Strategic Leadership|Mission and Vision: The Heart of Strategic Leadership
I
f strategy is to become a form of leadership, we shall have to put in place
a new set of criteria for its tasks. Leadership is demanding because it addresses
human values and purposes, wants and needs. It changes the intention of
strategic decision making and planning, even as it works within the same forms. In
a leadership process, integrative thinking connects findings in new ways. Decision
making becomes sensitive to symbolic meanings at the same time that it shapes
a systematic agenda for action.
The articulation of a mission and vision is that moment in strategy when
the dynamic of leadership inescapably takes center stage. Once these concepts
enter the strategic dialogue, the logic of management necessarily cedes to the
language of leadership. Leadership is asked to perform its distinctive role in
mobilizing commitment to shared purposes and goals. Intimately linked to the
definition of purpose or mission, the articulation of a vision is a requirement
of strategy and a responsibility of leadership. It cannot simply be tacked onto
a process of strategic management that otherwise would do business as usual.
In spite of all the ambivalence that academic communities have about how
authority should be exercised, they simultaneously insist on a clear sense of
direction.
As we have seen and will find again, leadership answers to deep levels of
human psychic need and expectation. So, strategy moves into deep waters when
it navigates questions of mission and vision. Not only must mission and vision
set an authentic direction that connects with the narrative of identity, but it
must also develop the mechanisms through which the organization can attain
its goals.
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MISSION AND ITS FRUSTRATIONS
Most campuses regrettably identify their mission with the statements that have
to be revised once a decade for regional or specialized accreditation. Unfortunately, anyone who has sat at the accreditation table for mission statements tries
not to return for a second helping. The process is often lifeless, with dicing and
splicing words and phrases the menu of the day. Or it is clear that the effort is
largely political, with individuals trying to advance disciplinary, administrative,
or other interests. Typically the process is not intimately related to the development of strategy but is pursued as a requirement of compliance. Conversations
enriched by discussions of the key markers of strategic self-definition or the central
goals of student learning or the social forces affecting education or the results of
internal or external evaluations do not usually occur around this task (Meacham
and Gaff 2006).
As a consequence, most mission statements are bland and vague. The accreditation panels, which must read dozens of them at a time, often joke about their
sameness. When Newsom and Hayes (1990) asked institutions how they actually
used their mission statements, they were unable to answer. They also discovered
that when the names of the colleges and universities were disguised, the mission
statements could not be identified by institution.
In an even more pointed critique of mission statements that reflects the political
realities of competition for resources in state institutions, Gordon Davies says, "It
is in no one's interest that mission be defined clearly. . . . The recruiting slogan of
the U.S. Army, 'Be all that you can be,' is parodied in higher education as 'Get
all that you can get' " (1986, 88).
Why are there such disincentives to clearly define the most fundamental feature of an organization, namely its purpose? The contexts of the effort provide
one answer. Both accreditation and budget processes can distort the strategic
significance of self-definition. In one case, the mentality of administrative
compliance can stifle strategic thinking, while in the other, the tactics of budgetary
gamesmanship makes it inopportune. Playing it safe with hallowed abstractions
about teaching, research, and service keeps peace at home, and the accreditors
and bureaucrats at a distance.
In substantive and strategic terms, of course, academic institutions cannot
even begin to hide their purposes. They are manifest and unmistakable in the
configurations of the tangible assets of a campus and in the intangible values
and programs through which an institution differentiates itself. Although
missions may be avowed only vaguely in words, they cannot be removed from
deeds and actions. George Kuh and his associates (2005) suggest that institutions have two missions, one that is espoused in policies and print, and one that
is enacted in campus life and culture. Institutions that seem to be especially
powerful in reaching their goals for student learning are "alive" to their mission both conceptually and in everyday and strategic decisions (Kuh, Kinzie,
Schuh, Whitt, et al. 2005).
Mission and Vision 137
Being all things to all people can be a ploy to gather resources or hide from
hard choices, but it cannot be sustained as a purpose. In time such a standard will
consume the organization that submits to it. Humans cannot live or think without specifiable purposes, at least not well. As Leslie and Fretwell suggest, "The
freedom to be whatever the imagination suggests is also the freedom to be nothing
in particular" (1996, 173).
MISSION AND STRATEGY
As colleges and universities have negotiated the challenges of the past several
decades, the issue of purpose has been transformed into a constant strategic challenge. As we have seen in our analysis of various models of decision making from
the academy to the corporate university, virtually every turn of the clock brings
new forms of change in the social forces and market realities of the wider society.
Coming to terms with change responsibly lends a new urgency to the old question
of institutional mission.
Our earlier exploration of the ideas of story and identity provides the appropriate context for the explication of institutional mission as a primary point of
reference for strategic leadership. The narrative of identity provides the depth and
meaning, the texture and context, within which purposes have been enacted. As
the institutional story is translated into the broad themes and values of its identity,
so does identity disclose itself explicitly in a defined sense of purpose.
Not everything concerning the organization's identity—its unique life as a culture and its forms of community, its full range of memories and hopes, assets and
achievements will be explicit in its purpose. In considering purpose, we focus more
on why we exist, and less on the specifics of how we came to be. The emphasis
is primarily on the content of what we do. The strategic discipline of leadership
that explicates purpose is focused. It aims for precision in unfolding the distinctive values, aims, and capacities of the organization. In doing so, it engages the
institution in continuing reflection on its self-definition as it differentiates itself
within the wider world of higher education.
