Editorial articles surfaced in the My Path experience.
Most leaders in higher education don’t avoid hard conversations because they lack courage. They avoid them because they lack a script. When you don’t know how the conversation will start, where it needs to go, or how you’ll handle the moment it goes sideways, delay feels like wisdom. It isn’t.
Here’s a pattern we see regularly at Academic Impressions: higher education leaders who manage the academic year with extraordinary drive and discipline, who then spend June doing the same thing, just with different tasks. The calendar clears, but the pace doesn’t.
We understand the pull. Planning feels responsible, while rest feels indulgent. And in a sector that has been navigating sustained institutional pressure, compressing your recovery window might even feel like the right call.
Most leaders begin fall planning by asking some version of the question: What are we trying to accomplish?
It’s the right question. But there’s a second question that most planning conversations skip entirely: Why might this fail?
The Pre-Mortem is a change management tool built around that second question. Rather than evaluating risks abstractly, it asks you to project forward in time: Imagine it’s June of next year, and the initiative you’re planning right now didn’t work. What happened?
June is a rare window.
The academic year has wound down. The next one hasn’t started pulling at you yet. It’s the one stretch where most higher education leaders have some version of breathing room, and the temptation is to fill it immediately with planning for fall.
Before you do, we want to offer a different first move: Figure out what you’re not taking with you.
If there’s one idea worth carrying out of the study of collaborative leadership, make it this:
Collaboration is not something that happens to a group. It’s something a leader builds for a group.
Effective collaboration requires you to engineer the experience—to design the environment so that participants understand when and how to contribute, and so that the work can move forward even when things get tense or messy. That involves a lot of moving pieces: process flows, communication channels, and meeting design. It can feel like a lot to take on all at once.
Most of us default to building or relying on teams where we know people will get along. It’s comfortable. It’s manageable. But “manageable” and “high-performing” aren’t the same thing, and the gap between them often comes down to one thing: perspective diversity.
At the start of a new year, it’s tempting to imagine a completely new version of ourselves: a leader who is calmer, clearer, more strategic, more measured. But leadership never changes through sweeping reinvention. It shifts through intention, by choosing a direction and taking one grounded step at a time. The year ahead isn’t asking you to become someone else—It’s inviting you to become a more deliberate version of who you already are.
Find a better way to build momentum in the new year. Practice Every January brings the same quiet pressure: This year will be different. Leaders from all levels set ambitious resolutions—rewriting processes, rebuilding teams, reclaiming time, recommitting to their own growth. But by February, the urgency fades. Not because people aren’t committed, but because resolutions rely on willpower, not infrastructure. Sweeping changes fueled solely on willpower rarely stick. What does stick are micro-habits—small, repeatable practices that compound over time. The leaders who thrive aren’t the ones who overhaul everything on January 1; they’re the ones who build systems that make the right behaviors easier every day. Sustainable leadership growth comes from: Tiny shifts that reduce friction. Practices you can return to even in crisis. Behaviors reinforced through reflection and community. Clear structure that makes consistency possible. This is a marathon, not a sprint. And the leaders who keep going aren’t powered by motivation; they’re powered by design. So, where do you begin? Start smaller than you think you should. If a habit feels almost embarrassingly easy, you’re on the right track. Instead of “I will be more reflective,” try writing one sentence at the end of the day about what […]
From leadership values to daily practice. 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?” This shift from identity labels to actionable practices is powerful because it makes leadership development tangible and sustainable. So Why Does This Practice-Based Approach Work? Here’s why it works: It offers consistency over intensity. Small, repeated actions build neural pathways and authentic habits. When you practice listening fully in every meeting rather than trying to overhaul your entire communication style, you’re building genuine capability that becomes second nature. It grounds values in reality. Values like “collaboration” and “integrity” can feel vague until you translate them into specific behaviors. “I practice collaboration by asking one clarifying question before sharing my perspective” gives you something concrete to work with. It allows for immediate feedback and adjustment. You can assess whether a small practice is working within days or weeks, not months. This creates a […]
A simple way to stay present when it matters most. 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: Asking a neutral question: “Can you say more about what you’re seeing?” Reflecting emotion: “I can hear that this matters.” […]
