Strategic Leadership|Implementation: From Strategic Leadership to Strategic Management
The popular literature on leadership sends the message that management
is mundane and blind to change, while leadership is noble and visionary.
Practitioners, however, know that the relationship between the two is much
more complex. In describing strategic leadership, I have tried to fill the managerial
frames of strategy with new images of leadership. Yet I have sought as well to show
that a leadership vision must create a clear picture of the tasks of enactment. In
sum, leadership without execution creates an empty vision, while management
without leadership is nearsighted.
In order for strategic leadership and management to work reciprocally, the first
task is to analyze the resources, practices, structures, and culture of an organization
to find vehicles for the implementation of strategy. The key to strategic effectiveness is a new intentionality that continuously seeks ways to incorporate a strategic
orientation into the workings of the institution. Practically every facet of college
and university operations presents itself as a possibility for reconceptualization and
reformulation. In discussing a diverse series of successful steps to move the plan off
the shelf and into action at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Kathleen A.
Paris notes: "For the plan to be taken seriously, faculty, staff, and students must
see it as infused throughout the organization. It must be part of routine academic
life" (2004, 124). Her thoughts parallel other recent motifs in the literature on
strategy that emphasize the importance of linking institutional research with initiatives to improve quality, plans with budgets, goals with teams responsible for
attaining them, and strategies with control systems. An emphasis on the translation of strategic thinking and planning into action has come to characterize
contemporary strategy programs (Dooris, Kelley, and Trainer 2004).
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In the sections that follow, we provide analyses that illustrate the way that
several critical contexts, activities, and relationships can become resources for
the implementation of strategic leadership. There are countless opportunities on
each campus besides these, but they are significant ones that often appear in the
literature on the execution of strategy (Alfred et al. 2006; Bryson 1995; Keller
1997; Rowley, Lujan, and Dolence 1997; Sevier 2000). We shall focus on:
• Communication about strategy
• Strategy and organizational culture: Norms, stories, rituals, and ceremonies
• Authority: Leadership, management, and control systems
• Strategy and accreditation
• Strategic assessment
• Strategic program reviews
• The governing board and the implementation of strategy
• Strategic integration and momentum
COMMUNICATION ABOUT STRATEGY
Most theories of leadership give a central place to the importance of communication in order to engage and motivate constituents. Ultimately, strategic leadership becomes influential in the intentions and actions of individuals and groups
through effective communication. Narrative leadership is successful because it
reaches people at the level of their personal and cultural identities and thus is
tied to their values and actions. Communication is the critical link in forging
these connections.
Goals for Communication in Strategic Leadership
As we consider the role of communication, several familiar themes will reappear. It will become apparent that to serve a process of strategic leadership, communication must meet a series of tests. Both during and at the conclusion of a
strategy process, communication will show itself to be characterized by:
• Reciprocity: Most of the values and strategies developed in the process come
from the campus community itself and are given back to it, perhaps in new forms,
in the final vision and goals of the plan.
• Participation: There are ample opportunities for people to be heard and for
genuine give-and-take in the development of the strategy.
• Urgency: Effective communication gains attention, shows that strategy matters,
and summons effort and commitment to succeed in the face of obstacles.
• Learning: In an effective strategy process, everyone learns about the institution and how it really works, as well as about the challenges it faces in the
environment.
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• Narrative: The strategy uses the story and the narrative voice to embody the
institution's identity, capture its spirit, resolve conflicts, and create a sense of
connection between the past and the future.
• Validation: Invitations to experts on and off campus to speak and write about
the plan can both clarify and verify its claims.
• Motivation: Leadership is always about motivation and inspiration, and communication is one of the primary vehicles through which it is achieved.
• Repetition: The periodic and consistent communication of the key messages of
the strategy in a variety of contexts is a necessity.
Not surprisingly, various guidebooks and studies of strategic planning consistently emphasize the centrality of effective communication (Alfred et al. 2006;
Keller 1997; Sevier 2000). Echoing that theme, one of higher education's most
influential voices in matters strategic, George Keller, frequently affirms the need
for effective and repeated communication in developing strategy: "The communication must be effective and continued, from the inception of planning through
the several years of its implementation" (1997, 165). He advises us to communicate and then to do so again, and again. This communication has several goals,
including the creation of a sense of urgency to respond to tough external pressures,
and to seize the attention of busy academics who are preoccupied with the many
other claims on them. As March puts it, decisions "depend on the ecology of
attention: who attends to what and when" (quoted in Keller 1997, 165). If strategic issues are to engage an academic community, they must be communicated
skillfully and persistently and, at times, movingly.
Forms of Communication
Both before and during an intensive cycle of strategic planning, there should
be a variety of forms of communication. Institutions should use the vehicles that
best fit their cultures to build awareness about strategic planning, from Web sites
to newsletters, from large public meetings to smaller gatherings, from informal
conversations to major speeches, and from the agendas of regular meetings to
special presentations. There should be good opportunities in these contexts, and
many others, to present and elicit ideas and reactions to the strategy project, both
as to its methods and content. The efforts to inform and to establish a sense of
importance for the process should themselves be considered strategic objectives.
As the strategy process gets underway, the SPC will have gathered a set of
articles and documents for its own use. Information about the collection can be
made widely available, and some articles and reports should be provided on a Web
site. At various moments in the process, people across campus will be invited to
offer opinions on surveys and questionnaires, or to attend meetings, roundtables,
or workshops to offer ideas or to respond to a task force or council draft. As
the process moves forward, a draft document of the SPC's final report should be
circulated for comment or should be made the subject of formal or less formal
220 Strategic Leadership
discussions or open meetings. To increase participation at these events, personal
invitations should be sent from the chairperson of the SPC, the president, or the
relevant dean or director. As a result of these interactions, a good cross-section
of the campus will feel informed and involved in the main issues under consideration. The reciprocity of a process of leadership will have been achieved.
