Leaders on Leadership featuring a discussion on the Competencies for the College Presidency Study with Drs. Marjorie Hass and Charles L. Welch

Episode Transcript

Jay Lemons:

Hello, and thank you for listening. I’m Jay Lemons. Welcome to Leaders on Leadership, brought to you by Academic Search and the American Academic Leadership Institute. The purpose of our podcast is to share the stories of the people and the forces that have shaped leaders in higher education and to learn more about their thoughts on leadership in the academy. Today is a special episode as we’re joined by two of our most distinguished and influential leaders in American higher education to discuss the evolving role of the college presidency and to reflect on a recent study about the competencies needed for success in today’s complex landscape. I’m honored to welcome Dr. Chuck Welch, President of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and Dr. Marjorie Haas, the President of the Council of Independent Colleges. These are not only distinguished leaders, I am privileged to call them important and dear, dear friends and colleagues.

I’m going to introduce them both, which is kind of fun. Chuck has had an impressive leadership journey. He was a very young college president once upon a time, recently joining AASCU as its president. Prior to this role, he spent 13 years as the president of the Arkansas State University system overseeing the second largest higher ed system in Arkansas. His leadership experience also includes time as president at Henderson State in various academic roles across a number of Arkansas institutions having served in the both two year and four year realm. Chuck’s got an incredible background. He has deep ties to AASCU, has served as the chair of the board of directors twice and has been involved in initiatives like the new President’s Academy, the Emerging Leaders Program, the Millennial Leaders Institute, and on and on. So Chuck, welcome to you.

Chuck Welch:

Thank you, Jay. It’s wonderful to be with you.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you. Now, Marjorie is another person with an extraordinary career in higher education leadership. I first met Marjorie as the provost at Muhlenberg College where she rose up through the academic ranks as an assistant and associate and full professor of philosophy. She left Muhlenberg, and now a long time ago, it seems like yesterday to me, Marjorie, I don’t know about you, but she went on to the presidency at Austin College in Sherman, Texas and then on to Rhodes College in Memphis. Marjorie is known for her focus on leadership development, helping new leaders navigate the transitions into significant roles. Her approach centers on authenticity and leading with a strong ethical foundation, often advising leaders to manage challenges with clarity and confidence. She has also made a major contribution to helping women to think about how to navigate higher education. Marjorie is someone that I feel like I have both learned from and tried to from time to time via support too as well. So Marjorie, thank you for joining us this morning.

Marjorie Hass:

Absolutely a pleasure to be here with both of you.

Jay Lemons:

Well, for our listeners, the conversation we want to have today is one that explores some research that was published in September, Competencies for the College Presidency: A National Study of Effective Leadership in Higher Education. The study ended up including a survey that gathered the opinions and the thoughts on more than 700 college and university presidents across all sectors of higher education. Its authors, Jorge Burmicky and Kevin McClure did a phenomenal job and distilled seven key competencies needed for leaders today. The full study is something that we’re happy to make available to all of our listeners. You can find it in our show notes.

Now, these things don’t happen by accident. I have acknowledged our researchers. Jorge is at Howard University and Kevin is at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and we owe them a special debt of gratitude, but we also owe a great debt of gratitude to Chuck and Marjorie for being instrumental in having and encouraging member presidents to participate in the study, and I think they did that premised on a belief that there’s really importance and value in thinking about what it takes to be successful in these complex roles.

So I really want to start by saying thank you to both of our dear partners, the Council of Independent Colleges and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. We love and cherish the partnership that we share with you all the time, but what it was very, very meaningful to have this opportunity to take a little bit different approach and to invest some resources in trying to think about how we might surface insights that are important to leaders. I’d really love to hear from both of you what compelled you about the invitation to be a part of this study and to encourage your presidents. And so Marjorie, let’s start with you.

