Something’s Got to Break (Hopefully Not You): 5 Very Real Reasons Campus Leadership is Such a Pressure Cooker These Days
Leading people and systems have always been pressure cookers.
Add a global crisis, rapid change, and constant uncertainty into the mix, and what was barely sustainable before has become almost untenable to thousands of leaders.
Recently in one of my
Lead Team Institute cohort conversations, a campus president shared that she did not believe she held the authority of the office of the president, only the title.
This high-capacity leader was on the ropes of her campus culture war for power. Can you identify with her reality?
- Being the campus CEO
- Inspiring the Vision
- Engaging all Voices
- Partnering with the Community
- Planning for Contingencies of the budget shortfall
- Strategically managing Change
- Holding the language of Hope
- Building Team Trust
- Managing all post-pandemic protocols
- Mentoring Emerging Leaders
- Managing the Flood of Email
- Nursing the Wounds of Regular Surprise Attacks
- Presenting thought leadership
- Keeping the Marriage Together
- Attending the Kids’ Events
Oh, and Exercise and Eating Clean…
Impossible? Perhaps for some, but the most incredible opportunity for others called into the role.
➜ It’s a ton of pressure.
➜ It’s lonely.
➜ It’s a healthy paranoia at the top.
- Who do you let in?
- Who can you trust as a friend?
- Who can you push to improve?
- Who you are just going to be stuck with.
I fear that the mishmash of the current crisis and the chronic pressure campus leaders are under will see more leaders burned out, failing morally, and calling it quits.
Our educational mission isn’t broken, but too many leaders are.
For the record, I’m a fan of everyone charged with leading our k-12 and higher ed systems. Private and public alike. I am a product (1st generation college educated) with much love to give back to the institutions that changed my life.
So, if you’re pursuing to beat up on campus leaders or the current education system, please stop reading this and read something else.
But for those of us committed to each other and the mission of optimizing the potential of others, you know the toll fee is great.
Often too great.
With all this in mind, something’s got to break. The chronic pressures of genuine leadership won’t change unless we change our expectations around those leading our systems.
Here are five sobering reasons why campus leadership will continue to be a pressure cooker long after the global crisis disappears.
If something doesn’t break, our leaders will.
1. The Pretender
It’s so easy to believe your boss has it all together, but of course, anyone who’s been in leadership for more than ten minutes knows that’s not true.
A few leaders put themselves on a pedestal, and they get what they deserve.
Most leaders don’t try to put themselves on a pedestal. Their people put them on it without asking permission.
I’m fortunate to have a small HPG team and community of clients who accept us for who we are, not for who they want us to be.
I’ve also been quite transparent about my leadership failures and shortcomings. Self-preservation has a smell that diminishes influence and repels your best people, right?
Leaders must come to terms with the fact that the heroes on whose shoulders we all stand were flawed people.
This gives me hope, and I’m encouraged by the quote, “The universe (God) doesn’t call the equipped, instead equips the called.
Genuine influence flows best through broken (real) people.
2. The Lone Ranger
When almost everyone you know is someone you’re serving or trying to engage, who can you talk to?
➜ I’m their boss, yet they also want to be my friend.
➜ There is always more going on than they know.
➜ I can’t be 100% transparent about all things.
Leaders get pinned regularly with the statement, “Well, why don’t you just share everything with everyone?”
Great principle but a terrible practice.
As a wise mentor told me, “When it comes to public sharing, let people see your scars, not your wounds. Share your scars publicly. Process your wounds privately.
The extremes of telling nobody or telling everybody are both highly dysfunctional.
Somebody needs to help you process your wounds.
Two things will help with that. Professional counseling (I’m a member) and a couple of friends who don’t work for you, who you’re not trying to “lead,” and who may not even live near you.
These have been life-giving lifelines to me.
Joe, how about your spouse? Of course…share everything. But leaders, your spouse isn’t designed to bear the full weight of your pain.
At the end of 2023, what would it feel like to have all your open positions and your momentum reclaimed?
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”Wow! I didn’t realize I was in desperate need of this talk and these tools in my life.”
“This message so profoundly impacted us. We are now beginning to edit out the unhealthy team behaviors interfering with our performance.
“The timing of this message could not have been better for the health of our team.”
Without a new focus and approach, it's easy to continue to:
➜ Sacrifice self and family on the altar of work.
➜ Overcommit and underdeliver.
➜ Be busy but no longer brilliant.
➜ Juggle more priorities than what we can complete.
Worst of all, other people — other tasks, jobs, and projects — will continue to hijack your life.
It’s time to change that by implementing a proven practice that works.
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3. Living for Likes
You lead in an era where everything is measurable.
Some of that’s good, and some of that is devastating. It’s a daily discipline for me to keep the proper perspective.
While growth is essential (I don’t know a single leader who wants things to decline), the pressure you feel to see the number of likes, comments, shares, and views of your personal brand can be devastating.
Too much of your successes or failures can affect your identity.
I must remind myself constantly that when work is your idol, success goes to your head, and failure goes to your heart.
Leaders have always looked at spreadsheets and reports. The difference between fifteen years ago and today is that most of those metrics were private and occasional: for staff, board, or annual reports.
Today your brand scorecard is public and daily. Ugh!
4. The Do All
Many educational systems define the success of their leader according to how available, likable, and friendly their leaders are.
It’s as though campuses want a puppy, not a president.
You need to be competent at everything, available 24/7 and have a great family life.
Since when did that become the criteria for effective leadership?
By that standard, everyone will fail the test.
The goal of campus leadership is to lead people, not to be liked by people.
That’s no excuse to hold your authority above another to overpower (or disempower), but still, leadership requires that you drive from principles, not preferences.
If a campus is going to grow, we have to let go of the expectation that its leader will be available for every smoldering issue, each political twist, every campus function, and every crisis.
That’s a tough sell, but if a campus is going to grow, the leader should be more brilliant than busy.
The leader who attempts to do everything will often become incapable of doing anything.
Burnout does that to you.
And while everything rises and falls on leadership, not everything must rise and fall on a single leader.
Make 2023 Your Most Productive Year Yet.
If, as a campus leader, you have ever wondered...
- “How can I become a far more effective team leader?”
- “How do some leaders get so much done?”
- “How do I get ahead?”
- “How can I realize a dream I’ve been holding onto for too long?”
Then it might be the right time to follow a plan that works.
Leadership teams become stale and ineffective without a proven system, a community of practice, and a guide.
That's why I created...
➜ The Lead Team 360™ - To Diagnose your current leadership team health.
➜ The Lead Team Institute {LTI} - A 12-workshop series to optimize Higher Team Performance.
Looking to get a snapshot of your team's overall health?
Lead Team 360™
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Looking for monthly workshops for your people leaders?
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A 12-workshop series for campus teams on-site, virtual, or hybrid
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