Larger campuses will have a harder time than smaller ones in building an effective communication system, but modern information technologies make the goal
a realistic one. In large institutions, each academic unit or subdivision becomes
an important spoke in the wheel of communication. Success will depend on the
ways that deans of schools and colleges are drawn into the strategy process and
then communicate on its progress and results. The chairperson and the staff of the
SPC should monitor and encourage that process, calling on the authority of the
president or chief academic officer as needed.
The Strategy Report
The leaders of every strategy process have an important decision to make about
the nature of the reports or documents that will issue from the project. Often
one hears that it is the process itself, far more than the resulting document, that
matters. People claim that reports have a short shelf life, and no one has time to
read them. For these reasons, and others, some writers suggest that a final strategy
document should be no more than twenty to twenty-five pages (Rowley, Lujan,
and Dolence 1997).
There is no easy rule of thumb for the appropriate length or nature of a final
strategy document. The character and length of the document is a consequence
of the goals that each institution sets for the process and the uses that it intends
for the report. It ordinarily should appear in several different forms and lengths to
accomplish its purposes. Although the report is not an end in itself, it can be an
influential means to achieve a variety of critical goals.
Consistent with our emphasis on the tasks of leadership, it is important for
the report to be a primary source for teaching and learning about the strategic
future of the institution. As such, a strong case can be made for making the final
report a longer and more elegant document of fifty to seventy-five pages of text,
plus charts and data. Carefully crafted language can serve a variety of purposes,
many relating to the themes of leadership. The most important issues should
be treated in clear and exacting prose, although some sections can use bullet
points and summaries. In presenting strategic initiatives relating to the use of
resources, or involving conflict and change, there should be a premium on wellreasoned and documented argumentation rather than extreme brevity. Much
of the document's persuasiveness is achieved by drawing on the institution's
story in building its case, and using the narrative form to reach the audience as
participants or stakeholders in the process.
The capacity of a report to inform and inspire those who have not been close
to the planning process is often at stake, so the document carries an important
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burden. The report teaches. What do we mean when we seek national status?
What is the balance between legacy and change? What does it suggest to be
the best in our class? What is the specific content of diversity? What is the resource picture for the future? Why were these and not other construction or
renovation projects chosen? Why are we being asked to establish priorities and
to cut expenses yet again? The final report becomes one means to create a
sense of urgency and significance, which is essential to drive the plan to realization.
Tactics to Communicate the Strategy
A final report does not, of course, stand alone as the product of a strategy process. It functions as the source for a large variety of other communications and
for a set of emphases and actions that, in effect, comprise the tactics to communicate the strategy. It is much easier to accomplish these steps if the final report
has a suggestive name that describes its major themes, rather than the generic
"Strategic Plan, 2005–2010." Centre College entitled one of its plans "Education
as Empowerment," a theme that captured some of the goals of a transformative
liberal education.
The steps in a communications plan can include:
• The preparation of attractive summary reports to be circulated to special audiences, like advisory groups and the press, and to be included in alumni publications, perhaps as a pullout section
• The development of articles to be used in faculty, staff, and alumni publications,
often as a series
• The development of stories and features based on the analysis of proposed programs and facilities, to be used by the admissions and development offices
• The creation of Web sites that provide the plan, progress reports on its implementation, and coverage that may have appeared in press releases, stories, and
articles
At the basis of the communications effort, is the systematic distribution of
the full report to the campus itself. In the hands of many key decision makers, it
becomes a coherent set of directions and goals for their own priorities and plans,
as we shall see. If it is clear that budget decisions will be made in terms of the
priorities of the strategy, it will get everyone's attention. A good final report also
prompts admissions directors, development vice presidents, and communications
directors to underline key ideas and narratives in the report. It offers them a
coherent story to tell about the institution's direction for the future. The ideas
and even the language of the plan come to shape the way these key divisions
communicate with a wide variety of the constituencies of the university. As a
result, the organization's identity and its messages become much clearer and
more coherent.
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Brown University Web Site
Brown University has created a superb Web site to communicate its "Plan
for Academic Enrichment." In addition to the plan, it includes several backup
reports on the campus master plan, financial resources, and other strategic issues.
Some features of the site are distinctive and effective. Among these are links that
take the viewer to recent developments in each of the university's ten strategic
initiatives. The excellent graphics and photographs, press releases and stories,
announcements of grants (including $100 million from one donor for financial
aid), and descriptions of new academic programs give the reader a vibrant sense
of the content and progress of the plan.
STRATEGY AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE: NORMS,
STORIES, RITUALS, AND CEREMONIES
A central theme of our analysis is that collegiate organizations function as
cultures as well as formal organizations. Campus communities live by norms and
beliefs, customs and rituals, and stories and traditions that suggest what people
should know and do in order to fit into the organization. As we have seen, the
power of organizational culture has a strong influence on the effectiveness of
leadership both as an engaging process of influence and as a formal position.
The implementation of strategy depends on knowing the folkways, pathways,
and leverage points to get things done within the culture. Strategic leadership
is always looking for ways to read the meaning of these lived realities in order to
embed strategy with the grain of the organization's understanding of itself and its
ways of doing business. In doing so, it brings a systematic and focused approach
to the cultural tasks of leadership.