Marjorie Hass:

I think there’s very few things that are more pressing right now for higher education than building the pipeline for our next generation of leaders. We’re seeing such rapid turnover. We’re seeing a number of the top leaders reaching retirement age. We’re seeing more complexity in the role. And so really trying to identify what leads to success in these very challenging and yet absolutely crucial leadership roles feels to me like a really important project, and we were delighted to be involved, delighted to partner with Academic Search and AASCU on this. I also really like, Jay, that you decided to look so holistically across sectors. I think sometimes we tend to think about the work divided up by whether you’re public or private, whether you’re large or small, and obviously there are different kinds of ways that these competencies plays out in different kinds of campuses, but it’s important to be aware of how ubiquitous and universal so many of the core leadership skills are, so I think that really makes this project timely and unique.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you for that, Marjorie. Boy, it’s hard for me to resist. I say to search committees all the time, there is great talent in every sector of American higher education, and we have had this what I call sector bias where we don’t think people can switch and there are differences and there probably are some weightings that are governmental relations is probably more critical in the public realm and there are differences in the financial models, but these animals are really closely related to one another, so I really appreciate your comment about that and I agree wholeheartedly with it. So Chuck, what about you on the AASCU side?

Chuck Welch:

Yeah, Jay. I mean, well, first of all, as you mentioned earlier, I moved within different sectors within the public realm.

Jay Lemons:

You did.

Chuck Welch:

Two-year institutions, four-year institutions, system level, and I’ve consistently said to those that I’ve worked with that the issues were the same. The complexities may have been a little bit different. The resources may have been a little bit different, but by and large, I think the skill sets that are necessary to be successful, whether it’s two-year, four-year public, private system, non-system, are largely the same, and I thought it was important for our presidents and chancellors to participate in this study because… For two reasons. One, as Marjorie said, for the next generation of leaders. One of the things that I do frequently when I’m speaking to groups of leaders is asked, how many of you went to college intending to be a university president? And I’ve never had a hand go up. It just sort of happens organically.

And so I do think it’s important for that group that is thinking about aspiring to the presidency to really have this type of information about the professional and personal skill sets that are necessary. But I think it’s also critically important for those currently sitting in the chair that we have that constant self-reflection and self-awareness of what is important and perhaps where there are gaps. I was a president for 20 years and there were still, of these competencies, there were still some that I needed to work on, and so I think that this is important not only for the next generation of leaders, but for those of us who hold the seats now to constantly be evolving, to constantly be learning and to constantly be thinking about do I have the skill sets necessary for today’s presidency because today’s presidency is dramatically different than the presidency a decade ago.

Jay Lemons:

Well, thank you, Chuck, for those comments. The study outlines seven key competencies needed for effective presidential leadership. They are trust building, demonstrating resilience, communication savvy, crafting a cabinet and team building, emotional intelligence, leading with courage, data acumen and resource management. I’ve been struck by, outside of the last one, data acumen and resource management, the other competencies are more about human characteristics in a way and relationships and so forth. I’d love to hear what the sort of top line responses or reactions that each of you had to that group of competencies being that which emerged. And Marjorie, why don’t you jump in here first?

Marjorie Hass:

Sure. You mentioned Jay in your introduction of me that my training is as a philosopher, which I know is near and dear to your heart as well. But in the world of philosophy, we call these virtues, and I know that’s kind of an old-fashioned word, but I think it’s a really important word because you really are getting to the importance of a certain kind of character development that it is not simply a matter of learning some external skills that you add on top of who you are. It’s about developing and becoming the kind of person who can exhibit these sorts of things. And part of that, why that’s important is because of the speed with which we have to work. If you have to stop every time a decision is called for and run some sort of complicated spreadsheet in your mind, or you have to stop and think, “Now, trust building, do I tell the truth or do I not tell the truth?” You’ve missed the moment.

You have to work on your character, and I thought Chuck’s point that these are not one and done kinds of skills. It’s not as though, well, I learned them then I was a president and I exhibited them. This is a constant work and it’s the work of character development and virtue development. We know a couple things about virtue development. One is that it does require real life practice and experience. We also know that there are what I think the Buddhists call both far enemies and near enemies of a virtue. The far enemy is the opposite, right? The opposite of trust building might be lying, say. But there are also near enemies where you sort of or over-focus on one particular virtue to the detriment of the others. So you spend so many times trying to demonstrate that you’re trustworthy that you lose track of some of the other things that you need to do. So in my view, thinking about them as we would virtues in the Aristotelian sense is very, very helpful.

Jay Lemons:

I love that. And you’re right, virtue does feel as if it’s a bit old-fashioned, but boy, we need to reclaim it In the world that we’re in. Chuck, what were your sort of initial reactions to this group of competencies?