Although the discipline of purpose is sharply concentrated, it yields findings
that are crucial for the exercise of leadership. The need to fulfill purposes is built
into the nuclear structure of human inclination, so it comprises a central component of the sense making that participants seek in an organization and the sense
giving that they ask of its leaders. In turn, purposefulness provides leaders with
a powerful rallying point that creates energy and commitment to common goals
(Hartley and Schall 2005). The sense of conviction, commitment, and calling
that belong in the idea of mission can be recaptured and then released.
Developing a Mission Statement
Before a college or a university's mission can become a component in a process
of strategic leadership, it first has to be raised to lucid awareness. The SPC or
138 Strategic Leadership
one of its subcommittees offers the most likely context for a continuous strategic
conversation on mission. It brings leaders of the faculty and administration
together around the same table. Whatever group or groups actually undertake
the task, by whatever process, the following kinds of questions will help to bring
an institution's mission to explicit form as a pattern of self-definition that places
a claim on its members. To articulate a mission as lived, we must ask of ourselves
(cf. Hunt, Oosting, Stevens, Loudon, and Migliore 1997; Sevier 2000):
• Where did we come from? (the issue of legacy, of the founders and the founding,
of decisive events, and of notable leaders)
• What really matters to us? (the question of values)
• By whom are we governed? (the issue of sponsorship by state, church, profession,
or independent board)
• Why do we exist? (the essence of the purposes we serve)
• What do we do? (the question of the range and type of the institution's educational programs and services)
• How do we do it? (the issue of the specific ways we create value and quality in
executing teaching, research, and service programs)
• Whom do we serve? (the size and scope of our activity by types of programs,
clientele, and geography)
Although they represent a place to start, serial answers to separate questions do not produce an effective sense of mission. Criteria that emphasize the
differentiation of the institution should wind through the process of inquiry and
self-definition, producing a coherent sense of purpose. For example, which of the
proposed defining characteristics in the mission rise to a level of effective strategic
differentiation? What are the things that set a place apart from others, that make
it what it is? What special educational or administrative capacities does it possess?
What particular economic, social, and political challenges define its past and its
future? The notion of core competencies (which we explore in depth in the next
chapter) asks us to look at the distinctive, creative capacities in an organization
that may cut across departments and programs. Have any competencies risen to
a level of consistent distinction, so that they have become legitimate defining
characteristics of achievement and quality? In the language of business strategy,
we ask how educational value is created and competitive advantage is achieved
(Alfred et al. 2006).
The process of strategic differentiation has other criteria to guide it, including
the test of effective measurement. As purposes are articulated, an organization must
have some way of knowing that it does what it claims to do. The measurement
need not be quantitative but can be substantive. The purpose of "student transformation" is not verifiable by quantification alone but may be evaluated by a large
variety of other forms of analysis and assessment. So, as an institution considers
its mission in a strategic context, it tests itself continually by asking, "In terms of
what measure, indicator, or evidence can we advance this claim?"
Mission and Vision 139
The clear and coherent articulation of purpose in a strategy process is a critical
task for many reasons. Among the most important is that it gives the organization
a template for systematic strategic decision making. It provides the focus for
the development of strategic initiatives and goals and for the establishment of
financial priorities. Achieving strategic wisdom in effective financial decision
making is critical in organizations like universities that are filled with talented
and ambitious professionals. In such places, perceived needs and good ideas always
outstrip available resources. A clear sense of purpose is a vital mechanism of good
management.
Mission and Strategic Leadership
A compelling sense of strategic mission provides more than just an effective
benchmark for decision making. It answers to deeper features of the human constitution and the need for meaning. If people sense that any choice is as good as any
other, they soon become demoralized or confused. The loss of a sense of purpose
or development of meaningless systems of control in bureaucracies, including
academic ones, deadens people or makes them cynical or rebellious. On the other
hand, when people are able to shape the purposes of their organizations and know
why they are doing things, they become engaged. Lived purpose is a basic form of
sense making that contributes to the growth and the empowerment of a person. As
a consequence, the articulation of authentic purpose is a dimension of leadership,
not just of management.
As people in all organizations know well, a sense of purposefulness not only
empowers the individual; it also creates a sense of community (Senge 1990).
Just as an individual flourishes by understanding her work as a calling, so does
an academic organization empower itself by interpreting its life as a community,
which is a consistent theme in the historic narrative of higher learning. Communities are created around many things—experiences, memories, values, and
common space—but they are always defined by shared purposes that create a sense
of common enterprise. Through awareness of a common mission, the members of a
community forge a fundamental relationship to one another created by service to
a common cause. The shared allegiance to the cause creates bonds between people
that come with mutual obligations and expectations and express themselves in
acts of reciprocal affirmation and correction.