The culture of a community also has a more visible way of enacting itself
through the formal and informal rituals and ceremonies by which it celebrates
its history and identity. Traditions and rituals are plentiful on many campuses,
less so on others. But virtually every institution has ceremonial moments when it
opens and closes the academic year, celebrates a founder's day, provides students
and faculty with awards, and welcomes new members of the community. At the
University of Kansas, entering students participate in a powerful initiation into
campus lore and culture as they celebrate Traditions Night and learn songs and
chants and hear stories about the Jayhawk, a mythical bird that represents the
struggles of the early Kansas settlers (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, et al. 2005; cf.
Toma, Dubrow, and Hartley 2005). All such occasions become ways for aspects of
the institution's narrative to be presented and celebrated. Rituals and traditions
connect faculty, staff, and students with a lived expression of the community's
heritage and purposes, reinforcing and deepening the formal definitions of identity and vision found in a planning document. Strategic leadership draws respectfully on these resources to relate its goals to the interwoven cultural dimensions
of the community.
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AUTHORITY: LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT,
AND CONTROL SYSTEMS
More than communication and cultural resonance are necessary to implement
a strategic plan. Required as well is a sense of the legitimacy of the total process
and an effective use of authority to accomplish designated goals (cf. Bornstein
2003). Unless hindered by adversarial hostility, faculty and staff will be inclined
to accept and own a strategic agenda that has been developed collaboratively and
legitimately. With appropriate forms of consultation and interaction, opportunities to contribute and be heard, and responsiveness to any signals of discontent
about the process, the strategy agenda gains legitimate authority in the academic
sphere. If the leaders of the strategy process have exposed the academic issues in
the report to open faculty debate and consideration, it will be seen as conforming
to the expectations of shared governance.
If legitimacy is essential in the academic sphere, both ownership and authority
are vital in the administrative arena. Strategic leadership captures the best ideas
and professional aspirations of the staff as well as the faculty. Many of the primary
champions of the process and the products of strategic planning will have to
come from the highest ranks of the organization, and others will be found at all
its levels (Keller 1997). The designation of named academic and administrative
positions and offices in the context of goals and accountabilities will establish
public expectations for the enactment of the strategies.
Yet the daily work of the implementation of goals also depends upon the
authority of those who hold leadership positions. Although reciprocal leadership
is not defined by authority, the full and consistent institutionalization of strategy
depends on it. In the words of Jean Monnet, one of the architects of the European
Economic Community, "Nothing is possible without individuals; nothing is lasting without institutions" (quoted in H. Gardner 1995, 15).
The Role of the President and Other Executives
The authority and commitment of the president and other senior officers are
necessary conditions for the successful implementation of strategic initiatives and
goals. Whatever role the president may play in leading the strategy process itself,
there is no doubt about the central responsibility of the president in implementing the results. In analyzing eight case studies of successful strategy programs at
widely diverse institutions, Douglas Steeples notes: "Successful strategic planning
requires . . . presidential leadership of the highest order" (1988, 103).
For strategic leadership to take hold, far more is required than formal presidential assent. Other senior officers and members of the faculty will know from
the start whether the president values the strategy process and has the skills and
inclination to use it as a form of interactive leadership. They will take their cues
from the president's actions and expectations, giving greater or less weight to the
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goals of the strategy as they read the president's intentions. If the president is truly
committed to strategic leadership and strategic management, the strategy process
will be continuous and its goals will be in evidence in the way that conversations take place, speeches are given, priorities are set, resources are allocated, and
decisions are made. It will be equally clear if the president only pays it lip service
and prefers to handle issues politically or through a strict chain of managerial
control.
Commitment by the highest officer in each unit that undertakes the process
is also critical for successful implementation. The top officer can use the tools
of authority to embed the strategy in the everyday decisions of the organization. Individuals in authority can command attention, control resources, reward
and punish, control systems of communication, and hold people to account even
in the world of autonomous knowledge professionals. These capacities are the
mechanisms of authority exercised by position. They provide a framework within
which the work of leadership as reciprocity can be given form and continuity.
To be sure, the tasks of implementation become far more difficult or impossible
if the members of the organization are not invested in the ideas and strategies of
the plan. Especially in the academic sphere, but throughout the organization,
there will be minimal compliance, grudging acceptance, or all the intricate tactics
of resistance, avoidance, and delay where commitment is lacking. Authority over
others has to be transformed into authority with and for others in the development
and implementation of a strategic plan.
Control Systems to Monitor Results
The commitment to strategic management will also become evident in the
way the president and other officers use and create control systems to monitor
the implementation of the strategy. Strategic goals take primacy over operational
objectives, which are gradually reorganized to implement the strategy. One basic
but effective way for the top administration, including the academic deans, to
achieve one aspect of this task is to construct the annual planning and operational
cycle explicitly around the goals of the strategy. As a result, each senior officer's
and division head's annual report and budget plan would give central emphasis
to the status of each strategic goal. Commentary on problems and successes in
reaching the goals would be expected, along with reports on steps to overcome
obstacles. If circumstances merit revisions in goals, the annual report is one of
the places to propose them. Since many of the vice presidents and their staff
will carry explicit responsibility for implementing goals, the report connects to
existing public expectations. The annual review can also be made a part of the
individual's own performance evaluation and be one of the factors determining
compensation. In a strategic context, the annual report is not just paperwork, but
a tool of leadership that can link operations with strategy.
