Are you living your values?
Higher ed. leaders are likely to value lifelong learning, improvement, service and excellence. Many dedicate their lives to enhancing student learning, yet they don’t prioritize growth and improvement within their own departments, teams, or even themselves. How can this be?
It’s common for higher ed. leaders to spend most of their work hours attending meetings, putting out fires, and answering emails. When their work style is reactive instead of proactive, they have no time left for vision, strategy, and improvement. Their choices and behaviors don’t reflect their values, and they don’t even realize it! Some even believe there is no other way…
What higher ed. needs
Higher education needs transformational leaders! These leaders are highly proactive, strategic, and focused on improvement and human potential. Instead of avoiding change, their have the courage to see what needs to be improved within their departments. They create an inspiring vision of success and communicate it effectively. They build a culture of trust and innovation.
Transformational leaders are particularly attentive to their employees’ needs and strengths, and foster employee motivation, morale, engagement, and performance. While they show genuine caring and compassion, they also create a culture of accountability, ownership, and workplace autonomy. These leaders follow a core set of values, convictions, and ethical principles, and are not easily manipulated.
Common patterns
Clients who participate in my transformational leadership coaching program tell me about their situations and the challenges they face on their campuses. Their reality rarely resembles the description above. Typically, administrators shy away from change and improvement because they expect people to be resistant and uncollaborative. They are so busy just trying to get through the day that visions and strategic plans are created only to “check the box”, not to drive improvement.
Administrators often forget to prioritize employee motivation, morale, engagement and performance. Staff meetings and one-on-one meetings are solely informational and rarely used as opportunities to influence the culture or drive improvement. Low-performing employees are often ignored because keeping them accountable would take too much time and might not be effective.
In some departments, it is common practice to lack responsiveness and make excuses. Being busy is worn as a badge of honor and becomes a reason/excuse for letting other people down. Lack of ownership and responsibility can be found anywhere from a support staff always falling behind to a cabinet-level administrator who creates a bottleneck for everyone in their department.
Why are we allowing this? How can we talk so much about leadership while letting college leaders act as managers who don’t have time to lead?
Let’s raise the bar
The first step is to stop hiding behind the excuse of being too busy. Being too busy is a sign of dysfunction and should not be tolerated long-term. It’s normal to be busy some specific times of year, or when you start a new job, or when you lose a staff member and have to pick up their responsibilities (temporarily) but it should not be the norm.
Leaders need to prioritize, get organized, make adequate use of their resources, and become more productive. Click here to learn how.
Imagine what it would be like to work with people who are motivated and highly engaged in their work? Imagine waking up in the morning excited about going to the office and doing meaningful work with tangible results. Imagine a culture of trust, empowerment, growth, and accomplishments.
Where will you start?
Don’t try to change everything at once. It would be overwhelming and unrealistic. Choose one thing you want to do better. What do you think needs your attention right now? Here are some suggestions.
Establish a strong foundation by redefining an inspiring vision of success.
Identify what needs to be transformed or created.
Foster a culture of innovation and encourage initiative.
Create a safe environment where people feel safe trying new approaches.
Improve employee morale.
Show appreciation and encouragement.
Increase employee motivation and engagement.
Be trustworthy and develop a culture of trust.
Show empathy and compassion.
Get to know your staff’s individual strengths and needs.
Clarify expectations and use specific metrics.
Keep people accountable.
Reward initiative and performance.
Do not tolerate poor performance or inappropriate behavior.
Hold yourself to high standards and show impeccable integrity and fairness.
I know, it looks like a lot, but trust me, it’s worth it. The frustration and fatigue you experience now is too high a cost to pay. Let’s team up and work together to transform your department and your leadership style so that you can love your work again and be proud of your team. Click here to schedule a complimentary call and we’ll discuss how I can help you create a new vision and make it a reality. Talk to you soon.
About the author: Dr. Audrey Reille has empowered thousands of professionals through one-on-one coaching, group coaching, speaking engagements, and online courses. Audrey is the go-to coach for leaders in higher education administration. She empowers them to thrive by reducing stress, optimizing strategies, improving professional relationships, and developing a strong and empowered mindset.