In a time when market realities dominate higher education and its worth as
a public good has been has been clouded, it is important to emphasize that it
serves purposes that provide the foundations for a free society. One of the tasks
of academic leadership is to lift up and affirm these powerful values as a source
of commitment and inspiration. Though often perceived to be eternal skeptics,
academic professionals are fundamentally motivated by a commitment to the
power of knowledge and to the integrity that is required to pursue it. As Burton
Clark puts it in his masterful study, The Academic Life, "In our cultural world the
academy is still the place where devotion of knowledge remains most central,
140 Strategic Leadership
where it mot merely survives but has great power. Many academic men and
women know that power. . . . In devotion to intellectual integrity, they find a
demon who holds the fibers of their very lives" (1987, 275). To try to understand
the mission of an institution without awareness of the depth of these values and
beliefs is to miss a central motif in the institution's story of identity. When we
see an institution's mission as the self-investment in worthy ends, then we see
more clearly how strategic leadership draws on a rich well-spring of motivation
and loyalty.
CASE STUDY: THE MISSION OF THE
NEW AMERICAN COLLEGE
We have emphasized the importance of clarity of purpose for the tasks of
leadership while knowing that most academic institutions produce mission
statements that are vague or perfunctory. Rather than fill our text with lengthy
examples of flawed mission statements pulled out of context, it will be more
useful to describe an effort to reconceptualize mission that has made a telling
difference for many of its participants.
Now formalized into an association of colleges and universities called the Associated New American Colleges (ANAC), the group began in the early 1990s as
an informal but continuous dialogue among the chief academic officers of a set of
small primarily undergraduate universities and comprehensive colleges offering a
range of programs in liberal and professional education. (At the time, the institutions included the University of Redlands, the University of the Pacific, Trinity
University, the University of Richmond, Ithaca College, Susquehanna University,
North Central College, Hood College, and Valparaiso University.) The conversations began in frustration occasioned in part by classification and ranking systems
that listed their institutions as an indeterminate "regional something else" that did
not fit the primary and more prestigious categories of national liberal arts college or
national university. There was no clear model of educational quality to which they
could aspire, and their missions were portrayed and perceived negatively, as that
which they were not or, as one of the deans put it, as the ugly duckling of higher
education (cf. Berberet 2007).
In fascinating ways, the deans' conversations paralleled the concerns of the
inimitable Ernest Boyer, whose uncanny ability to frame old issues in novel
ways crystallized an emerging consensus in the deans' conversations. Boyer
(1994) wrote about the need for a new kind of American institution of higher
learning, one that was more engaged with the world, more practical in its
vision of the power of education, and more spacious in its understanding of
the different forms of faculty scholarship than traditional colleges and universities. In a word, Boyer portrayed an institution that would be definitively
integrative in working across the boundaries between disciplines, the liberal arts
and professional studies, undergraduate and graduate education, the campus
and the wider world, and the classroom and campus life. In doing so, he coined
the phrase the "New American College" to describe the institutional type he
was describing.
Mission and Vision 141
The following paragraph describes many of the common features of the missions
of its member institutions:
ANAC . . . members make student learning primary within a traditional
higher education commitment to teaching, research, and service. Most
express dedication to education that is value-centered (often reflecting the
church-related heritage many ANAC members have in common). . . . ANAC
institutions acknowledge their comprehensive character and qualities of
practice, integration, and application that reflect their identification with
the New American College paradigm. These include the mission of educating diverse graduate and professional as well as liberal arts students; a
commitment to service in their surrounding region; and the goal of developing applied competence as well as theoretical knowledge. (Associated New
American 2004)
The effort to reconceptualize the mission of these institutions has been richly
rewarding for many of the participants. The ANAC schools asked themselves what
it meant to be a distinctive type of collegiate university and found that the theme
of "connectedness" was especially suggestive in describing their strategic intent.
In virtually every direction they turned, the theme of integration, of crossing
intellectual and organizational boundaries, illuminated their strategic initiatives
(Boyer 1994). It gave them confidence that the idea of a small undergraduate
university was rich in possibility and could stand by itself as a model of quality.
The mission of the new American college has inspired a number of dramatic
success stories in which the academic and financial strength of the institutions
has improved markedly (Berberet 2007).
Many of the ANAC schools discovered that a clear and authentic purpose brings a focus to all the work of strategy and surfaces issues that are truly
mission critical. Mission then becomes a conceptual reference point that can be
internalized throughout the institution and that brings coherence and continuity to the decision-making process. In essence, it provides the organization
with purposefulness, an indispensable component of leadership. In charting
turnarounds at some two dozen institutions, MacTaggart (2007a, 2007b) emphasizes that a revitalized sense of mission defined around new or transformed
academic programs is the culminating stage of the process.
VISION AND LEADERSHIP: CONCEPTUAL
FOUNDATIONS
The development of a vision for the future is part of the very meaning of the
concept of strategy and provides an indissoluble connection to the theme of
leadership. Yet for a variety of reasons, the power of a vision is often not captured
in campus strategic plans. Sometimes the term is regarded as a trendy part of the
jargon of pop management and resisted. Commonly, too, prior experience with
a vision may stir campus resentment because it did not produce the ambitious
changes that it promised (Keller 1997).