There is also merit in making an annual report to the campus on the institution's progress in meeting the plan's goals. The report can be presented orally in
Implementation 225
the annual opening faculty meeting, in other campus presentations, in written
summaries, in analyses and materials posted on Web sites, and, as we shall see,
in reports to the governing board. If there have been changes in the goals, these
adjustments and the reasons for them can be explained as well. Whether simple
or complex, the reporting process itself communicates the message that strategy
matters, as do those whose ideas have shaped it.
Some presidents and administrators choose to make the monitoring of strategic goals a continuous and structured administrative process. A midyear retreat
to review the progress of the strategy, including intensive review sessions with
each of the vice presidents, and in turn with their direct reports, is one way
to exercise controls. Another option, more bureaucratic, requires top officers or
their subordinates to report in writing on progress in meeting goals on a quarterly
basis, typically on matrices that cross-reference issues and goals with deadlines
and costs. Being strategic in scope, the goals may be difficult to measure quarterly, but the method produces an acute sense of responsibility and ensures that
the control system is strategically oriented (cf. various articles on control systems
in two collections on strategic planning, e.g., Dooris, Kelley, and Trainer 2004;
Steeples 1988).
Strategic Goals and a Steering Core
There are other ways to link the strategic goals of the whole institution with
the goals of academic and administrative units. In large and complex universities, the strategic initiatives themselves will have to be defined thematically and
broadly to encompass the responsibilities and interests of the various academic
and administrative subunits. If that is done effectively, then each college, school,
or administrative area can be expected to carry out its own strategy work in ways
that reflect the larger educational and strategic commitments of the whole institution. The strategy process is able to make clear that the viability and success of
each element of the university ultimately depends on the reputation and strengths
of the others. Turbulence in the wider world may be so daunting that it requires
responses that no one unit can make alone.
We may have reached the logical organizational point of diminishing returns in
radically decentralized patterns of institutional decision making. Duplication in
academic programs becomes rampant, inefficiencies in administration and staffing multiply, common dangers go unattended, commercialism takes hold in some
programs, and donors complain of being constantly solicited by multiple units of
the same organization. Burton Clark writes: "One university after another finds
that a strengthened, steering core is needed, one central body or several interlocked central groups of administrators and academic staff who can legitimately
and effectively assist the interests of the university as a whole" (1997, xiv).
An example of educational leadership at the core of a large, complex, and
celebrated research university can be found in the efforts of the University of
Wisconsin at Madison to focus its energies on improving undergraduate education.
226 Strategic Leadership
Based on the recommendations of its 1989 North Central Association self-study
for reaccredidation, the university provost decided to do something bold—to
actually implement a plan developed for accreditation. Among other priorities,
the effort involved investing resources in undergraduate education, making it a
thematic strategic focus that was relevant across virtually the entire institution. It
produced new initiatives in advising, an effort to transform residences into learning communities with close ties to faculty, and enlarged opportunities in both
classroom and community learning (Paris 2004).
Strategy and Human Resources
Another critical contribution of strategic leadership is its influence on a college
or university's human resource program, including its system of faculty appointment and tenure. A sharpened sense of identity and vision translates into clearer
profiles of the people needed to enact the strategy and helps to define and
refine criteria and expectations for performance, including that of the president.
The tasks of recruiting, retaining, evaluating, and developing people become more
intentional. Programs of faculty and staff orientation and of management and
leadership development become more differentiated and purposeful. The inner
workings of the strategy system itself can become a worthwhile subject of study
and a focus of leadership development. Many of its methods can be taught and
learned and embedded in decision-making processes throughout the organization.
Without the right people with the right skills to give it life, strategy will become
dormant and ineffective.
STRATEGY AND ACCREDITATION
In the academic sphere, many strategic goals will be directed to specific committees or departments for follow-up and eventual action. Others will have a more
general impact across many academic programs. As examples, one frequently finds
that strategic plans include initiatives to implement international and multicultural studies, to expand interdisciplinary work, to encourage the uses of technology
in teaching, to develop new pedagogies, to revise the general education program,
to make advising a more effective process, and to create effective methods for the
assessment of learning. These strategies cannot be reduced to the work of one or
two faculty committees. Broad academic initiatives like these need to be related
to the ongoing work of academic programs and departments. The connections
are usually difficult to make, and academic administrators are often frustrated in
trying to create them. The specialized focus of the department and the pressures
of everyday responsibilities work against the time and energy required for new
ventures. If the push for change comes from the top in the wrong form, resistance
and resentment immediately rise to the surface.
In dealing with challenges of this kind, strategic leadership always looks
for existing methods and processes to help accomplish its work. Cross-cutting
Implementation 227
academic initiatives can, for example, be tied to program review, to self-study
for reaffirmation of accreditation, and to the ongoing work of assessment. These
suggestions will grate on many ears, since each of these processes are scorned by a
hefty percentage of the faculty, and not without good reason. Much of accreditation has consisted of busy work necessary to comply with regulations, program
reviews have been scripted and perfunctory, and assessment has never engaged
the imagination or interest of the faculty. Nonetheless, there are opportunities for
strategic change in each activity.
More recently the accrediting processes of both specialized and regional associations have allowed or required institutions to become more expansive in their
self-studies and to focus on the quality of student learning. Jon Wergin (2003)
documents the recent emergence of the strong emphasis on student learning in
the seven regional accrediting bodies. In a parallel way, Ann Dodd (2004) analyzes the increasing focus in accreditation on the self-assessment of educational
quality, curriculum development, and leadership. The emphasis is on encouraging
institutions to relate their ongoing strategy processes to the tasks of a self-study.
