Practice The task of understanding and shaping your leadership identity can seem daunting, especially if you try to approach it all at once. But if you shape yourself to be a leader based on small actions, you can transform your leadership philosophy from abstract concepts into lived practice. Rather than declaring, “I’m strategic,” you’ll ask, “What strategic behaviors can I practice today?” So Why Does This Practice-Based Approach Work? This shift from identity labels to actionable practices is powerful because it makes leadership development tangible and sustainable. Here’s why it works: Try This As you move through the week, take some time to identify a value you want to build. For instance, you may highly value kindness in your work and personal relationships. So instead of just saying, “I want to be kind,” identify one or two actions that demonstrate kindness. For inspiration, you can look to the actions of others you consider to be kind. Write down those actions and try to practice them once or twice this week. Note: We can’t stress enough that you should limit yourself to trying only one new practice this week. If you try to add in four or five new habits, for instance, you’ll probably forget to do them and end up feeling guilty. Building new habits requires consistency and success, so you should keep your new practices to a level that’s manageable with your work. For example, one action you might try is to […]
Practice Leadership rarely shows up when you’re calm, prepared, and ready to say the right thing. It shows up mid-sentence—in the meeting that’s running long. In the comment that lands harder than expected. In the moment you feel your shoulders tense and your mind rush to fix, defend, or move on. Before you’ve had time to think, your body has already decided how to respond. And left unchecked, those reflexes—however well-intentioned—often drive the moment more than your values do. That’s why some of the most meaningful leadership doesn’t look bold or decisive. It looks like a pause. Just enough space to choose how you want to show up. It’s fine if you feel as if you can’t respond immediately. This is where a grounding breath can be beneficial. Before you respond, take one full breath—a grounding breath. This will help you to bring your focus to the present moment and stop you from responding from a place of stress or habit . After that breath, your next move might look like: If you catch the moment at all, that counts. We’ll explore how to build upon this moment throughout this week’s editions. Reflection: Two Minutes to Learn from a Tense Moment In Monday’s edition, you practiced noticing and acting on a small leadership moment—the instant that tension rose, a disagreement surfaced, or your body signaled, “Uh oh.” Today, you’ll use that moment as data. Today, take two minutes and replay that moment you caught […]
At many institutions, the strategic plan is technically sound—and practically outpaced. Assumptions shift. Conditions change. New pressures emerge that weren’t on the radar when the plan was drafted. Leaders are left trying to honor a document built for stability in a reality defined by constant adjustment. Over the last two newsletters, we explored how leaders can expand their thinking in uncertain moments and how psychological safety and decision clarity create the conditions for better decisions. The final question is the hardest one: How do we make this way of leading sustainable—when uncertainty isn’t a phase, but the context? Strategy as an Ongoing Leadership Practice In a world of constant change, strategy can no longer be something that occurs in a periodic document. It has to become an ongoing practice—one that emphasizes learning, adjustment, and recalibration. That includes: Institutions that adapt well don’t abandon strategic intent. They pair it with continuous learning. This is the both/and work at the institutional level: Developing Leaders While Doing the Work When planning becomes an ongoing practice, something else shifts too: Leadership development stops being separate from institutional work. Leaders build capacity by: Instead of asking leaders to predict the future, institutions help them to get better at thinking strategically as the future unfolds. The goal isn’t a perfect plan. It’s leaders who can keep thinking clearly when conditions shift. Reflection: Are We […]