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The basic idea of vision is not esoteric or fanciful but is the soul of strategy and
of leadership. If, regarding identity, we inquire, "Who are we?" and concerning
mission we wonder, "Why do we exist?" then in terms of vision, we ask, "To what
do we aspire?" We use a metaphor of sight to refer to an institution's discernment
of its best possibilities for the future. The dependence of strategy itself on vision is
articulated well by Burt Nanus: "A good strategy may be indispensable in coordinating management decisions and preparing for contingencies, but a strategy has
cohesion and legitimacy only in the context of a clearly articulated and widely
shared vision of the future. A strategy is only as good as the vision that guides
it, which is why purpose and intentions tend to be more powerful than plans in
directing organizational behavior" (1992, 30). Without using the words, Nanus is
describing the relationship of strategy to leadership. The presence of an effective
vision in strategy is the condition that grounds and enables the process and discipline of strategic leadership. When all is said and done, one of the most extraordinary human capacities will drive the process, namely, the ability to imagine the
future in order to create it. When the circumstances are right, humans can turn
their images of the future into reality by committing skill, imagination, resolve,
and resources to the task. Many of the central components of strategic leadership
arise out of this extraordinary human ability.
The intellectual synthesis required to create a vision is complex and difficult.
While being rigorous and analytical, strategic decisions must also be innovative
and imaginative. To grasp possibilities that are not yet fully formed, strategic
reflection, again, has to rely on stories as well as concepts, images, and metaphors,
along with facts. Narratives of identity and aspiration both require a penetrating
use of language. We speak of "greatness" or "eminence" or "distinction" and try to
grasp and convey the emerging meaning of education in "cyberspace," of "engaged"
learning, of "diversity," of "global education," and of education as "discovery" and
"empowerment." Each concept conveys a complex set of meanings that strategic
leadership must first explain and then enact through a set of strategies, goals, and
actions. An effective vision is a quintessential form of sense making and sense
giving that often takes a narrative form (cf. Gioia and Thomas 2000).
The Moral Significance of a Vision
To focus strategy in a vision is to learn again in a compelling way that leadership is about the human condition. It touches deep layers of human agency and
motivation, of human limits and possibilities. A vision of the future reaches us
as beings that live and move as temporal beings. Without images and patterns
that make sense of our personal and collective memories, we would not be the
selves we are, nor would we find meaning in our relationships and responsibilities. Because our time is limited, both in the tasks we assume and in the days of
our lives, we experience the intensity of our finitude and seek achievements and
meanings that will endure. Whether as individuals or as members of the smaller
or larger communities in which we participate, we try to grasp the future through
Mission and Vision 143
stories that provide images of hope and symbols of promise. For these reasons,
we respond to leaders who offer an authentic vision of possibility for the future
(Niebuhr 1963; Ricoeur 1984–1986).
Given this daunting context, what should be the content of a collegiate vision?
The notion that they must be miniature epics, boldly creative, or stunningly
unique is untrue. They are better known for their consequences. Visions provide
authentic and worthy aspirations that affirm, inspire, and energize the community by unfolding the promise of its future. Their message should be vivid and
memorable, and recognizable in everyday decisions. When claims are made about
levels of attainment, it should be clear how the institution will substantiate them.
When, for example, the word "excellence" or its parallel appears, the reader or
listener should be able to say, "That means excellence in terms of these determinable characteristics and achievements."
Just as we found in discussing purpose, so it is as well that a vision contributes
to a powerful sense of community. By definition a vision must be widely shared
if it belongs to the organization and not just an individual. A shared vision stirs
enthusiasm among a group of people and motivates commitment to common
tasks, though it will never capture the imagination of everyone. In the process,
connections are created among members of the community that reinforce the
vision itself, contributing to a sense of direction and momentum. As the group
executes the vision, a sense of pride and affirmation takes hold in the organization
and in the contributions of each person. To fail the vision is to fail each other.
Not surprisingly, a vision creates these mutually reinforcing patterns because
much of its basic content, especially in organizations like colleges and universities,
comes from the ideas and experience of the group itself. To be sure, leaders at all
levels contribute decisively to the vision, especially those at the top, which is
why they are there. They give it systematic expression in various forms. Or they
may enlarge and even transform it at various points in its development. Yet to be
shared, it must originate and take root in the organization. Its lineage, in fact, is
typically traced to authentic elements in the institution's story. As Peter Senge
puts it, "Once people stop asking, 'What do we really want to create?' and begin
proselytizing the 'official vision' the quality of relationships nourished through
that conversation erodes. One of the deepest desires underlying shared visions is
the desire to be connected, to a larger purpose and to one another" (1990, 230).
As a vehicle of strategic leadership, a vision taps the deep human drive to
reach ever-higher levels of quality. A defining commitment to quality is palpable in the work of most academic professionals and, as we have seen, is woven
into the person's sense of identity. Although the professional's drive for quality
can easily become brittle and self-regarding, its presence as a powerful source of
motivation is never absent. The search for personal fulfillment, academic excellence, and professional recognition becomes a reinforcing dynamic of achievement, what psychologists refer to as intrinsic motivation. Once the leadership
process has been able to stir the human need to create something of lasting
significance, then a large part of the leadership task has been accomplished.
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As the process of strategic leadership gains momentum, people feel a genuine
sense of empowerment and pride, and many new leaders step forward to meet
their responsibilities. They lead themselves and others at the same time (cf. Ganz
2005; Messick 2005; Tyler 2005).
DEVELOPING A STRATEGIC VISION
We have seen something of the content and the deep significance of a vision for
the strategy process as a form of collaborative leadership. As with mission, we must
ask not only what a vision is, but also how it is created intentionally in a strategy
process. Although there are no recipes, there are systematic practices and insights
to be used as circumstances suggest and as the dynamics of a campus indicate.