The approach makes eminent sense for several reasons. One is that it gives priority in accreditation reviews to issues that have strategic significance across the
institution; another is that it focuses energy on a substantive set of responsibilities
that must be fulfilled by the entire campus.
The 2002 guidelines of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association
of Schools and Colleges emphasize precisely these points. Each institution undergoing review is expected to develop a quality enhancement plan and to demonstrate
that it is part of a continuous process of planning and evaluation. "Engaging the wider
academic community, the quality enhancement plan is based upon a comprehensive and thorough analysis of the effectiveness of the learning environment for supporting student achievement and accomplishing the mission of the institution . . . with
special attention to student learning" (Commission on Colleges 2002, 5).
To fulfill these requirements, institutions obviously need to have an ongoing
strategy program. Existing or contemplated strategic initiatives provide the content and the context necessary for charting the development of a quality enhancement plan. That plan may, as suggested, be one or more of the topics already on
the institution's strategic agenda. If a topic is chosen that cuts across the curriculum and teaching and learning, it will have to be considered at the departmental
level and translated into plans and actions that become part of the institution's
formal responsibilities. The goals of each department are perforce connected to
the larger educational and strategic objectives of the institution, which are ultimately approved by the governing board. The obligations of accreditation can be
transformed into an opportunity for integrative decision making.
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT
We have already seen that strategic indicators are an important part of institutional self-definition. Those same indicators often provide the basis for
228 Strategic Leadership
measuring and monitoring an institution's achievement of its strategic goals,
especially if they are easily subject to quantification, such as goals relating to
admissions, enrollment, finances, and fund-raising. The implementation of goals
is strengthened by effective forms of quality assessment that open lines of inquiry
into the institution's performance.
Performance measured by strategic indicators offers a wealth of critical information. It prompts important inquiries about the meaning of the data and the achievement of strategic goals that specify the vision. Where have the goals been achieved
or exceeded? Where have they fallen short? For what reasons? What actions are
underway to reach the goals? What do we do to improve our performance? Are there
unanticipated results? What do the data tell us about where we stand with the competition? Are the data a reliable indicator of the institution's achievements? What
follow-up studies are required to probe important findings and glean new insights?
Do the goals or the measures need to be revised?
In a similar way, each major administrative service and program should assess
its own performance periodically through surveys and interviews and relate its
evaluations to its own and the institution's strategic objectives. The ability to
make continuous progress in reaching ever-higher levels of service and achievement depends on knowing how well the organization is performing its work in all
spheres, which is one dimension of what it means to be a learning organization.
Quality is of a piece. The effort to enhance quality across the campus contributes
to a spirit of pride and achievement that builds on itself and creates momentum.
Recent studies, including ones on projects at the University of Iowa and Rutgers,
focus on the importance of a strategic orientation to measurement and goal setting
(Coleman 2004; Lawrence and Cermak 2004).
The Assessment of Student Learning
Typically the assessment of academic and student learning goals will depend on
evaluations that do not lend themselves easily to quantifiable results, or to trends
that can be simply reduced to numbers. The desire to reduce students' intellectual
development to a simple set of comparative metrics or the results of high-stake
tests is a misconception that blocks coherent thought about the kinds of assessments that are possible. To look for simple answers, one would have to displace
the larger and most important goals of liberal education—a passion for learning,
critical judgment, moral purposefulness, civic responsibility, and a resilient
imagination—because they are not directly quantifiable.
Student learning is best assessed with a variety of methods, many of which
are useful, if not purely scientific. They can provide proxies and indicators of
achievement that have meaning in the context of the inquiry and as a way to
probe the issues in an institutional framework (cf. Bok 2006; Burke 2005; Ewell
2006). Institutions, for example, do and should gather data through interviews
and questionnaires about student and alumni interpretations of their campus and
academic experiences. A wealth of data is available in the results of teaching
Implementation 229
evaluations, in the patterns of students' course selections and grades, in retention
data, and in many other sources that are part of the everyday life of most institutions. Useful information is often collected about alumni achievements in the
workplace and graduate school. The data can be mined for significance through
various analytical and quantitative techniques (Kuh 2005). With the right disposition and processes, all this information can be used to build a culture of evidence
about student learning.
Institutions may also choose to participate in important projects such as the
National Survey of Student Engagement, which, as we have seen, seeks to determine the level of active student involvement in learning. It collects and analyzes
data from thousands of students at hundreds of institutions and offers a variety of
quantitative analyses and institutional comparisons of the various dimensions of
student engagement in learning. Carefully interpreted, findings from these kinds
of inquiries can assess broad strategic initiatives and goals with regard to important
aspects of the quality of student learning, as opposed to subject matter recall (Kuh,
Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, et al. 2005).
A variety of newer methods of assessment are especially appropriate in a strategic context as well. The growing practice of using student learning portfolios,
often created electronically to function as an elaborate transcript of student experiences, achievements, and abilities, is promising for several reasons. They can
be the basis for student, peer, and faculty assessment of a student's intellectual
skills and competencies, as demonstrated through a wide range of experiences and
accomplishments in and out of the classroom, or they can contribute decisively
to student self-awareness and purposefulness in setting and achieving educational
goals that reflect the institution's special strengths.
