Make space for your team to lead. One reason followership may appear harder to leaders is the idea that followership often requires letting go of control. But let’s not mistake a desire for control for micromanagement. For many of us, our desire to maintain control comes from caring about outcomes rather than from wanting to make sure a process is followed exactly. And good followers focus on using their sphere of influence to advance their organization’s priorities, which gives them a sense of purpose. So why should you want to let go of direct control? Here are some of the reasons why relinquishing control to let your coworkers or employees lead can benefit your team: It Builds Team Capability: When you hold onto control, you become the bottleneck for your team or project’s growth. Letting go creates space for them to develop problem-solving skills and confidence they can’t build while you’re managing the outcomes. It Increases Innovation: Your team members often see solutions you can’t because they’re closer to the details or have different perspectives. Control limits access to these insights. It Creates Sustainable Success: If you’re the only one who can ensure quality outcomes, what happens when you’re not […]
Building a change system that thrives without you. As you start a change process and move through it, one key to success is to make sure that it’s sustainable, as most organizational transformations fail in the months and years that follow the launch, not right away. Sustainability helps you to avoid change fatigue, show real impact over time so you can prove the change is working, efficiently use your resources, and push through the natural resistance that comes with change. So what is the essential architecture of sustainable change? It’s not just about launching well but also about creating a dynamic system that can adapt while staying true to its core purpose. Intentional Design at the Start:It’s important to see the bigger picture as you start a change process, and the design phase needs to account for different learning speeds and styles. Some people (Critical Thinkers) need time to analyze and understand the rationale. Others (Relators) need space to process the emotional and relationship impacts. Warriors want clear timelines and milestones, while Visionaries need to see how this connects to a larger purpose. The key is to build that learning time into your timeline rather than treating it as a […]
The overlooked skill of followership. Many leaders in higher ed operate in the middle—in positions where they lead in some work and follow in other work. But both leadership and followership are great skills to build. Leadership is about taking responsibility for outcomes, setting direction, and creating conditions for others to succeed. It’s not just about formal authority—it’s about stepping forward when clarity, decision-making, or accountability is needed. Leaders identify what needs to happen, communicate vision, and take ownership of results. Followership is the active choice to support someone else’s leadership while contributing your expertise and perspective. Great followers aren’t passive. They’re engaged contributors who know when to step back and let others lead while still offering their skills and insights. They provide honest feedback, execute with excellence, and help the leader to succeed. The most effective teams have people who can fluidly move between both roles depending on the situation. You might lead the strategic planning meeting, for example, but follow when your team member with technical expertise guides the implementation discussion. When to Lead vs. When to Follow Leading is about creating the conditions for others to contribute, being unapologetic about setting the direction, and stepping up to […]
No trust, no change. Trust and ownership are the twin engines of successful change because they address the fundamental human dynamics that make or break transformation efforts. Trust creates psychological safety for risk-taking. Change inherently involves uncertainty and potential failure. Without trust in leadership, people default to self-protection—they comply minimally, withhold concerns, and avoid the creative problem-solving that change requires. When people trust you, they’re willing to be vulnerable about what isn’t working and contribute ideas that might seem “risky.” Ownership transforms resistance into investment. When people feel like change is being done to them, their natural response is to find reasons why it won’t work. But when they have genuine input into shaping the change—when their concerns are heard and their expertise is valued—they become co-creators rather than passive recipients. They start solving problems instead of just identifying them. Trust accelerates information flow. Change requires constant course correction based on real feedback from the ground level. If people don’t trust leadership, they’ll tell you what they think you want to hear rather than what’s actually happening. Trust creates the conditions where you truly receive honest, timely information about what’s working and what isn’t. Ownership sustains momentum through setbacks. Every […]
Stress changes how you communicate. Stress fundamentally changes communication by triggering our shadow behaviors—the overuse or unconscious application of our natural strengths. This is important to realize, as under pressure, we tend to double down on what feels familiar rather than adapting to what the situation actually needs. More generally, stress makes us more reactive and less reflective. Our listening tends to decrease while our need to be heard increases. We also may lose access or have to try harder to access our more balanced, adaptive responses. Sometimes we default to the strongest of our Five Paths styles under stress, changing how others perceive our responses. We can also lose our ability to read others’ needs and adjust how we respond. Members must be logged in to view this content.
