September, 1998 - Volume 2, Number 12

Are Colleges and Universities Running Short on Leadership?

A commonly heard lament is that institutions today lack the able leadership they once enjoyed, that those at the top of the current game have not brought the same qualities that defined their outstanding predecessors. Richard Chait, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, contends that when applied to America's 3,650 colleges and universities, this complaint if off the mark for five reasons:

1. With women and minorities increasingly at the helm of colleges and universities, it may seem that they do not live up to the historical image of the all powerful white male that defined some presidencies in the past. Nor are they part of the same "old-boy" networks that once controlled who often became a president.

2. Memories of leadership past are notoriously selective. We recall a few great figures in higher education such as Robert Maynard Hutchins of the University of Chicago and Father Theodore Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame -- but forget the mediocre performers whose names we can't even recall.

3. The yet unresolved problems of today can make those who overcame comparable challenges in the past look the paragon of virtue - and those who face them now as falling short since the problems have not yet been solved.

4. Leadership today requires capabilities that are distinct from those in the past, and presidents today may be no less able. Their style is just different, and for good reason. "The 'giants' of yesterday are campus dinosaurs," writes Chait, "relics of a bygone era rendered obsolete by a radically altered environment." A forceful and controlling style may have worked in the past; rarely is it still effective today.

5. Academic leaders at present often build administrative teams and mobilize campus resources with a quiet deftness that gets the job done without attracting personal headlines. Leading teams behind the scenes undercuts the image of a decisive executive but often achieves far more.

In any case, the question for colleges and universities is now less who is at the top than whether the person can build and sustain an organization of leaders and vision throughout.

Source: Richard Chait, "Illusions of a Leadership Vacuum," Change, The Magazine of Higher Learning, January-February, 1998.

REPORT: Leadership Development and Strategic Thinking for Company Directors

The London-based Institute of Directors surveyed directors of British companies in 1990 and then repeated the survey in 1998. More than nine out of ten of the 614 directors responding in 1998 are with privately held firms and a majority are managing directors (active executives), so their appraisals tend to reflect the experience of those who oversee and run small companies.

When asked to rank the qualities that they would require among new directors coming onto their board, the directors had not even included leadership on the list in 1990; now they place it second. The capabilities that the directors deemed first and third most important in 1998 -- strategic thinking and communication skills -- are also seen as far more important than in 1990.

"A director must be able to think strategically," the report concludes, "taking an active role in developing and setting strategy." Moreover, directors now "have an important leadership role. They must provide leadership to the senior management, and in doing so have a key role in communicating strategy and vision to them and other employees."

Leadership and strategic development for directors, not identified as a board concern in 1990, is presently considered the most salient of all boardroom issues. In 1990, 90 percent of the directors came onto the board with no prior preparation for their role; now only 35 percent arrive without preparation. One company in eight has instituted procedures for developing their board as a whole, and one in three provides preparation for their individual directors.

Source: Institute of Directors, Sign of the Times (London: Institute of Directors, 1998). Website for the Institute of Directors: http://www.iod.co.uk.

CALL FOR THEMES FOR LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

The Center for Leadership and Management and the Center for Human Resources are planning their third annual one-day conference on leadership for Thursday, May 13, 1999. The 1997 conference focused on "Selecting Corporate Leaders for the Next Century," and the 1998 program centered on "Leadership Capabilities for Winning Companies" (the 1998 program can be found at http://leadership.wharton.upenn.edu/leaders/conf98.htm).

The 1999 leadership conference organizers would value your suggestions for the main focus of the 1999 program, and also your recommendations for specific issues and potential speakers. Please e-mail your comments to lead@wharton.upenn.edu.

Moments When Your Leadership is on the Line

Michael Useem, editor of this digest, has just published The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All (New York: Times Books/Random House, 1998). The book presents accounts of nine people in diverse setting who faced a turning point - and it then draws out the enduring leadership lessons from how they acted when it counted most.

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Leveraging People

Wharton Executive Education offers a program for mastering the art of managing people through the exercise of influence rather than command. As organizations flatten, decentralize, and place more responsibility in the hands of employees, the management challenge is to foster a system that aligns their energies with your organization's goals. The three-day course, "Managing People: Power Through Influence," examines how motivational incentives, personal influence, and organizational power can be used to mobilize all employees. Offered on November 22-25, 1998, and March 28-31, 1999, information on the program is available at http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/execed/eecat/mp.html.

Alfred Shackleton "was a man who believed completely in his own invincibility, and to whom defeat was a reflection of personal inadequacy. What might have been an act of reasonable caution to the average person was to Shackleton a detestable admission that failure was a possibility."

While "Shackleton was undeniably out of place, even inept, in a great many everyday situations, he had a talent - a genius, even - that he shared with only a handful of men throughout history - genuine leadership. He was, as one of his men put it, 'the greatest leaders that ever came on God's earth, bar none.'

"For all his blind spots and inadequacies, Shackleton merited this tribute: 'For scientific leadership give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.'"

Source: Alfred Lansing, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1959), pp. 13-14.