In terms of strategic issues, the gold standard for assessment is the ability to
determine the value that a particular educational program adds to the student's
intellectual development. Students come to college with such different levels of
motivation, talent, and preparation that absolute measures of student achievement provide only a partial indication of the educational power of a given program or institution. Were we able to measure the degree of a student's progress,
however, educators would have ways to improve their teaching and programs in
response to assessments of learning. They might also find critical evidence in
support of their claims about their distinctive achievements and ways of creating
educational value. The ability that strategic assessment offers to create, reinforce,
and promote authentic comparative advantages and core competencies should
motivate the work of value-added assessment. The findings should reflect and
authenticate the institutional narrative and become embedded in the ongoing
work of strategy.
The National Survey of Student Engagement , as we have seen, offers a promising line of inquiry about the culture and the form of student learning. Another
variable in the learning equation has to do with the cognitive skills students
develop and points toward the assessment of differences in intellectual growth.
Working in cooperation with the Council for Financial Aid to Education, the
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Rand Corporation has developed a test to measure acquired intellectual capacities in communication and in critical, analytical, and integrative thinking, echoing the focus on cognitive skills we discussed in the preceding chapter. Called
the College Learning Assessment, it gives students a real-life problem to analyze
and resolve by drawing on different types of information and using various forms
of reasoning. Instead of responding to multiple-choice questions, students write
their analyses and proposed solution to the problem in a complex prose argument.
The test can be administered at the early and more advanced stages of a student's
career, so the patterns of value-added intellectual growth among students can be
charted and compared. The results can also be correlated with other measures
of student capability, such as test scores and college grades. The College Learning Assessment intends to measure cognitive capacities that most colleges and
universities describe as one of the aims of liberal education (Erwin 2005; Ewell
2006; Rand Corporation / Council for Aid to Education 2004). Using predominantly multiple-choice questions, both the Educational Testing Service's Measure
of Academic Proficiency and Progress and ACT's Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency also offer tests that aim to measure academic skills, though the
emphasis is not as clearly focused on real-life situations.
Embedded Assessment
If strategic leadership is to be successful, it matters whether or not specific
academic and administrative goals are achieved. Yet the most significant accomplishment of strategic leadership is to embed a system of productive self-evaluation
and strategic decision making into the institution, one that continuously translates into efforts to raise the bar of academic and organizational achievement
(cf. Banta 2002; Bok 2006; Ewell 2006). Strategic assessment then becomes a distinctive activity of a learning organization by determining whether educational
goals are being met, and by using the results of the process to move to the next
level of achievement. Data on student learning must migrate from the institutional research office into the self-assessment of academic programs and individual
faculty members. Although this is no small task, it can be gradually achieved by
establishing a strategic context for disaggregating, considering, and using the data.
The data can come to include the results of small-scale studies and experiments
teachers themselves can perform to compare results on different types of assignments and classroom strategies. In Our Students' Best Work, the Association of
American Colleges and Universities (2004) provides ten recommendations for
creating campus cultures of accountability and assessment, emphasizing liberal
education as a standard of excellence, the need for articulation of goals for learning in each department, the development of milestones of student achievement,
and continuous assessment that includes external reviews and public transparency
of student achievements.
Done effectively, assessment contributes to a culture of evidence that characterizes the work of strategic leadership. These issues ultimately go to the strategic
Implementation 231
question of providing evidence for educational quality. Whatever else it does, a
college or university first needs to have meaningful information about whether or
not it is fulfilling its mission to foster students' intellectual growth and achievement. Then it needs to have mechanisms to give visibility to its findings and
communicate them to programs, departments, and individuals. Finally, it must
have strategic linkages to act on what it has learned about itself. As difficult and
unpopular as assessment is among many faculty members, institutions do not
have the option to avoid the issue, especially from the perspective of strategic
leadership. Unless it knows what it intends its intellectual signature to be and
can assess the impact that it is has on students, it will not be able to create a focus
for its aspirations to attain higher levels of educational quality. It may fall into the
common strategic trap of wistfully claiming that all it needs are better students,
rather than becoming passionate about ways it can make a greater difference in
the education of the students it has.
STRATEGIC PROGRAM REVIEWS
We can illustrate some of the challenges and opportunities of institutionalizing
a new strategic orientation to assessment by considering changes that have
been made in the practice of academic program reviews. Especially in larger
institutions, one of the primary forms of assessment involves the periodic review
of each academic department and program, often with regard to its separate
graduate and undergraduate offerings. Most program reviews, not unlike
accreditation, consist of a departmental self-study and a campus visit by a panel
of two or three faculty members from another institution. When used to greatest
advantage, there is a clear process for the review, active participation by the
university's academic leadership, and timely communication of the results back
to the department (Mets 1997).
Not unexpectedly, the process and the results of program review are of uneven
quality and usefulness. Most faculty members participate in the process with sentiments ranging from grudging acceptance to repugnance (Mets 1997; Wergin
2002). Yet if good information about the faculty, the students, and the program
has been collected, and insightful consultants have been retained, the recommendations can be beneficial to the department's self-understanding and its plans
for the future.
From the point of view of strategic self-assessment, the process represents
an important opportunity at several levels, many of which have not always been
characteristic of the practices of program reviews. First, it provides the occasion
to connect the strategic vision of the institutional or unit-wide plan with the
self-understanding and planning of each department. Additionally, it offers an
ongoing process that can be oriented toward strategic thinking, goal setting, and
continuing self-assessment, especially with regard to the quality of student learning, a topic that is not traditionally the focus of the process. The link to strategy is
not an illusion. In a helpful study of program reviews across 130 campuses, Wergin
232 Strategic Leadership
asked the provost of a research university with a model program how he would
introduce it into another institution. He replied: "First I'd take a measure of the
institution and its vision for the future. . . . I would try to find ways of articulating
a higher degree of aspiration; if there weren't a strong appetite for this, then program review would be doomed to failure" (quoted in Wergin 2002, 245–46).