As we have seen, similar to the development of purpose, the process of
developing a vision is rooted in the institution's story and identity. In many ways,
vision is the story told anew for the future, now as a narrative of aspiration. This
may mean that the story is transformed through change and new ambitions, that
it is reinterpreted and enlarged, and some chapters of it left behind. Yet in the
examples we have seen, aspirations for the future draw forth the commanding
master values and images of the past. They legitimize the vision in the eyes of the
community and make it intelligible. As standards, values and images are open
to new content. They are orientations to choice, not the changing content of
choice. Effective leaders are always circumspect about which buildings, programs,
or policies will have to be replaced to fulfill a vision because they may carry
unexpected meanings in the institution's legacy. But some will have to go, and,
if so, their loss can be regretted as a necessary sacrifice to a larger good and an
authentic vision.
Illustrations
Whereas mission statements may require several paragraphs, visions can usually be stated in several lines, although their accompanying explanations can run
many pages. To bring some concreteness to our discussion, it will be helpful to
examine a handful of statements from a diverse group of institutions as they appear
in mission statements, strategic plans, accreditation self-studies, and official publications. With the statements before us, we can analyze some of their patterns
and parallels to shed light on their development.
The University of Connecticut will be perceived and acknowledged as the outstanding public university in the nation—a world class university (2000).
Duke University aspire[s] to become fully as good, over the next twenty years, as
any of the leading private research universities in the country, with comparable
breadth and depth, and deserved reputation for excellence in teaching, research,
and wide-ranging contributions to society (2001).
Princeton University strives to be both one of the leading research universities and
the most outstanding undergraduate college in the world (2000).
Mission and Vision 145
Carnegie Mellon will be a leader among educational institutions by building on its
traditions of innovation, problem solving and interdisciplinary collaboration to
meet the changing needs of society (1998).
Sweet Briar College has determined that to claim its pre-eminence as a woman's
college for the 21st century, the College's faculty and staff will demonstrate that
intellectual and professional endeavors will permeate our students' lives (2004).
Centre College aspires to be a national model of consequence for institutions of its
size and type—the very small coeducational liberal arts college (Morrill 1988).
Williams College take[s] it as our commitment to be the exemplary liberal arts college, nothing less (1997).
Pfeiffer University will be recognized as the model church-related institution preparing servant leaders for lifelong learning (2001).
Rhodes College aspires to graduate students with a life-long passion for learning, a
compassion for others, and the ability to translate academic study and personal
concern into effective leadership and action in their communities and the world
(2003).
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a leading student-centered
university, linking the Piedmont Triad to the world through learning, discovery,
and service (1998).
The University of Richmond is embarking on a mission to create an institution
that is second to none, better than any and different from all . . . by transforming
bright minds into great achievers (2003b).
Juniata College [is] a learning community dedicated to provide the highest quality
education in the liberal arts and sciences and to empower our graduates to lead
fulfilling and useful lives in a global setting (2001).
Roanoke College intends to [be] one of this nation's premier liberal arts colleges
(1993).
Virginia Commonwealth University (building on its position of leadership among
urban research universities) aspires to be an innovative leader among the nation's
major research universities (1997).
Baylor University, within the course of a decade, intends to enter the top tier of
American universities while reaffirming and deepening its distinctive Christian
mission (2002).
The Vision to Be the Best
As one analyzes these statements, a number of common patterns become evident.
One of these is the effort to seize on the language of superlatives, particularly the
phrase "the best." The language may vary and include words and phrases such as
"the preeminent" or "the outstanding," but the meaning is the same and refers to the
highest level of achievement. In a slight variation on the theme, vision statements
sometimes use the logic of equivalence by stating positively that the institution will be
"as good as any," or negatively, by claiming that none will be any better. The necessary
implication, of course, is that there are other institutions that are just as good.
146 Strategic Leadership
As ambitious and inflated as they often sound, the claims about being the best
and its variants show signs of realism because they are almost always differentiated
by institutional mission and type. The references are about becoming the best
liberal arts college, or the model of quality for the very small coeducational liberal
arts college or the private research university. Many smaller and midsize private
universities explicitly refer to their dual aspirations as undergraduate colleges and
graduate research universities.
Although vision statements are brief, they typically differentiate themselves by
recounting aspects of their narrative in the texts that surround them. So, Rhodes
College (2003) describes its path toward excellence and its place among the top
tier of liberal arts colleges by describing the influence of President Charles Diehl,
who boldly moved the campus to Memphis in 1925 and suggested that "The good
is ever the enemy of the best." To be the best and in the top tier may be mutually
exclusive logically, but they show the way narrative and metaphor shape statements of vision.
For years the University of Connecticut has had a mission and vision to be
"a great state university" and, since 1994, to be the nation's "outstanding public
university." During the past ten years, the vision has served as a rallying cry to
turn the dilapidated campus, once called "a neglected embarrassment" by the local
newspaper, into a showplace worthy of its high aspirations (MacTaggart, 2007b).
A staggering $2.8 billion has been invested in remaking the campus and creating
fifty-three new buildings, as well as making dramatic improvements in applications, selectivity, funded research, and other strategic indicators. The ambitious
vision has taken on local significance by triggering the will of the university and
the government to take the lead in meeting the educational and economic needs
of the people of Connecticut (MacTaggart 2007b).
