moves Versatile leaders develop transferable problem-solving and diagnostic skills that allow them to assess the strategic — not just the technical — […]

Once you have identified the skills that are essential in tomorrow’s higher ed leaders, you will need ways to identify the staff within your institution who demonstrate those skills — these are the people whose leadership development you want to invest in, and whom you want to entrust with greater responsibilities and opportunities to contribute meaningfully to your institution’s success. Larry Goldstein and Pat Sanaghan offer the following tips to guide you in identifying emerging or potential leaders at your institution. Avoid Comfortable Cloning “We tend to hire and promote people who remind us of ourselves, who think like us. The courageous and effective act is to choose people who have different background, different perspective. You learn through diversity, not through looking at yourself in the mirror all the time.” Pat Sanaghan, The Sanaghan Group The practicing of replicating the demographics (in terms of race, gender, and socioeconomic background) and the leadership philosophy of current leaders can be referred to as “comfortable cloning.” It’s comfortable, but ultimately not as effective as establishing a more diverse talent bench. “We need to look instead to people who are very different from us,” Sanaghan advises, “who can provide new, unexpected solutions to adaptive challenges.” A […]

  NOTE: For an updated and much deeper look at new leadership skills in higher education, based on years of intensive research, read this complimentary paper from Academic Impressions and Pat Sanaghan. To define the leadership skill set needed to meet adaptive challenges, we turned to Larry Goldstein, president of Campus Strategies LLC, and Pat Sanaghan, president of The Sanaghan Group. Having consulted for decades with institutional leadership teams, Goldstein and Sanaghan are uniquely positioned to comment on what makes academic leaders effective. Here is their take on five critical leadership skills needed to meet today’s — and especially tomorrow’s — challenges. 1. Leaders Need to be Systemic Thinkers The critical initiatives that will move your institution forward — whether improving student retention, reducing your carbon footprint, or raising money from alumni — will involve and affect multiple divisions within your institution. This makes it especially critical that not only your institution’s president but leaders within each division are able to recognize the impact of a given issue or a given effort on financial, academic, and programmatic decisions across the institution. Amit Mrig, president of Academic Impressions, notes those institutions that are most successful in responding to these common challenges are those that approach them […]

Once you have clarity on the leadership skill sets your institution is seeking — and a commitment to look beyond the “usual suspects” when identifying future leaders — the next challenges involve offering meaningful opportunities for your institution’s “stylistic invisibles” to become visible and providing an intentional and deliberate process for developing your high-potentials as future leaders. There are three critical steps in achieving these aims: Create a robust peer network of emerging leaders within your institution Adopt a “proving ground” approach by engaging emerging leaders in the real work of the institution Incentivize and reward “deep mentoring” at all levels of your organization Several institutions have taken steps in this direction, but much of the most innovative and effective work on in-house leadership development over the past decade has been done outside the walls of higher education. The corporate sector, particularly, has become increasingly alert to its aging workforce and the threat that a leadership crisis presents to an organization’s profit and sustainability. For this reason, we reached out not only to one of the leading higher ed experts — Tamara Freeman, director of talent management and HR strategy for the University of Notre Dame — but also to Kimberly (Kim) Eberbach, vice president of […]

America’s higher education enterprise is facing multiple challenges — increasing demands from students and government; changing demographics; structural fiscal challenges; and technologies that are disrupting how information and education is delivered. Not to mention an aging workforce and an uneven track record for developing leaders. Without investing in identifying and developing the right talent at all levels of an institution, a college or university will be ill-prepared to thrive in an environment of increasingly complex and high-stakes challenges and rapid change. Let’s take a closer look at the challenges academic institutions face, and what’s needed to move forward. How Prepared Is Your Institution? In April 2010, Academic Impressions conducted a survey of senior and mid-level managers in higher education across an array of public and private institutions; 176 administrators responded to the survey. The findings emphasize the extent to which higher education is under-prepared for replacing a rapidly retiring leadership. Perhaps the starkest finding from our survey, 48 percent of respondents graded their institution with a C, D, or F letter grade when assessing the level of commitment they felt their institution has toward their development as a leader. We also asked respondents to identify ways that their institutions currently […]

A new report from the Pell Institute (pdf link) suggests that without more students from low-income and working-class families earning bachelor’s degrees, the United States will be unable to meet the Obama administration’s college-completion goal. As demand for college education rises among lower-income families amid a troubled economy, and as the pressure mounts on completion rates, more institutions are beginning to assess their strategies for recruiting and retaining first-gen students. We addressed the issue in Higher Ed Impact recently, interviewing Mary Ontiveros, Colorado State University’s vice president for diversity, who suggested four tips for boosting application rates for lower-income, first-gen students. This week, we turned to Thom Golden, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Vanderbilt University, for four additional tips — this time for boosting yield. What Keeps First-Gen Admits From Enrolling? When asked why first-generation admits opt not to enroll, Golden several barriers: Concerns over affordability Lack of clarity about financial aid (how it’s applied for and when; what the award amount means, etc.) Lack of clarity around aid eligibility The American Council of Education has released several studies indicating that over 1.8 million low-income and middle-income families who would have qualified for college aid failed to apply. Golden […]