Although some processes show these characteristics, there should be no illusion that these proposed strategic shifts in the perspective and purpose of program
review will be easy to accomplish (Mets 1997). The culture of academic autonomy
that makes leadership so difficult is in fullest flower at the departmental level. It
is not surprising that proposals for academic change that do not originate in the
department, such as reform in general education, are often perceived as a threat
to departmental autonomy.
Program Reviews and Student Learning
One should not expect or even desire to change program reviews radically, for
they are properly a creature of the judgments of professionals in their fields. Yet
one can seek to alter the process to make it fit more naturally into a process of
strategic thinking and self-evaluation. This could mean that each program would
be asked to focus on the quality of student learning (in addition to research,
faculty productivity, and program content) with specific attention to the larger
strategic goals of the university. Protocols and methods would be built into the
process to achieve this orientation, giving space to the department to develop or
modify assessment methods that it would find beneficial to improve its own work
with students.
An important part of the self-study would be focused on questions that the program faculty would shape themselves and would find meaningful. Zemsky, Wegner,
and Massy (2005) write of a fascinating project in academic quality assurance at
the University of Missouri that can guide some of these questions and has inspired
the following list: What are the goals of learning in the department? What do we want
our students to learn and to be able to do? How do our goals reflect the distinctive mission and vision of the department and the institution? What should be the
design of the curriculum? Is there a coherent logic for the relationship of courses
in the program? How do the courses relate to the goals of learning? What are the
department's primary methods of teaching and learning? How do our students learn?
Are teaching and learning active or passive, individually or group oriented? How
is technology used? What types of assignments, learning experiences, and levels of
expectation predominate? How do we know if students are reaching the department's
and the university's goals for learning? How do we assess learning? Who is responsible for the evaluation—the faculty member, the department, the school, or the
university? What validates a student's choice of this program as a major? How do
we use the results of our evaluations to improve the quality of student learning? Are the
results actually being used effectively? What are our priorities in light of what we
know about teaching, learning, and our program? What should change?
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In an approach such as this, the department would go on to create a self-study
that would provide external reviewers with samples of student work, such as
papers, projects, and exams. Assessment data about student accomplishments and
the results of exit interviews and alumni surveys would be provided. The visiting
team would read much of this material in advance and spend considerable time
on campus, interacting with students, perhaps hearing and seeing the results of
student research. The effort to create a culture of evidence for student learning
as a basis for program reviews would make the process more strategically effective
and rewarding.
If the questions alone were to become a central concern of all program reviews,
they would more clearly become strategic activities. The questions about other
broad strategic goals of the university concerning graduate programs or research
might be structured in similar ways. Whatever the focus, they would become vital
links in the effort to connect the program's goals with the strategic objectives
of the larger institution and would build the strategic self-assessment into the
ongoing work of the department. In systematically using the program review process to respond more nimbly to change and the university's vision, departments
would find themselves participating in the process and discipline of strategic
leadership.
THE GOVERNING BOARD AND THE IMPLEMENTATION
OF STRATEGY
One indispensable but neglected resource for the task of implementation of
a strategic plan is the governing board, whose role in strategic governance we
explored in chapter 7 and can now supplement. At this stage of our study, it
has become clear that the board's acceptance of a strategic outlook is a critical
dimension of its own work, and one that involves many-sided opportunities and
responsibilities. Its participation in a total process of strategic leadership takes it
well beyond simply insisting that the institution develop a strategic plan as one
activity alongside many others. Rather, the governing board serves as the ultimate guarantor that strategic leadership is empowered by strategic governance
and translated into strategic management (cf. Association of Governing Boards
of Universities and Colleges 1996, 2006; Chait, Ryan, and Taylor 2005; Morrill
2002). In a strategic context, its responsibility to monitor, evaluate, and ensure
accountability for the fulfillment of the institution's purposes takes on a new
pertinence.
Having examined the importance and the content of strategic visions, initiatives, and goals, we can more easily appreciate the centrality of the board's role in
the implementation of the plan. The governing board and each of its committees
now have a rich set of issues to address through the content of the strategy and
its measurable goals. The goals form a natural agenda for each board and committee meeting, giving trustees a coherent set of topics to keep under continuous
review.
234 Strategic Leadership
Monitoring Performance
In responding to strategic initiatives and goals, the board's first responsibility is
to raise pertinent questions. As it does so, it exercises far more influence over the
university than it might otherwise expect. The strategic questions that are likely
to come from board members trigger a sense of anticipatory responsibility that
cascade through the decision-making chains of the institution. Administrators
and faculty leaders who interact with the board in committees and other contexts
become very conscious of whether or not the announced goals of the strategy are
being satisfied. Since its campus interlocutors know that the board will be provided information about progress in reaching the goals, anticipatory actions will
ordinarily be taken to respond effectively to expected board queries. Thus, the
actual and anticipated interrogatories of the governing board are a potent factor in
the implementation of strategic goals. Because the board is the legal guarantor of
the mission of the institution, it can play a decisive symbolic and actual role in the
exercise of its fiduciary and leadership responsibilities to ensure the institution's
future (Morrill 2002).