Many of the sample statements that we have listed represent another common
way to frame a vision statement, which is the goal to be "among the best," a claim
that involves a large number of variant phrases such as "in the top tier," "among
the top ten," or simply "to be a leader." In setting such a goal, the aim is to draw a
circle of shared reputation around a group of top performers that includes or will
eventually include the institution. The vision may acknowledge tacitly that the
purpose of its strategy is to reach a level of quality that it does not now have or it
may affirm its ambition to maintain its current position within a leadership group
of peers (cf. Gioia and Thomas 2000). Again, the aspiration is differentiated by
mission and by the taxonomy of institutional types that consists of such variables
as national and regional, public and private, undergraduate and graduate, and
liberal arts and professional.
The Vision to Do the Best
A quite different approach to constructing a vision involves the aspiration to
reach a high level of achievement in designated educational programs, methods,
and outcomes. The emphasis shifts from seeking to be the best to doing the best.
Mission and Vision 147
From a strategic point of view, the question becomes, "At what do we or could
we excel?" Or we ask, "In what distinctive ways do we create educational value?"
Put more pointedly, "For what do we want to be known?" Thus we find references
on our list to creating a "passion for learning," educating "servant leaders," or
"empowering students." The language of aspiration is still in evidence: terms like
"highest quality" are typically used to describe the desired level of performance.
Characteristics of Vision Statements
When understood in the context of strategic leadership, how effective is
the language of "the best" and its surrogates? Does it succeed in providing an
academic community with a worthy and inspiring shared vision of its future?
Although its ultimate effectiveness as an instrument of leadership will always
be highly contextual—the aim is to reach and motivate engaged participants,
not the general public—there are some clear characteristics and criteria about
visions that use superlatives.
It appears that at least one of the goals of a vision is to stimulate the instincts
of people to create a reputation and results that are superior to those of others, namely the competition (Gioia and Thomas 2000). The normally polite but
very real rivalry to attract the most talented faculty and students, and the most
resources, is driven in part by an ambition that will make an institution equal to
or better than competitors and be perceived that way. Even a cursory reading of
strategic plans shows clearly the presence of this competitive impulse. As much
as one might want to do so, one cannot ignore the reality that competitiveness is
an integral part of strategic thinking and a source of motivation.
But competitiveness sinks into a negative spiral of distortion if the ambitions
to be the best are not redeemed by the aspiration to reach levels of quality that
are substantive and worthwhile in themselves. If the vision is to motivate people
to seek ever-higher levels of quality as a matter of fulfillment, it has to meet a
variety of criteria. It must articulate the values and authentic aspirations of a
given institution with its own history, profile, and possibilities. For these reasons,
the effort to define that niche or space within which an organization can excel or
exercise leadership is a fruitful endeavor. Differentiation is a way to capture the
specific promise and possibility of an institution. The goal is to find and to state
the precise structure of the highest form of quality and value creation that a particular institution is able to attain. A differentiated vision reveals the distinctive
forms of quality that are possible, thus opening the way to levels of commitment
that otherwise might remain untouched.
If a vision is to contribute to the tasks of leadership, it must be not only ambitious but plausible. In being inspirational, it will define attractive possibilities,
and in being realistic, it will be seen as attainable over a period of time. The
key to striking the right balance is to ensure that the vision is determinable and
is therefore subject to various forms of measurement. An effective vision has to
come with a set of indicators that are spelled out within a strategic plan or other
148 Strategic Leadership
widely available documents. When an institution intends to become the best, it
must be clear about how it intends to fulfill its ambition, or it will quickly lose
credibility. As often happens, if the terms lack definition or local meaning, they
will become empty phrases that will be benignly ignored or, worse, will echo in
cynical asides around the campus.
Combining Being and Doing the Best in a Strategic Vision
One of the most effective ways to ensure that superlatives have strategic force
is to combine reflections about being the best with disciplined explorations of
"doing the best." A critical weakness of ambitions that are not specifiable is
that they block the processes of precise knowledge, focused reflection, linguistic
richness, and integrative judgment that are required to create a sustained and
powerful vision. Strategic creativity often has humble beginnings as people with
detailed contextual knowledge interact with peers daily to explore organizational
problems and opportunities. They start with a sense of what they do best, not
of how they can be the best. These issues lead to specific and determinable
areas of competence and achievement, the latter into a whole series of complex
assumptions that, as we have seen, may be hard to define and measure. Finally,
of course, the two forms of "best" should merge, but the order in which the issues
are pursued is a critical part of a vision and of leadership.
We touched earlier on the discussion of this issue in Collins's Good to Great
(2001), and it will be helpful to consider it in greater depth. As we have noted,
this study of corporate success has broad implications for other types of organizations, including, unexpectedly perhaps, colleges and universities. Collins discovered that great companies are often built around stunningly simple ideas on which
they stayed tightly focused. But it is not just any idea. It "is not a goal to be the
best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best. It is an understanding
of what you can be the best at" (Collins 2001, 93). In all the cases of moving from
good to great, the company made a passionate commitment to being the best
in the world in a particular activity or competency. Further, "The good to great
companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here
is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate" (Collins
2001, 96).
