News

The Leadership Development Gap 

Higher education employees want more than ever. Institutions are delivering less than they think.   Something significant is happening in higher education, and it shows up clearly in the data.  For the seventh consecutive time, we surveyed nearly 2,000 higher education professionals, including faculty, staff, administrators, and senior leaders, on professional development, leadership, job satisfaction, and engagement.   Year after year, the findings tell a consistent story. This year, one chapter stands out: 84.9% of employees said they were at least moderately interested in additional leadership development, up from 75% in 2023. This ten-point swing in just two years reflects a meaningful shift in employee sentiment, one the sector would be wise to take seriously.    A Gap With Real Consequences  It would be easy to treat this as a satisfaction gap, a case of employees wanting more than institutions can realistically provide. But the data suggests something more consequential is at play.  In this year’s survey, we included a new question asking employees to rate their institution’s effectiveness at developing leaders. We expected it to correlate with satisfaction. But it does more than just that. The data found that effective leadership development didn’t just improve job satisfaction (r = .52, a positive relationship). It also reduced burnout (r = -.39, a […]

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)

50 Conversations to Have with Sophia — Preview 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. Chat with Sophia Feel free to modify these prompts to suit your context. Tap Copy on any prompt below, then paste it into Sophia to get started. 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 Navigating Difficult People & Relationships I have a tenured faculty member who openly undermines me in meetings — eye rolls, sighing, challenging my credibility in front of others. I’ve avoided […]

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 […]

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