You’ve probably been in this meeting: The stakes are high. A decision needs to be made. You ask for input and a few voices respond quickly while others stay quiet. The conversation moves forward, but later you hear what people really thought in the hallway, by email—or, worse, not at all. Last time, we explored why leading through uncertainty requires moving beyond false choices and learning to think in “both/and” terms. But mindset alone isn’t enough. Even the most expansive thinking depends on the conditions around it. When people aren’t sure it’s safe—or useful—to speak honestly, both/and thinking gives way to caution, politics, or quiet disengagement. And that doesn’t happen because leaders don’t care. It happens because experience teaches people what’s rewarded, what’s risky, and when it’s better to stay silent. Psychological Safety Is a Performance Issue As Amit Mrig writes in his latest article, psychological safety isn’t about comfort or consensus. It’s about whether people believe their ideas will be genuinely considered—especially when there’s disagreement. In moments of tension, leader behavior matters more than leader intent. How you respond when challenged, interrupted, or pressed for time shapes who speaks next—and who decides it’s safer to stay silent. Institutions that fail to cultivate psychological safety don’t just lose trust. They lose insight—often precisely when they need it most. From Consensus to Clarity Higher education often defaults to consensus-based decision-making. Sometimes this reflects shared governance norms. Sometimes it’s an attempt to avoid […]
In the first two newsletters, we focused on accountability at the individual and conversational levels—how leaders model clarity and follow-through, and how alignment-focused conversations help to repair accountability when things slip. However, accountability doesn’t become durable until it moves beyond any one leader or conversation. It becomes sustainable when it’s embedded in how a team works together. Accountability at the Cultural Level At the team level, accountability isn’t enforced—it’s reinforced. High-performing teams pair high accountability with high psychological safety. People are clear about expectations and confident that they can ask questions, raise concerns, and admit when something isn’t working without fear of embarrassment or blame. In these environments, accountability shows up as shared ownership rather than individual pressure. Team members don’t just wait to be held accountable. They step forward because expectations are visible, norms are consistent, and trust is intact. What Reinforces Accountability on Teams Several conditions make accountability cultural instead of fragile: People feel safe naming confusion, capacity limits, or missed expectations early—before small gaps become big problems. Accountability isn’t just vertical (leader to employee), it’s lateral. Team members hold commitments collectively, not silently. As teams grow, they rely less on reminders and more on shared norms: “This is how we work here.” This is often the missing piece. Why Recognition Matters More Than We […]
Leadership in higher education rarely presents clean choices. Too often, it asks you to protect multiple values at once—access and excellence, speed and shared governance, and innovation and tradition. When resources feel tight and expectations keep rising, those tensions can start to feel like forced tradeoffs. Over time, it becomes easy to assume that moving one priority forward means another must fall behind. But as Academic Impressions CEO Amit Mrig explores in his latest article, this kind of zero-sum thinking, while understandable, is not helpful for solving the most important problems. When decisions feel binary, leaders often feel cornered into choosing between values they care deeply about. They become too locked into the defense of their territory instead of working to solve a shared issue. “Both/and” thinking, on the other hand, offers a different starting point. It doesn’t avoid responsibility or delay decisions—instead, it expands the thinking before narrowing the choice. It asks leaders to hold tension long enough to see more of the system—and more possible paths forward. Think of it as a design mindset applied to leadership: A helpful reframe: If the choice feels binary, you’re probably too early in the thinking process. Reflection: Notice the False Binary Either on your own or with Sophia in the My Path section of your account, take two minutes to reflect: Remember: Slowing down the thinking doesn’t mean slowing down the decision. It means improving the quality […]
Internal coaching is the practice of stepping into a curious, supportive observer role with yourself—essentially, becoming your own coach rather than your own critic. At its core, it’s about developing the ability to pause and ask yourself the kinds of thoughtful, non-judgmental questions that a skilled coach would ask. Instead of getting caught in reactive thinking or harsh self-criticism, you learn to create internal space for reflection and growth. Here’s one way to practice building your internal coach: Structured self-inquiry: You develop a toolkit of questions and frameworks to guide yourself through challenges—like the “What am I avoiding?” question, or like using your Five Paths profile to understand your reactions and choose different approaches. The goal isn’t to replace external coaching or support, but to develop the capacity to guide yourself through day-to-day challenges and growth opportunities with the same wisdom and care you’d offer someone you’re mentoring. And as you develop your internal coach, you’ll naturally become better at coaching and developing others too—a core leadership skill. Start by Asking Here’s one simple practice you can start today: The “What would I tell a colleague?” Technique When you’re facing a challenge or feeling stuck, pause and ask yourself: “If a colleague came to me with this exact situation, what would I tell them?” This works because it instantly creates psychological distance—you shift from being inside the problem to […]