Transformation begins with the leader. No matter what our role is, we all lead or participate in change in some form. Especially as higher education confronts today’s rapidly changing environment, we must be prepared as leaders to move into the future and work toward greater impact. But why is it so hard to lead change? One fundamental thing about change leadership is that technical strategies fail without the human foundation. After all, transformation starts with people, not processes. Here’s why starting with yourself and human dynamics is essential: Change triggers natural resistance. When people encounter change, their first response is often denial or judgment—it’s neurological, not personal. And if you haven’t done your own internal work around the change, you’ll lack the emotional steadiness to guide others through their initial resistance. Your unprocessed anxiety or impatience will amplify their fear. Trust determines adoption speed. People don’t follow strategies; they follow leaders they trust. If you haven’t examined your own motivations, fears, and blind spots around the change, others will sense that uncertainty. They need to see that you’ve wrestled with the same concerns they have, and that you’ve emerged with genuine conviction. Systems are relationship networks. Every organization is really […]
Catch your habits before they derail your message. Having an awareness of your communication style is the foundation of adaptive leadership. When you understand your natural tendencies, you can make conscious choices about when to lean into them—and when to flex beyond them. Here’s why knowing your communication preferences matters: You can catch yourself before miscommunicating. When you recognize that your natural impulse is to cut to the chase, you can pause and ask: “Does this person need more context, connection, or processing time before I jump to the solution?” You understand your gaps in communication. Your natural tendency to lead on one or two of your Five Paths might cause you to rush past the relationship building that Relators need or the detailed analysis that Critical Thinkers require. You can leverage your authentic strengths. Knowing what they are helps you to recognize when to lean fully into your natural style rather than trying to be something you’re not. You avoid communication fatigue. When you’re constantly adapting without awareness, it’s exhausting. But when you understand your home base, you can make intentional choices about when and how to stretch, then return to your natural style to recharge. Members must be […]
Speak their language. Communication can be tricky. We all tend to communicate in a certain way, so we can think about our Five Paths style as a way to build our self-awareness about how we like to communicate with others. But to be an effective communicator, you need to be able to adapt to what others need from you. Understanding why we need to adapt our communication style is fundamental to leadership effectiveness. When we communicate in only our own natural style, we’re essentially asking others to translate our message through their own lens—which often leads to misunderstanding, frustration, or disengagement. Each Five Paths to Leadership® profile processes information differently and values different types of communication. When you adapt your communication style to match someone’s primary paths, several important things happen: You demonstrate respect for how they naturally process information, you increase the likelihood that your message will be received and understood as intended, and you build trust by showing that you’ve taken time to understand their perspective. Members must be logged in to view this content.
Your team studies what you respond to. Your team is studying your attention. Not your strategic plan. Not your leadership philosophy. Not your stated priorities. Your attention, which includes: What you respond to immediately. What you postpone. What you escalate. What you let breathe. In distracting environments, it’s easy to believe that focus is a personal productivity issue. But in the big picture, attention becomes cultural instruction. And culture follows what leaders amplify. If you respond instantly to every request, your team learns that: Speed equals commitment. Urgency equals importance. Noise equals priority. Over time, that modeling creates: Fragmented strategic work. Escalating internal pressure. A bias toward short-term relief over long-term impact. Institutions don’t drift into distraction accidentally. They inherit it. Focus, then, isn’t self-protection, it’s stewardship. And your attention is one of your institution’s most finite resources. A Practice That Restores the Signal: The “24/48-Hour” Test When something feels urgent, pause and ask: What specifically happens if this waits 24 hours? 48? Often, the real consequence is discomfort—not collapse. That distinction matters. And when you model it, your team learns to evaluate urgency instead of absorbing it. Members must be logged in to view this content.
Focus doesn’t happen by willpower. It happens by design. Once you begin distinguishing what’s truly urgent from what merely feels urgent, a new question emerges: If urgency isn’t running your week, what is? Most leaders try to answer that question with effort, with: More discipline. More responsiveness. More pushing through. But focus doesn’t happen through force. It happens through structure. In higher education, complexity isn’t optional. Meetings stack. Stakeholders overlap. New variables appear midweek. You can’t eliminate that reality. But you can design around it. Structure doesn’t remove pressure—it contains it. Here’s one practice that moves your week from reactive to intentional. Weekly Priority Mapping At the start of the week, spend 10–15 minutes sorting your work into three buckets: Must happen this week Should happen if possible Can wait if needed This isn’t about productivity. It’s about hierarchy. This way, when something unexpected surfaces—and it will—you already know what can flex. You’re adjusting from clarity, not renegotiating from stress. Members must be logged in to view this content.
