As Fall is fleeting, college and university trustees and senior leadership have that “A-ha!” moment. It is time to launch into a presidential or senior VP/Dean search. This factor becomes reality for you as a person who is either beginning to contemplate a move or is ready to move into a serious career change.
We at Archer-Martin Associates believe in taking some time to create the narrative and articulate the stories that differentiate you as the leader of choice in the searches you decide to enter.
There is a little book that was put together by the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2019 entitled, The Successful President of Tomorrow, the Five Skills Future Leaders will Need. In essence, what this booklet says is that there are five areas of expertise that you will need to succeed as a dean/ a president, or senior leader in any phase of your career—or life, for that matter. They are as follows:
1. Know your business;
2. Think creatively;
3. Possess the capacity to build trusting relationships;
4. Have the ability to communicate and listen effectively;
5. Possess the capability to motivate others to follow you, particularly in a crisis.
You will note from this list of capabilities that four of the five criteria are concerned with an understanding and high competency level of emotional and social intelligence quotients (EQ and SQ) Only one of the success criteria deals with having a knowledge of the higher education sector or any other industry you may be associated with. The irony in being able to differentiate yourself from other candidates in a pool of candidates is not solely to be able to articulate your knowledge-based capabilities, but rather to articulate and demonstrate your invisible strengths of leadership—the foundational skills of emotional and social intelligence.
The most important thing to understand is that all five skills are integral to each other and to your success as a leader. In short, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. We offer a few success stories from our coaching clients:
An accomplished member of a liberal arts faculty pulled together thirty five of her faculty colleagues to grapple with how to downsize the number of majors at her university. She picked the group thoughtfully. She gave them the power to design and execute the process and ultimately the power to make the recommendations, which were then passed to the provost.
A vice president of DEI at a relatively large university became the candidate of choice at an art school. She is an accomplished poet and was able to create a bridge between her art, the part of poetry, to the art of painting, sculpture, photography, etc., and became their president.
A new college president was approached by one of her trustees who said to her, “You have to make our football team not take a knee in protest during our national anthem.” The president responded, “The last time I looked, the U.S. constitution permits that action. I can’t rewrite the constitution.” What she did instead was create a new pathway of conversation, whereby the conservative trustees and alumni and the liberal faculty could step onto this new pathway together and create a common ground for conversation. Thereby she created a new sense of community and purpose at her institution. It is still a work in progress.
We are coaching a provost who is new to the role and still sharpening her EQ and SQ savvy. She is in the process of reorganizing her senior team and has embraced our advice to find, in one of her senior players, an new individual in whom she can entrust with EQ and SQ types of advice and responsibilities. Enhancing her own EQ and SQ is still a work in progress, as it is for all of us.
We recommend an interesting companion to both sharpening your own EQ and SQ—Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradberry, 2009—I have used some of the exercises in this little book to help my son sharpen his EQ and SQ capabilities. Here is a link for purchasing it on Amazon:
In closing, we ask that as you begin to build your narrative you consider telling the stories that highlight your EQ and SQ skills and to avoid focusing solely on your knowledge of the higher education sector.
Stay tuned to our next blog which highlights “The Dramatic Arc.”
Comments