Higher Ed Leadership Crisis
In a recent LinkedIn post, Dr. Branden Grimmett, Associate Provost at Loyola Marymount University, called out to higher-ed leaders about the pressing need to put employees first in the face of major transitions facing the industry. He wrote,
#HigherEd leaders: the pandemic and #GreatResignation are impacting our industry in unprecedented ways. If we learned nothing else over the past 24 months, it should be this: universities are not just where students learn — they’re also where people work.
Everyone’s replaceable, but as attrition grows, the costs are great and the institutional knowledge loss is immeasurable. Competitive universities must be serious about compensation, innovative about housing support, and open-minded about work mode (#hybrid & #remote) for all employees.
Burnett and Evans through their action-driven books on designing the life and work we love, and Albert Einstein long before them, have underscored the importance of identifying the right problem to devising a workable solution.
“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein
So, here we are, three years since the World Health Organization first announced the COVID outbreak: 47.8m in total voluntary resignations; over $1.6 trillion in debt overhanging students[1], a historic decline in students enrolled in college[2], and a widening skills gap between employer perception of top in-demand skills (communication, problem-solving, critical thinking) and students’ proficiency in these skills (NACE). Moreover, with the rise in automation, AI, and personalized services, the training, experience, and education required for jobs is changing. Accordingly, as higher education career services professionals, we need to persistently keep ourselves informed on trends changing the future of work including :
· issues of equity & fairness (i.e., are our students/alumni finding themselves in the positions/companies they are seeking? What does self-advocacy look like when navigating an ever-changing jobscape?),
· hybrid/remote work (i.e., are our students/alumni equipped in skills that are necessary for hybrid work),
· employee/client wellbeing (how do we model self-care for our teams/clients when we may be burned out ourselves?)
In this fast-changing context in which jobs are being redefined and people redeployed, my role as a career counselor is evolving into a career educator and transition coach where I not only help clients navigate job search in a changing world (by educating them on how to stand out as a candidate, showcase their remote skills, articulate their value-added, demystify and reframe networking, etc.) but hold a safe space for them to imagine new (never before prototyped) possibilities and find and move their path forward.
Going back to the Einstein quote earlier, what I see as a key challenge for our industry is the lack of empathetic leaders committed to addressing their employees’ need for purpose, autonomy, and a sense of belonging. In observing our industry’s loss of irreplaceable talent and experience that Grimmett noted, I realized the kind of leader I do not want to be, which is one taken over by fear. In some cases, I noticed that leaders who were most averse to pivoting were ones afraid of how their bosses would react or terrified of the degree of transparency and emotional labor that positive change would require. So, instead of appealing to their employees’ need for autonomy and flexibility, they took to management styles that aligned with Theory X principles like micromanaging, monitoring, and playing favoritism. In time these leaders seemed to become so detached from the employees they were meant to serve that their leadership lost legitimacy in the eyes of those they led resulting in low employee morale and staff resignations.
The global workforce is changing with more and more job candidates prioritizing flexibility and autonomy and more employers offering flexibility to attract top talent and support employee wellbeing, which brings to the fore the importance of embodying the following qualities as a leader:
· Empathetic
· Self-aware
· Equitable
· Purpose-driven
· Other-focused
Empathy means being able to relate to the needs of those around us and make them feel heard and seen. To be that person, we need to listen holistically and let go of any biases and preconceived assumptions. If others find comfort and safety in our presence, we will be able to know and attend to their truest needs.
Self-awareness is accepting our whole selves. Those who know themselves have a knack for activating their strengths and natural abilities in the service of what matters most to them. To be that person, we need to seek more feedback from those around us: How am I showing up for you? Do you feel supported by me — why or why not?
Henry Fayol’s description of equity as a blend of kindness and justice genuinely resonates with me. Knowing not everyone’s needs are the same, equality is not enough. To be equitable, we need to ask whose voice is missing that needs to be heard for healthy differences to surface.
At the core of authentic and servant leadership lies humility and commitment to using the privilege of our positional power to put the needs of our teams first. From where I have been standing as a multicultural working mother of two holding a mid-level career services position, I have been observing the pendulum swinging more towards management outputs like student career outcomes, alumni giving versus supportive leadership that influence inputs like employee incentives, flexible hours, recognition awards, etc. During a time when our industry is severely under-led and over-managed, the type of leadership I aspire to entails connecting others to their wellbeing and purpose first so they can coalesce around shared purposes and work tirelessly to drive positive change. When leadership happens, outcomes follow naturally.
https://hbr.org/2022/01/11-trends-that-will-shape-work-in-2022-and-beyond
[1] https://www.marketplace.org/2022/03/15/the-jurys-still-out-on-that-1-6-trillion-in-student-loan-debt/
[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/13/1072529477/more-than-1-million-fewer-students-are-in-college-the-lowest-enrollment-numbers-