Chuck Welch:

Well, Jay, I thought that it was very reflective of the presidency of today. These jobs are difficult, perhaps more difficult than ever. Tough decisions have to be made, very strategic decisions have to be made, and it’s so important to be able to make those decisions and make those decisions accurately. But B, to be able to collaborate with your coworkers and to successfully communicate why decisions have to be made. And so when you think about trust-building and resilience and communication savvy and leading with courage and emotional intelligence, they all go together. And so I thought it was really interesting that when you think about the academy and some of the strains that our institutions and our leaders are under, I really thought it nailed how the person has to be able to not only make the decision, but share that decision and work within the institution to ensure that it’s implemented and that there is some mutual understanding. That doesn’t mean mutual agreement necessarily, right? That’s the leading with courage piece. But I think it’s really reflective of where we are, how difficult the job is, and how that human element is probably more important now than ever in leading.

Marjorie Hass:

I had a thought about that as well, Chuck, that if you look at this list other again than perhaps resource management, data acumen, although even there I think judgment is necessary. Aren’t these just the opposite of the sort of artificial intelligence talents and skills?

Chuck Welch:

Absolutely.

Marjorie Hass:

Jay called them very human, and they are because they inherently imply that you are within a context and that context involves others. I define leadership for myself in my own mind as the practice of inspiring others to make change in the service of a vision, a shared vision for an institution or an organization and inspiring others is inherently relational. I think it’s one of the reasons why we are seeing more diversity in the presidential pipeline on a whole host of vectors, not just identitarian ones, but also background and experience because we’re recognizing that these human abilities can be honed in variety of different spaces and places.

Jay Lemons:

I’m loving this energy and conversation. You both have heard me react to, and I would love to hear whether you concur or disagree. I’m struck by, Chuck, I agree with what you said, and I think it’s around pace of change, speed of communication. These are where the pressures of the modern presidency may be far more than our previous generations have faced, and yet I look at this and these are sort of timeless virtues in many ways. Do you agree, Chuck?

Chuck Welch:

Oh, there’s no question about it, Jay. I mean, I think these are things that you could go back a hundred years and these skill sets were necessary. I just think they’re more pronounced and more necessary now than ever. And a hundred years ago, if you were missing two or three of these, you might’ve been able to work around it. Today, I think it’s critical that you have the vast majority if not all of these. And I know that sounds daunting, and I know that sounds like is this a unicorn person that has those things, but when you look at the constant revolving door we have in leadership, and why I think this study was so important is that we can really press upon our current and future leaders pay attention to these things. If you feel you have gaps or things you need to work on, that’s okay, but work on those. Be mindful of those because they’re necessary in today’s environment.

Marjorie Hass:

When I think of the heroes, my own personal leadership sort of pantheon of heroes, people that I look to to inspire my work, I think of Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King and Queen Esther from the Bible, from the Jewish tradition, and all three of them absolutely exhibit these skills and it is part of what makes me admire them. So the list, I think if we had sort of not done a survey and just among ourselves sat down and said, “What are the things?” I think some of these would have come up, but the way that you went about this research, it really surfaced them I think in ways that make it more useful than just what do you admire in a leader? And you have real categories here. You can think about these things. There are things you can assess yourself on. There are things you can assess others on. So you’ve made very practical what might otherwise feel like a very abstract set of traits that maybe go under leadership presence or leadership skill. I think that’s a real useful piece of this as well.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. So Chuck, there’s something about some of what you offered that it is kind of absurd to think that you could be an effective president without the capacity for trust-building. You might be president for a day, a month, a year, or even a few years, but to survive and to thrive and to help move an institution, and you could go through there and say that about all of these. So that’s a little different than I love the Gallup strengths orientation around the list of 34, and Gallup sort of has a bit of a philosophy of there’s not one leadership profile that is most successful. It’s having the self-awareness to understand what your strengths are and to balance them with a team that will bring and raise up other of those strengths. And yet these, this is where I love the notion of virtues, Marjorie. These are almost necessary ingredients or having the human capacity to inspire and to help move and connect others, so it’s just fascinating. Yeah.

