My Struggles, and Then I Fly Away
David Richardson
Leadership I would like to include in my narrative a few words about my personal view of leadership. There are huge differences between being a manager and a leader. An academic leader helps to develop his or her faculty and staff, and he or she enjoys his or her interactions with colleagues and co-workers. An academic manager emphasizes tasks. Of course, accomplishing tasks is important for an academic leader, but an academic leader’s primary responsibility is to focus on the human side of students, teachers, and staff. An academic leader should involve students, teachers, and staff in the decision-making processes. An academic leader tends to be dynamic, not static, and an academic manager tends to be static, not dynamic. An academic leader is principlecentered, and he or she is proactive rather than reactive. He or she is a visionary with a plan and incorporates others in the development of the plan. An academic leader integrates Covey’s seven habits of highly effective people into his or her leadership role. Academic leaders are creative and run toward challenges and not away from them. They question the status quo and involve and 2
inspire others to develop ideas to make positive modifications or radical changes within their academic institutions. Academic leaders work with others to get extraordinary things accomplished, and they have a clear understanding that the buck stops with them. They don't allow previous histories to be roadblocks to progress, but, at the same time, they understand the importance of traditions. They recognize and acknowledge academic pavers who design and recommend constructs for institutional greatness. The best approach to academic leadership is to lead with the heart because followers see their academic leaders as being truthful and sincere. They see their leaders as role models. They see their leaders as visionaries who empower them. Academic leaders should carefully assess the strengths and weaknesses of those they lead and accentuate those strengths. Academic leaders integrate appropriate staff within the workforce to diminish weaknesses and accentuate strengths of the organization. Generally, colleges and universities have positive attitudes toward implementing new ideas even when they are untested. However, 3
frequently presidents of college or university may be the inhibiting factor in getting new things done because they think they have absolute control over everything in the institution. This is particularly true of community college presidents. If it’s not their idea, then it cannot happen. In these cases, the institution suffers, and maintains the status quo rather than growing. There are other inhibitors to growth such as the belief that the president is always right, and that academic institutions must adhere to structured procedures without the opportunity for implementing exceptions. An academic leader should challenge institutional traditions and collaboratively try new approaches. Academic leaders may have a thousand failures as long as they have one success. That one success could revolutionize the institution’s framework. Thomas Edison is a great example of this philosophy. He may have had a thousand failures in attempting to create a functional light bulb, but that one success revolutionized the diverse ways for illuminating communities after sunset and ameliorating the lifestyles of countless billions of people by transforming a world from darkness into light. 4
Academic leaders shouldn’t be aloof. They should integrate with the workforce, and work within the institutional structure to develop a shared vision, shared goals, shared objectives, and shared values. Analogous to the ten commandments that governed our relationship to God and humanity, there are ten commandments tied to academic leadership. These commandments are: 1. Thou shalt be innovative and not always take traditional pathways. 2. Thou shalt be experimental with new ideas and take responsible risks. 3. Thou shalt have a vision for the future of the institution but simultaneously address the concerns of the present. 4. Thou shalt work collaboratively with students, faculty, and staff while carefully listening to outside entities for ideas that will help develop an improved framework for your college or university. 5. Thou shalt accentuate the strengths of others within the institution while recognizing that you are not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent.
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6. Thou shalt celebrate small institutional victories in addition to its large accomplishments. 7. Thou shalt be an example by walking the talk. 8. Thou shalt give others within your institution credit for their accomplishments, i.e., don’t take all the credit. It's us, not I. 9. Thou shalt be flexible and vigilant within and outside the institution. 10. Thou shalt negotiate win-win scenarios in every institutional initiative because it is not always about you. An academic leader should develop a set of quality initiatives that have action plans. Those plans should have been collaboratively developed and should include mechanisms for checks and balances. The academic leader’s plans should include goals with anticipated outcomes. Academic leaders should have faith in their plans, and they should act on those plans. They should periodically evaluate the processes to execute and implement the plans. The students, faculty, and staff involved in the plans should be empowered to make independent and responsible decisions.
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Spontaneity relates to positive entropy and positive entropy is related to randomness and randomness is chaos. So, I conclude that there must be chaos associated with the spontaneity in initiating positive changes in academic institutions. Therefore, it’s okay for meetings to be random. Randomness includes open discussions where the participants have the opportunity to openly express themselves. Ideas, thoughts, and opinions should ideas flow within meetings. Of course, you must find order in chaos, but that order should not be an effort to control. Leaders should create a participatory environment where students, faculty, and staff feel a sense of autonomy but simultaneously exhibit dedication and commitment to the organization. This allows the institution to thrive and grow. Academic leaders should be holistic. They should be a whole person with social, physical, intellectual, and spiritual balance in their lives. Such wholeness should include a belief in a higher order above themselves, appropriate partners to make them complete, and comfort for their positions. In summary, academic leaders should be more accountable than mangers, goal-oriented, motivated, strategic planner, institutional builders, decision-maker, politically astute, role models, great 7
communicators, empathetic, sympathetic, conflict resolvers, and holistic. Those are the characteristics I worked toward during my academic leadership. I retired as an academic vice president, a career-high. Analogous to Paul who said in 2 Timothy 4: 7, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,� I feel that I can repeat those words as I closed my career because I based my career on my religious convictions.
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