Leadership 101 - New College Presidents

A Question of Leadership – The Newly Hired College President

This topic has been floating around in my mind since my recent conversation with a college president.

He had been involved in a meeting with the college’s upper administration. The school was facing a complex problem, and he asked for advice or input from the executive committee – and no one said a word! Absolute silence answered his question. Soon afterwards the non-productive meeting broke up, and the president approached a personal friend on the committee. He asked, “Why was it so quiet – even you had nothing to say – and I do not believe that!” The response was “The provost said before the meeting to all participants that if anyone said anything they would lose their job!”

How had the situation gotten so bad? I believe it was a question of leadership.
The courting of a new college president is often a quite formal affair, but within that hiring structure exists the opportunity for much political infighting. The selection committee is immediately fragmented into factions representing one or more candidates, and it would not be surprising to see members of those factions offering advice to their personal choices.
If you are selected, these advisors may find it quite easy to transfer their loyalty and support to you. This is the beginning of your leadership development strategy.

You might want to read my post on MBWA at this point. By really meeting workers at the many levels of the organization hierarchy (helped by keeping lengthy and thorough notes on these meetings and discussions for recall later), you can begin to get a feel for the culture of your new domain. A small portion of each day must be dedicated to this MBWA activity.

Next, you must identify the members of your advisory teams, or committees. In my experience I have found there are two different kinds of teams. The first kind of team has informally assigned members. There is no special reason for their assignment – perhaps these were all that were available. The second team is comprised of proven thinkers and doers who themselves are flexible in their approach to solving problems, blue ribbon team members. Only a leader or a manager in charge can choose these committee members. The larger a company gets the more likely you are to find these kinds of people and the greater the necessity to identify them. Quite often these people are recognized as brainstormers, a trait not found in every person. Two brainstormers, working together, can produce ideas and plans neither was likely capable of providing alone. If you want to see something exciting, put three brainstormers together – it is sometimes impossible for anyone to get in a word edgewise.
So the immediate step for the new college president – to find capable advisors whom you can trust. The next post on this topic will discuss procedures to achieve the organization’s goals.
Dr LGG