Marjorie Hass:

It’s a good point, and there’s still a great deal of room here for range and personal identity. People sometimes ask me, “Well, I’m not an extrovert. Can I be a good college president?” Absolutely. There’s nothing on here about extroversion or introversion. There’s nothing on here about your intellectual or academic background, what that has been. There’s many, many ways that people can embody these virtues and still very much be their own selves and bring their own passions and skills to the work.

Jay Lemons:

Yeah. Very much true. Well, taking that frame of those virtues, those competencies, talk a little bit about how you see them reflected in the leaders of your member institutions, and both of you have kind of reflected, we can all reflect on the changing nature of the presidency. So Marjorie, would you maybe kick us off? What do you see in your member institutions today and how’s it evolving?

Marjorie Hass:

I think again, as you said, these are really core experiences and issues that presidents are facing. You mentioned some of the key contextual things, and Chuck has mentioned the speed of digital communication, the complexity of the challenges, the economic strains and pressures, the demographic changes. I think others are, there’s been a real loss in our country of basic trust in authority of persons and institutions and also we live in a very polarized, politically polarized world, and that really makes so many of these even more crucial. I am hearing a lot from presidents right this moment about what it means to lead with courage and what that looks like. I’m hearing a lot from people about how do you develop the sort of communication savvy and the emotional intelligence to be able to share a single unified message, recognizing how much difference there can be in the ways that many words are heard or interpreted by people depending on their background or their political really what news sources they listen to, et cetera. So in this world, some of them I think are really being lifted up at this moment and presidents are working to embody them. Chuck, I’m really fascinated to hear what you’re hearing from your presidents as well.

Chuck Welch:

I mean, absolutely. I think that when we talk to our presidents and they talk about, “I’ve got to make tough decisions. I’ve got resource constraints, I have political considerations. I have a board that is more engaged than ever. I have a need to try to attract and retain the best quality faculty and staff.” And with that comes very different economics and very different decision making than perhaps we had to make in the past. I recently wrote a column and talked about how we must be different. We must change. We can’t be all things to all people any longer. And I think that plays directly into the data acumen and resource management piece of the competencies. Historically, it’s sort of been a no-go to discuss higher education in the same terms as operating a business.

But the truth of the matter is these are complex businesses that are being operated today, and with that comes the need to no longer be anecdotal, to really understand very directly through the use of data your institution, and then to take your resources and allocate those strategically. Well, when those things happen, there’s typically going to be decisions or reactions that aren’t positive, right? That have to be managed. And I think that’s where that leading with courage comes in, being willing to stand up and make that tough decision and then being able to communicate that, to go back to again, and trust building. And something I want to point out, we’ve talked about this, but trust building is a purposeful action. It’s not just something that you have to make an effort to do it. We have an AASCU New Presidents Academy, and it’s not coincidental that the very first thing that we talk to our new presidents about is building community and really beginning to build that base because that’s where you have to have those relationships.

You have to have that trust that is there. That trust comes from communicating and the human element, that emotional intelligence piece so that when you do have to make those resource, when you do have to lead with courage, that perhaps you’re more successful than you would be if you were just saying, “Hey, here’s what I’m doing,” and sharing it. I think it’s why a shared governance is still an important part of the academy, and shared governance really is about trust building. It really is. It’s about working together. So I think that what the reaction I’ve heard from our presidents is that we’re having to make these tough decisions. We’re really having to build community, and I think these competencies speak directly to that.

Jay Lemons:

I really appreciate those reflections and I want to go back to, Marjorie, I think you invoked the word pipeline, a talent pipeline, and thinking about this as a topic. I felt like a lot of my career I was the young guy in the room and I was hearing my elders talk about how the talent pipeline was dry, and I have to tell you the experience of the last seven and a half years of working with AALI programs, being a part of searches, my experience is that the pipeline for talent for American higher education is actually, contrary to what you might read in the higher ed press, is actually pretty robust. There are thank goodness still people who want to do these hard, complex, really challenging jobs and there are lots of them. And guess what? They don’t necessarily all look like Chuck Welch or Jay Lemons, and that’s a darn good thing. What is your sense, colleagues, about the talent pipeline and the people that have these and other more technical capacities and all the things that you want to see by way of experience brought to the presidency? But I’d love to hear you both reflect on the pipeline.

