Preface
LEADERSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Practices That Make a Difference is about how people on college and university campuses mobilize others to want to struggle for shared aspirations and make extraordinary things happen. It’s about the behaviors that leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, segments into solidarity, and risks into rewards. It’s about exercising leadership that creates the climate in which people work together to turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes.
College and university leaders can and do make a difference in the strength of their institutions. Many, in fact, assert that leadership, more than any other single factor, will determine the future vitality of higher education.1 Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, notes that “cruise-control leadership is no longer an option” and that a balance is needed between knee-jerk reactions to the latest trend and flat-footed reluctance to go after real opportunities.2 Not only are there no shortages of challenges facing people involved in institutions of higher education but the opportunities for providing leadership within them are also available to everyone, every day.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK?
The fundamental purpose of this book is to assist people throughout the higher-education community in leading others to places they have never been before. Leadership matters whether you are a faculty member, department chair, program director, dean, vice president, or president. Likewise, leadership matters for the staff and managers of residential life, career development, student records, admissions, campus safety, information technology, library, counseling and health centers, facilities, alumni relations, development, and all other organizations on campus. We have written this book to help individuals—no matter what their position—strengthen their capacity to make extraordinary things happen. We have also written it to uplift your spirits. We have learned from our research that people in institutions of higher education are capable of developing themselves as leaders and exercising leadership far more than tradition has ever assumed possible.
This book is not about the institution or business of higher education at a macro level or about being in a leadership position—as if leadership were a place. It is about having the courage and spirit to make a significant difference from wherever you are within a college or university. This book is also not about leaders per se. Instead it is about the practices, behaviors, and actions associated with leadership and how people in higher education exercise them when making a difference.
In this book we present stories of real people from all across college campuses and university settings who achieved bigger-than-life results at their institutions. Through an analysis of their experiences, we offer practical guidance for enhancing your leadership capabilities. As you will see from the scores of examples, the principles apply regardless of the nature of your institution (e.g., public or private, secular or nonsecular, small or large, urban or rural, two-year or four-year), and they are not dependent on any particular demographic characteristic (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, function, nationality) or personality variable. The focus is on the behaviors and actions of what people in higher education do when they are exercising exemplary leadership.
RESEARCH-BASED PRACTICES
Leadership in Higher Education is written to enhance your abilities, and the principles and practices described in it are based solidly on quantitative and qualitative research. The book has its origins in a study we began in 1983. We wanted to know what people did when they were at their “personal best” in leading others. These were experiences in which people, per their own perceptions, set their individual leadership standards of excellence. We started with an assumption that to discover best practices we didn’t have to interview and survey star performers, select celebrities in academe, or people “at the top.” Instead we assumed that by asking people at all levels and across a broad array of organizational settings to describe extraordinary experiences, we would be able to find and identify patterns of success. And we surely did.
The results of our initial investigation—and of the ongoing research we have conducted for nearly four decades—have been striking in their consistency and are a refutation of many leader stereotypes.3 People frequently assume, for example, that leadership is different from one institution to the next. Nothing could be further from the truth. While each campus may look different from the outside, we find that what leaders do when they are at their best is quite similar. This pattern of behavior varies little across higher-education settings and circumstances. In the appendix we describe more fully the research basis for this book, involving a database of over 125,000 respondents and more than 100 interviews and case studies. True enough, the context keeps evolving, and the landscape of higher education has shifted over time, but leadership remains an understandable and generalizable process. Leadership is not a fad. While each leader is a unique individual, there are shared patterns to the practice of leadership.
A GUIDEBOOK ON LEADERSHIP
Think of Leadership in Higher Education as a guidebook to take along on your leadership journey. We have designed it to describe what leaders do, explain the fundamental principles that support these leadership practices, and provide actual case examples of real people on college and university campuses who demonstrate each practice. Based on the real-world experiences of thousands of people who have answered the call for leadership, we offer specific recommendations on what you can do to make these practices your own and to continue your development as a leader.
Chapter 1 introduces you to our point of view about leadership and briefly describes The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership revealed in our research. In it we also describe the characteristics that people most desire in their leaders. We present the foundation on which all great leadership is built. We tell the leadership story from the inside and move outward, describing leadership first as a personal journey of exploration and then as a mobilization of others. Our research has shown that leadership is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. It is a process people use when they are bringing forth the best from themselves and others. Liberate the leader in everyone, and extraordinary things happen.
In chapters 2 through 6, we explore The Five Practices, one to a chapter. The discussions are built on the results of our research, and we expand your understanding of leadership by drawing on studies of other scholars. We do not summarize the literature or all the various conceptual perspectives on leadership; instead we provide a particular point of view on leading that is empirically sound and practically valuable. We illustrate each practice with case examples, recommend actions you can take to put the practice to use, and pose questions for you to reflect on in developing your leadership capabilities. There is no sacred sequence to these chapters. We suggest that you read chapter 1 and then go wherever your interests are. Please remember though that all of these practices are essential. While you might skip around in this book, you can’t skip any of the fundamentals of leadership.
In chapter 7 we discuss how leadership is a learnable set of practices, accessible to anyone. We show that leadership is every-one’s business and that the first place to look for leadership is within yourself. In so doing we hope to demystify leadership and show how everyone has the capacity to lead. We discuss as well the contrasts and contradictions of leadership—no one ever said it would be easy—and how you will need to strike a balance. Finally, we offer guidance on how you can continue your growth and development, and we reveal a secret to achieving success in life.
A core theme that weaves its way through all the chapters is that leadership is a relationship. Whether it’s one-to-one or one-to-many, leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. Young or old, faculty or staff, manager or individual contributor, experienced or novice—success in leadership and success in life will continue to be a function of how well we work and get along with one another.
If you want to know more about how we conducted our research for this book, you’ll find detailed information on the methodology, statistical data, and highlights of validation studies by other scholars on our website: leadershipchallenge.com. Those interested in a more thorough treatment of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership model and its application across a wide variety of organizational settings should read The Leadership Challenge.4
THE FUTURE OF LEADERSHIP
The domain of leaders is the future. We hope this book contributes to the ongoing revitalization of higher education, to the renewal of healthy college communities, and to greater respect and understanding among people of all traditions. We also fervently hope that it enriches your life and the lives of your students, colleagues, alumni, friends, and family. The most significant contribution leaders make is to the long-term development of people and institutions so that they can adapt, prosper, and grow.
Leadership matters not just within your university and your career. It’s essential in every sector, in every community, and in every country. Right now we need more leaders, and we need them more than ever. There is so much extraordinary work to be done. We need leaders who can unite us and ignite us.
In the end we realize that leadership development is ultimately self-development. Meeting the leadership challenge is a personal—and a daily—challenge for everyone.
James M. Kouzes
Barry Z. Posner
September 2019