In the last newsletter, we explored how accountability starts with clarity, ownership, and follow-through, as well as how leaders model those elements through their own habits. But even with the best intentions and clear expectations, follow-through doesn’t always happen. And when that occurs, many leaders feel a familiar tension: Do I push harder? Let it slide? Risk damaging trust by naming it? This is where accountability often goes off the rails—not because leaders don’t care, but because the conversation itself feels fraught. Accountability Conversations Aren’t About Blame Effective accountability conversations are not about catching mistakes or assigning fault. They’re about restoring alignment. When follow-through breaks down, skilled supervisors respond with curiosity and structure, not accusation. They treat the moment as a signal that something in the system needs attention, whether that’s clarity, capacity, priorities, or support. The goal isn’t to prove someone wrong. It’s to get back into shared understanding. A Simple Structure for Accountability Conversations Productive accountability conversations often follow a predictable—and surprisingly human—pattern: Name what you’re seeing, not what you’re assuming. “We had agreed the draft would be ready by Friday, and it’s now Wednesday.” Invite context instead of filling in the gaps yourself. “Can you help me understand what got in the way?” Revisit ownership, timelines, and what “done” actually means. “What’s realistic […]
A common and frustrating experience in higher education is that of feeling like you have leadership capacity but finding yourself constrained by existing formal structures and hierarchies. You may serve on committees, lead initiatives in your department, or teach students, but it can be hard to see yourself as a leader without that actual title. Here’s a reframe that might help: Leadership isn’t actually about the title or formal authority—it’s about influence, vision, and the ability to create positive change. Some of the most impactful leaders we know at Academic Impressions operate without formal power, and that constraint actually makes their leadership more skillful, not less. So what are some ways to build your leadership mindset even if you aren’t in a formal leadership role? Influence without authority: Look for opportunities to lead through expertise, relationship building, and problem solving. This might mean becoming the person others turn to for guidance on specific issues, initiating cross-departmental collaborations, or being the voice that asks the questions everyone else is thinking but not saying. Create your own leadership laboratory: Since formal advancement isn’t available, you can design your own leadership development. Take on projects that stretch you, volunteer for initiatives that align with your values, or propose solutions to problems that you see. The goal isn’t the committee itself—it’s using these spaces to practice strategic thinking, communication, and influence. Develop your leadership identity internally: Start thinking […]
Often, during times of change, we rely on resilience to help us navigate stress and bounce back. But resilience isn’t just valuable during transitions. What if you’re feeling stuck in your role, or stagnant? When you’re feeling stuck, resilience becomes the foundation for creating movement and possibility. Here’s how it works differently in these situations: Breaking invisible barriers: Often when we feel stuck, we’re operating within self-imposed limitations or patterns we can’t quite see. Resilience work helps to make these invisible constraints visible—maybe you’re avoiding certain conversations, staying in your comfort zone, or unconsciously sabotaging opportunities. Once you can see these patterns, you can start dismantling them. Finding energy for risk-taking: Feeling stuck often means we’ve become risk-averse, choosing the familiar discomfort over the uncertain change. Resilience gives you the emotional reserves to take calculated risks—to apply for that role, have that difficult conversation, or try that new approach—because you trust your ability to handle whatever outcome emerges. Reframing “stuck” as “preparing”: Sometimes what feels like stagnation is actually a necessary pause before growth. Resilience helps you to distinguish between productive reflection and unproductive rumination and gives you the tools to use those quiet periods for building capacity instead of just enduring them. Advocating for yourself in static situations: Even when external circumstances aren’t changing, resilience empowers you to advocate for yourself within existing structures—in negotiating responsibilities, setting boundaries, or creating micro-changes that accumulate into meaningful shifts. The key insight here is that resilience transforms your relationship with […]