Chuck Welch:

Sure. I mean, I think, like you, Jay, I was kind of the young guy in the room and I heard that. “Oh, the pipeline is dry,” and I still hear it. But I think the pipeline is as rich as ever. Perhaps we have to be a bit more direct in communicating the positions. We have an emerging leaders program at AASCU, and it’s for mid-level leaders who may or may not be interested in moving up in administration, and I love that program when I see the light bulbs go off in their heads and see them say, “I can do this.” Right? And I think a big part of this is helping them to understand and maybe dispel some of the myths and understand better why these positions are important. And I work with a number of mentees that I help, and just ironically had a conversation yesterday with a young black male that I’m working with who aspires to the presidency, and one of the exercises I give all of them is, why do you want to be a president? And I make them write it down. And he sent it to me and I read it and it just almost gave me chills because he talked about because I can make a difference for people like me. Period.

That understanding that higher education is still the greatest single human investment we can make in ourselves or in someone else. And the notion that we can help see someone have that transformative power is noble in its service and it really overrides all of the challenges and difficulties of the job. And so I think that, and I hear it every day from leaders who say, “I know what it did for me. I want to help someone else.” This was the farthest thing from my mind when I went to college, getting engaged in higher education leadership, but as a first generation college student who now has had opportunities I could have never dreamed imaginable, it’s what drives me every day to get up and want to come and do this job. And so I am bullish on the pipeline. I’m not naive to some of the challenges we face and some of the difficulties of the job itself, but I know that at the end of the day why it’s important what it does, and that there are still a number of people out there that truly get it, and I think that’s what continues to move us forward.

Marjorie Hass:

I agree with you. The pipeline is rich and full. One question I think is whether or not our institutions are prepared to be led and for leaders, talented leaders to join. What we see often is there’s so much anxiety and resistance to leadership. We also see a lot of magical thinking as in the search process. I mean, look what’s not on this list. The ability to conjure money out of thin air, the ability to please every single person and every single constituency all of the time. If that’s what our institutions are looking for, if that’s what boards are looking for or faculty or parents or community members or students, then the leadership, this is not going to work. But recognizing that leaders will come in, they will move the institution forward through that process of inspiring change and crafting a vision, but they will not be perfect people. They will not be magical people. That I think is work we still have to do is really at the institutional level, understanding what it is that we want in a leader and what it is we want in a very human leader.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you. Well, I’m really grateful for the commitments of AASCU and CIC and other organizations to helping to nurture that next generation, and one could easily read the headlines and conclude that there just aren’t people that are willing or have the capacity to do this work, and that’s just not been the case. So I appreciate you both reflecting on that. I want to acknowledge in this moment that there was a nice exceptional study done back in I think 2016 led by Jolene Kester, and Jolene, one of those really most influential leaders and teachers of leaders that we have had. We really in some ways I think build on that foundation.

But I want to ask both of you as the heads of two associations that serve an extraordinary. I don’t know if we’ve ever looked at the combined, but more than a thousand institutions, probably 1100-ish or so institutions between the two of you. What percent of the American populace is served by AASCU and CIC institutions? But you have a very, very large claim and responsibility. How do you think we should encourage our institutions, our institutional leaders, our board leaders, and what role can AASCU, CIC and organizations like our parent, AALI, play in encouraging this sort of development and leveraging these competencies?

Marjorie Hass:

One thing I think is that, again, in so far as they are akin to virtues, it’s easier to develop and to exhibit them when you are surrounded by others also developing and exhibiting them, and so the power of convening that our organizations have the power of relationship building and support, bringing presidents and other leaders together to talk very frankly about where they feel pressed to abandon a virtue or where they need to develop one of these competencies or how it’s playing out on campus. That convening power and the ability to lead and spark those deep conversations I think is a fundamental thing that both CIC and AASCU do that serves the sector in addition to the leadership development programs that we collaborate on and do also alone in our organizations.

The other thing is the sort of normalizing for others and centralizing that these are the things that matter. Resilience is a perfect example. We haven’t talked about that much. One of the things about being a public figure these days, whether that you’re leading an organization or you are posting on social media, you will get a lot of negative and sometimes very hostile, even threatening responses. Learning how to be in the face of that learning to recognize that kind of intimidation when you see it and figuring out how you’re going to continue to lead without closing yourself off and refusing to listen to all criticism or anything like that at all. That’s very difficult and nuanced. And again, these are the topics of the programming that we put on in our organizations and that we encourage presidents to have with each other.