The concentrated effort to find the areas in which academic organizations have
an intense level of commitment and capacity to excel is typically a different
process than in business, although there are analogies. A college's greatest claim
to talent and distinctive quality may well reside in the values, methods, relationships, resources, and characteristics exhibited in the total educational program
and in the campus ethos. These factors cross disciplinary lines and may define
the underlying dimensions of a distinctive and powerful approach to learning. To
locate its sources, one asks: Where do the people in the organization show substantial and enduring passion for greatness? Where have they built greatness into
the middle of the organization without being directed to do so? (Collins 2001).
Mission and Vision 149
To disclose these characteristics in the work of strategy is to contribute to a vision
as an emergent process of collaborative leadership.
With those distinctive competencies and characteristics as their foundation,
the institution can seek to enlarge its level of quality in steps and stages, moving
from strength to strength. If the vision is authentic, it will be of decisive importance in helping to drive the momentum of achievement. A vision is fueled by the
way these distinctive and generative core competencies are translated strategically
from what a place does best into being the best in a carefully defined class of
institutions or programs.
Envisioning: An Imaginary Campus Tour
Some strategic plans display an interesting method of developing and testing a
strategic vision that uses the narrative form in a distinctive way. Though usually
not done systematically or comprehensively, they use a process of envisioning the
actual programs, practices, resources, and achievements that would be in place
were the vision to be realized or progress made toward attaining it in a given
number of years. It involves the effort to imagine coherently what is not yet real
in order to bring the future into the present. The strategic imagination works
through a disciplined and integrative method of reflection based on various patterns of evidence, for it is not an exercise in creating fantasies and wish lists. It
draws on the best quantitative data available, uses collaborative methods, and
connects its projections to the institutional narrative and to its current and future
strategic position. So, it represents an act of intellectual synthesis.
In an analysis that parallels many of the ideas proposed here, Ramsden suggests:
"A vision is a picture of the future that you want to produce . . . an ideal image . . .
of excellence, a distinctive pattern that makes your department, your course or
your research . . . different" (1998, 139). In a similar vein at a recent seminar on
strategy, the leader proposed that we think of strategy as similar to the work of
assembling the pieces of a puzzle, and of a vision as the picture on the box that
guides the process (Stettinius 2005).
To illustrate one way that envisioning occurs, consider a procedure in which
a group of participants is asked to take an imaginary tour through the campus
when it has fulfilled the vision established for it (cf. Baylor University 2002,
University of Richmond 2003a). The tour will give concreteness and clarity
to the meaning of the vision as well as test its plausibility. What will people
see as they make their rounds, and how might it be different from what is here
today? What are the most significant discrepancies between the way things might
be and the way they are now? (Gioia and Thomas 2000). Where are improvement and change most needed and most obvious? What are the most distinctive,
compelling, and attractive features of the vision? How is the future described in
narra tive form?
As we shall show below, the set of concepts and images that emerges from
a visioning process can be complex and comprehensive. They will have relevance
150 Strategic Leadership
for virtually every sector of the organization. As a result, the process becomes
a useful way for various offices and programs throughout a campus to discern the
meaning and possibilities of the vision for its own work. Each area of responsibility
will discover special ways that its performance will be altered and enhanced to fit
the images cast by the vision. As the analysis goes forward, the central question
becomes: Do the concepts and goals of the vision convey authentic meaning and
offer criteria that will mobilize commitment to it across the organization?
So, on their imaginary campus tour, people will want, for example, to explore
various facets of the academic experience of students. They will ask to see how
students and faculty interact in the classroom. What are the forms of teaching
and learning inside and outside the classroom that fulfill the vision? What will
be the shape of the curriculum in general education and in the majors? What
expectations will professors set and students satisfy, as illustrated in course syllabi?
What types of assignments and learning experiences will there be? How much
writing will be required? What other kinds of individual and group projects will
be expected? If we examine tests and papers, what level of rigor and quality of
work do we see? How does the total education program fit together, and to what
does it lead? What plans do students have after graduation? What contributions
do they intend to make to the wider society? When they leave, where do they go,
and what are they able to do when they get there?
Imagine that as the tour continues, the visitors follow a similar pattern of
questioning as they interact with faculty and staff in a variety of offices and
programs. They will be inquiring about and envisioning the professional characteristics and achievements of those whom they encounter, especially the
contributions that faculty make to knowledge. The tour will also include an
evaluation of the facilities of the campus and its other tangible resources. The
group will spend a large amount of time as well collecting and analyzing data
concerning the strategic indicators that will tell them the conditions that must
be met for the vision to be fulfilled. They will give special attention to the
institution's financial position and the assessment of student, faculty, and staff
performance.
When all this is done, the group will be able to choose or revise the terms
that best express what they have pictured and tested in their minds during your
imaginary walk. In a reversal of the usual phrase, here the "talk" gives meaning to
the "walk" that is going be required (Weick 1995, 182). Metaphors and symbols
will flow from the envisioning process that give color and vibrancy to the vision
and capture the institution's identity for the future. If words like "the best," "highest quality," "national leader," "world class," or "superior" can legitimately be used,
they will have been tied to specific forms of attainable achievement. They must
be able to be imagined and justified with regard to the potential of the institution
to dominate the environment that it is likely to encounter. If they are only words,
however, they will do more harm than good and produce cynicism, not inspiration. If, on the other hand, the envisioning process demonstrates that the vision
Mission and Vision 151
resonates with the authentic best possibilities of a place to create educational
value, it has created a powerful source of motivation.