Chuck Welch:

Absolutely, Marjorie. I mean, I’ve often said to our staff that we do a lot of wonderful things, but if we do nothing else than to build a network of support for our member presidents, we’re successful. When I talk to presidents, I often offer up some of the resources we can give them, and the last one I offer is my cell phone number if they just want to call and scream into the phone one day. Right? Just to have someone that’s been there and done it and lived through it. Because it can be very challenging, and that network, that’s one of the things I love about AASCU. I know CIC has the same sort of support structure for its members is I can pick up that telephone call one of my colleagues I’ve built a relationship with and just talk through an issue and feel better and get that affirmation that it’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to take these kinds of steps, and we’ve got to continue to push forward with our leadership programs throughout the academy from department chairs all the way through sitting presidents is what we currently have at AASCU.

But I think the other thing, and Marjorie used the term normalizing. I think normalizing coaching. Historically, coaching historically has sort of been a, oh, he or she messed up and they need a coach to help him. That’s not the case anymore. We all need it. Even a 20 year experience president sometimes needs that assistance to maybe get outside of yourself or look at it from a different perspective and understand things. So really trying to help all of us understand it’s okay to not be okay sometimes and it’s okay to need that help, and that’s something I think our organizations from our consulting programs to our relationships with academic search to our leadership development programs or just to our informal network that we provide, it’s the support we need to be able to remain and sustain in these jobs.

Marjorie Hass:

That’s beautifully put. We also provide support for the families of the leaders as well, and we do a lot of programs for spouses and partners because learning how to support your person while they take on this very complicated job is complex. There’s such a broad range of ways that people inhabit that spouse role from the very traditional sort of first lady or first gentleman role to, “I have my own career and I don’t even live on the campus,” et cetera. And so helping people figure out what they want to do and how they can be a person of influence to the extent that they’re drawn to do that on the campus, support the person, keep the relationship strong, make sure their person gets a break now and again, that’s really important as well, and another function that I think uniquely AASCU and CIC do for members.

Chuck Welch:

Jay, if I might add to that, too, I think that’s a fantastic point, and when I got started in the presidency, I had very young children.

Marjorie Hass:

Me, too.

Chuck Welch:

And I know Marjorie did as well, and that brings with it a whole other element, and that support we can provide through the spouse partner program or to other presidents who have young families. Marjorie, you mentioned demonstrating resilience that is as important for our families as it is for our presidents because I let things slide off my back. That’s much harder for my wife and children when I’m attacked to be able to accept that and not want to just lash out, right? So it really is a family job and it affects all of us, and I have to tell this story and I sound like a broken record and I tell it frequently, but I think it’s so critically important and it’s something AASCU gave me, and it’s when I got my second presidency and I received a call out of the blue from AASCU’s president at the time, Deno Curris, one of my predecessors.

I was 34 years old, and he said, “Chuck, you’re very young,” and he said, “I want to give you a piece of unsolicited advice.” He said, “I was a president at 35,” so very comparable situation, and he said, “I’m now 65,” and he said, “It’s 30 years later, and I realized that the people at Murray State no longer remember who Deno Curris is, but my children remember every dance recital and swim meet I ever missed.” And he said, “Reverse that.” And it hit me upside the head with a baseball bat about keep your priorities in line, and so it helped me. I became very thoughtful about that, very purposeful about that. But I only got that because someone related to this organization felt it was important to reach out and share that information for me, and it’s something I now try to pass on every chance I get because it’s invaluable.

Marjorie Hass:

I love that, and I would say very similar things about CIC and my predecessor, Rich Ekman, really made sure that people understood the presidency in the context of a life which is essential. And every one of these, it isn’t as though any of the things on this list tell against also being a successful partner or a successful parent or a successful adult child to aging parents. These are all important and coherent in all aspects of your life, which I think gives the work a kind of integrity that also is also one of the great joys of doing this work.

Jay Lemons:

So beautifully said, and one of the great blessings in my life is having been both an AASCU and a CIC president, and both organizations do have exactly what you’re talking about. And yes, I was 32 years old when Jim Appleberry called me and said, “I was a young president once upon a time and I’m worried about you burning out. Don’t lose yourself in the job, young man.” And we all need that sort of support. AASCU and CIC do extraordinary work in nurturing and encouraging colleagues, and I want to raise up a little bit different dimension of this, and that is, Marjorie, I’m mindful the experience that you invited me to be a part of in terms of pioneering presidents, people who are first, and we had just such a rich variety of people who we first, of the leaders of our particular identity, our survey also found differences for women and people of color around the competencies, really mirroring the challenges that very often accompany leadership for people who bring diversity and there’s got to be more of that in the future.

Any reflections of either of you about what we need to do to support those pioneering presidents even more? And Chuck, God bless you for saying what you did to optimize performance, to try and reverse the shortening of tenures. We have got to have higher ed leaders accompanied by coaches. That is I think one of those critical pieces. But what can we do to support presidents who bring difference? And by the way, Marjorie, I’m going to call on you first because you were different in multiple elements of your personhood and identity when you landed at both places. But I especially remember landing in Sherman, Texas as the first woman in a Presbyterian institution who happened to also be Jewish.

Marjorie Hass:

Yes. And the first Yankee in that institution, which again I think highlights how much that sort of notion that you’re the first or the only in a role is very contextual. I have had two presidencies. I would say my identity played was salient in different ways at both of them. In our work, we think about pioneering presidents, sometimes the first lay president at a Catholic university, or in my case, the first Jewish president in both cases at Presbyterian colleges. So there are many ways that you may bring newness and we do gather groups of presidents who are having that experience. I think what you find is that when you come in and you’re seen as a first, the trust building is harder. You don’t get an automatic pass. You don’t get the automatic pass that comes from sameness, so the trust building has to be more robust and more complicated. It’s a place where you really need the support of the board to help the community understand how you are of them even when their first glance at you might only highlight a way you are not like some of them or many of them.

On the other hand, I think that when you come into that sort of role, particularly if you have spent much of your career being a first or an only, you have resilience and fortitude. You have built that up in so many ways. You have learned to lead with courage. Your emotional intelligence is high, and you have in many ways had to develop some of these skills before you even got to the presidency. So there are many strengths that come with hiring a pioneer, but there are challenges as well, and it is contextual what counts or astounds or surprises one institution about the identity or background of their institution may just be a matter of course for another one and vice versa. So thinking about this in the process and really thinking about who will the allies be, who will help me make my identity intelligible to this community in ways that can foster trust, very, very important and an important role for faculty leaders to help new presidents with that important role for board members and community leaders as well.

Chuck Welch:

Jay, I mean, I was non-traditional from the age standpoint. Right? I mean, white male, not. But definitely being a young president with a young family brings with its challenges. But when we think about the academy and we think about female presidents or presidents of color or young presidents, I think there’s a couple things. Number one, it’s okay to talk about it, right? I mean there are those that want to suggest we should be colorblind or gender blind. The truth of the matter is while the issues may be the same, regardless of your background, the way that you are perceived or the way that you can handle those are different. I can say and do things as a white male that Marjorie can’t as a white female. Right? And it’s the same case, and so it’s okay to have additional support services and focus. We have the MLI program. We have affinity groups in AASCU where our black presidents or our Hispanic presidents can get together and talk about the issues that are unique to them, the challenges that are unique to them simply by the color of their skin, by their gender, or by their background.

And so I think how we can be supportive is to recognize it, admit that it’s okay to talk about it and to provide those support services because we have a very diverse student body. Almost half of our students at AASCU institutions are students of color, and it’s important that they be able to see in the faculty and the staff and in the administration leaders who look like them, right? The old saying, you can’t be what you can’t see, and so it’s important that we develop those leaders, and then once we place them, we continue that unique support they need to be successful, recognizing that our differences make us stronger and that our differences make the academy stronger.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. As we move towards a close, would love each of you to perhaps call out a competency that you have personally found most valuable, and to offer any advice that you might like to current presidents or to those who might one day aspire to a calling. Who wants to start?