The envisioning process is also a way to locate the most important disparities
between what we want to become and our current situation. The limitations
may come in many forms, but strategically they have to do with the underlying
capacities of the organization. Most visions cannot be realized in the span of
a normal strategic plan, for they may require several decades, but they are able to
focus our attention on the structural issues and causal characteristics that are the
primary barriers to the fulfillment of our best possibilities (LeVan 2005). What
are the most important gaps that have to be closed? As we consider organizational
strengths and weaknesses, this deeper orientation will change the character of our
strategic self-assessment.
Whose Vision?
One of the perennial questions about a vision revealed in our earlier analysis
of leadership in higher education is whether it is created by leaders and imposed
on the organization, or whether the leader serves primarily as the storyteller
for the vision that the organization creates for itself. These two ends of the
spectrum are better understood as polarities that need each other to be complete, rather than as opposites (Cope 1989; H. Gardner 1995; Ramsden 1998;
Sevier 2000).
Since leadership is actively reciprocal, vision is a relational concept. Without
opportunities for open exchange and dialogue, absent active and continuing collaboration to learn his or her constituents' needs and aspirations, it seems impossible
to imagine how a leader's vision could inspire an organization, especially a professional one like a college or university. The conclusion that as to leader and organization, a collegiate vision is always both/and, never either/or, seems inescapable.
Yet it is also clear that listening is an active process in which the leader is
contributing ideas, synthesizing information, integrating recommendations,
testing boundaries, and drawing on privileged knowledge and experience from
outside the campus. Finally, it falls to the designated leaders of organizations to
articulate a clear and compelling sense of direction. To communicate the story
and the vision is, then, always far more than neutral discourse that repeats an
inchoate set of wants and needs. It is a central act of leadership as both sense
making and sense giving.
Narratives of aspiration are not only integrated and changed in the telling;
they also have to be sustained and enacted by the leader's commitment. Depending on circumstances, the articulation and implementation of a vision may rise
to the level of transforming leadership that involves systematic and pervasive
change or decisive moral leadership. The assertion of a bold vision could mean
that the president or other high officials have to take a stand in the name of the
defining values of the organization itself. At such times, the balance shifts to the
152 Strategic Leadership
side of initiative by the leader in the assertive formulation, communication, and
enactment of a vision.
Summary: The Criteria for a Vision
The project of transforming strategy into a process and discipline of leadership clearly turns on its capacity to develop, articulate, and implement a vision.
If leadership is to accomplish this task, a variety of criteria have to be satisfied.
Since many of them relate to the development of an effective mission as well, it
will be helpful to pull these together here in an explicit summary form. To serve
the purposes of leadership, a vision statement should be (cf. Kotter 1996; Sevier
2000; Tierney 2002):
• Clear
• Concise
• Focused
• Differentiated
• Aspirational
• Plausible
• Motivational
• Shared
• Authentic
• Worthwhile
• Measurable
MISSION, VISION, AND STRUCTURAL CONFLICT
We have argued that strategic leadership is able to address the structural value
conflicts in collegiate governance systems in ways that make a practical difference.
Similar to the integrative power of narratives of identity, penetrating statements
of mission and vision also provide a framework for transcending the deepest conflicts and worst complications of shared governance.
A vision is not a romantic ideal that a leader has plucked from some hidden
world, but an authentic contextual articulation of purpose that has arisen through
open debate and dialogue. As to process, it expresses and builds trust. As to substance, it provides values that differentiate, mediate, and reconcile the structural
conflict between autonomy and authority, and the intrinsic and instrumental
worth and measurement that typify academic decision making. The values of the
mission and vision have to become embodied in a specific organization and enacted
in its identity. They provide an academic community with professional and moral
purposefulness that reconfigures the meaning of both autonomy and authority. It
renders authority more conscious of the academic and moral responsibilities that
Mission and Vision 153
it carries, and autonomy more aware of the organizational requirements it must
satisfy. As we shall see in other places, the exercise of strategic leadership is about
the resolution of structural conflict at a variety of levels and in different forms
throughout the organization.
We can also see that the development of strategic consciousness provides new
resources for some of the other perplexing dynamics of organizational decision
making, including the decoupled choice system. As we have seen, in such a world
of decision making, participants carry around personal and ideological preoccupations that they would like to unload on a decision, whether it is relevant or
not. Yet the meaning of the context changes where strategic leadership has been
able to define a sense of institutional legacy, mission, and vision. Now there are
strategic criteria that assert both subtle and overt rules of relevance to establish
the framework for decision making. Instead of carrying lots of excess idiosyncratic
baggage, participants can more easily devise strategies and construct agendas to
make decisions and solve problems.
In some ways, we have moved ahead of ourselves, for the ways to think about
the challenges and the possibilities of the future have been assumed, but not yet
defined. We have knowingly explored the questions of mission and vision in
isolation in order to penetrate more fully into their meaning for leadership. In a
sequential sense they are always considered with reference to the broader social,
economic, and cultural contexts in which academic institutions find themselves.
We now turn to the task of considering methods to analyze the wider field of
strategic forces with which colleges and universities must contend.