Chuck Welch:

I’ll go first, Jay. I mean, to me it always comes down to people. Everything we do. And to me it’s about communication savvy. If I had to pick one of the seven, and I think they’re all important, but I think communication savvy is so important. I have met individuals who are among the most intelligent and talented people that I’ve ever met, but their inability to communicate and empathize and connect with their coworkers limited them in their ability to lead. And I think that if you’re a strong communicator, that helps to begin building that trust. It helps you when you need to craft a cabinet and build a team. It helps you with leading with courage and making those difficult decisions.

I just think that… One of my mentors told me a long time ago, and this was an individual that was in the political arena, not in the higher education arena, but I think it definitely applies, and he said, “Chuck, you can be an expert on every single issue in the world, but if people don’t like you, respect you and trust you, it’s not going to matter.” He said, “Conversely, you may be very limited in your knowledge of issues, but if they like you, they trust you, they respect you and they feel comfortable with you, you can get things done.” And so to me it’s about that ability to communicate across the spectrum. Right? Regardless of background, regardless of how you got to a place, that ability to communicate it really makes a difference, I think, in how effective a leader you are.

Marjorie Hass:

That’s an outstanding point, and I think ties in with the one I was going to pick. They’re sort of almost two sides of the same point. Emotional intelligence. Because you mentioned the word empathy, Chuck, and I think this is so key. When we look at folks that we think of as successful leaders, they have an ability to understand perspectives that are not their own and experiences, that are not their own, and they have that ability to reflect back to people. I have heard you, I have seen you. I may be making a decision you don’t agree with, but it’s not because I have ignored the way that you think. And I think many of the worst leaders on the public stage today are people who are unable to do that, who cannot imagine themselves into an experience, a body, a lifestyle, a lifetime that they have not personally made their own.

We are a diverse and pluralistic nation. Certainly our institutions are diverse and pluralistic. Democracy is grounded in the notion of diversity of viewpoints and the ability to see humanity as bigger than just yourself and more than just yourself is so foundational. And again, this is deep work. This is not the work that you can learn in a two day leadership development seminar or by reading a chapter in how to be a good leader. You have to work at this. You have to know yourself. You have to, dare I say, love others. Even on my worst days as a president, I could truly say I love my students. I love my faculty. Even when I was furious or even when I was hurt or even when we were not seeing eye to eye, and without that ability to truly love those who are different than you, I don’t think you can do the kind of work that we’re talking about, particularly not in a campus where you have the fates of so many young people in your hands.

Jay Lemons:

Thank you both. If you would, let me ask you to close out with a quick word of advice to folks who are currently in these roles or aspire to them.

Marjorie Hass:

I would say you will never regret learning and reflecting on your own abilities and skills and character. So coaching, therapy. I’ve had two analyses. That work pays off in so many ways because it is what allows you and encourages you, and you have to find your north star and it has to be something outside of yourself. For many of us, it may be our religious faith, or for others it may be the secular values or the care and concern in the transformative power of education, but you’ve got to have a why that’s bigger than you if you’re going to be an effective leader.

Jay Lemons:

Wonderful. Chuck?

Chuck Welch:

My advice would be keep doing the work. It’s worth it. There will be tough days. Some days it’s not fun work. But go to a commencement ceremony and watch that student across that stage and know that everything that you did, all of the difficult times that you went through has gotten helped to get to that student to that point, and it’s literally changed their lives. So don’t shy away from the work. Don’t say, “I’m not sure this is worth it anymore.” It is worth it for that every student that we impact, all of the difficult days just sort of vanish, and you remember why we do this, why it’s important and why it’s key to not only individual development, but societal development as well.

Jay Lemons:

Well, dear friends, thank you for joining me in this special episode of Leaders on Leadership. Your thoughts, reflections, insights into the study and how it connects to the work of higher ed leaders is really something I deeply appreciate, and I think we could have a part two of this and drill down more deeply without question. And I am appreciative of your taking time from your busy schedules to do this. Listeners, if you’d like to learn more about the competencies for the college presidency study, you can download the full study from our show notes to hear other inspiring stories of higher ed leaders. You can find all of our episodes on the academic search website and wherever you stream your podcasts. Leaders on Leadership is brought to you by Academic Search and the American Academic Leadership Institute. Together, our mission is to support colleges and universities during times of transition and through leadership development activities that serve current and future generations of leaders in the academy. I again want to thank Chuck Welch and Marjorie Hass for sharing time and expertise with us today. Thank you.