As the board receives assessments of the organization's results, it can take
an active stance in monitoring performance. If the assessments raise issues, the
board's monitoring becomes the basis for pressing for more information, and for
seeking to know what is being done to resolve a problem or to reach a goal. Effective and active oversight depends on good systems of assessment, which in turn
lead to questions about ways to improve performance to ensure results. The board
does not intervene directly in a faculty or administrative responsibility, except in
extremis. But its level of engagement increases if important goals continue to be
delayed or missed. Its antennae go up if problems persist or are avoided. In keeping with its proper form of responsibility, it can take a variety of steps to ensure
results, from asking for reports to adopting resolutions, creating task forces, and
setting deadlines for action. The administrators and faculty members who interact directly with the governing board will feel the pressure of accountability to
address strategic issues that the board has addressed. Ultimately, it is the president,
the board's primary executive partner, who will be held to account to answer
for problems that are subject to resolution, but not resolved, and to attain goals
that are attainable, but not yet attained (Morrill 2002). In its own assessment of
the president, the board uses the goals of the strategy as a central benchmark of
performance.
Renewing the Work of the Board
When boards see their role strategically, a new kind of vitality and purposefulness are released. They feel their own unique and ultimate responsibility for
translating the institution's narrative of identity into a narrative of aspiration.
Their intentions find a new perspective through the methods of strategic leadership. Suddenly a course proposal is more than the arcane language of a professor,
Implementation 235
but a building block in the institution's effort to create a distinctive program that
creates comparative educational advantage. Now plans for a new building are not
just about cost and space but are as well part of a legacy of shared meaning and a
new tool of education to reach strategic goals. The deliberations of the board and
its committees display a new coherence, a clearer purpose, and a renewed level
of commitment. That commitment in turn contributes to the board's enhanced
ability to ensure the implementation of the institution's strategy as a way to guarantee its educational effectiveness and its viability in a world of change. Strategic
momentum takes hold in the work of the board itself (Morrill 2002).
STRATEGIC INTEGRATION AND MOMENTUM
We have seen on numerous occasions that strategic leadership is an integrative
discipline as well as a systemic process. Because it is rooted in the discovery and
articulation of values, it always refers back to humans as agents and the choices
that they make based on their underlying commitments. This pattern of seeking
deeper connections defines the method at every turn. Strategic thinking finds
the continuities between the past and the future by knowing and telling the
institution's story as the basis of its vision. A concern for meaning and values
embraces the effort to create a culture of evidence that will collect and use data
that have strategic significance. The need for resources articulated in the strategy
is integrated with plans to obtain them. The goals of the various strategies are
assessed by an embedded process of evaluation and frequently connect to one
another in broad patterns of relationship. Goals and priorities always come with
price tags, so plans have to be translated into operating budgets. As we have seen,
processes of communication and systems of implementation are efforts to motivate and coordinate the translation of decisions into actions. Strategic evaluation
transforms its findings into new goals to improve results continuously. In all these
ways, strategic leadership is an integrative and systemic process of sense making
and sense giving.
In order to implement its goals, strategic leadership discerns multiple relationships and is ready to create permanent or temporary integrative mechanisms of
decision making. Frequently, special committees or task forces are needed to
address connected issues. These cross-departmental groups of faculty and staff
draw together the members of departments and units, who must work cooperatively to implement strategies. They may become a continuing community of
practice that develops self-consciousness and meets periodically. Because of their
shared interest and expertise, they can contribute to one another's knowledge
and growth (Wenger and Snyder 2000). When student learning or other critical
values move to the center of the strategic agenda, then the isolated points of view
of separate departments and faculty committees have to give way to the unified
perspectives of cross-disciplinary task forces and strategy councils. Strategic leadership creates supple, resilient, and coherent networks of collaborative practice
and leadership, decision making, and implementation.
236 Strategic Leadership
Strategic Momentum
As we have seen, there is no doubt that an environment of constrained or
declining resources creates severe challenges to successful strategy and leadership.
Violent swings in resources from year to year at both public and private institutions make the work of strategy immensely difficult and complex. Under some
extreme conditions, crisis management may have to replace strategic leadership
for a time. But in most cases, the future of the institution itself will depend on
strategies to address the resource problem at its source. If systematic restructuring
of an institution's programs proves to be necessary, or if contingency planning
becomes a continuing requirement, it is far better to approach the task as a strategic challenge than simply a political or managerial problem.
Happily, colleges and universities do not ordinarily find themselves in a crippling or chaotic environment. Possibilities present themselves continually in
many different forms, sometimes under the guise of challenges, at other times as
ready opportunities. Strategic leadership should be prepared to seize the promise of
these circumstances. Skilled strategists know that every plan should include some
worthy and significant goals that are within reach and can be rapidly achieved.
"What helps strategic transformation succeed is a series of small wins" (Keller
1997, 168). When the designs of the strategy begin to take hold and possibilities are realized or threats are overcome, something quite remarkable begins to
take hold in institutions. Energy and confidence that build a sense of momentum
are released, creating a magnifying effect of achievements upon one another. In
describing the experience of great companies, Collins uses the concept of "breakthrough" to denote that point when momentum takes hold and builds on itself:
"Each piece of the system reinforces the other parts of the system to form an
integrated whole that is much more powerful than the sum of the parts" (2001,
182). In describing turnaround situations at institutions with widely different missions, the contributors to Academic Turnarounds (MacTaggart 2007a) describe the
ways that achieving financial stability, creating new self-images, and developing
innovative academic initiatives intertwine and reinforce each other to achieve
momentum.
Now the wisdom of establishing measurable goals that are demanding but
attainable begins to be rewarded. Those responsible for the achievements feel a
sense of control over their circumstances and are absorbed by their commitment
to the tasks at hand. Intentions stated publicly and then fulfilled create credibility
and trust in the strategy process and in those participating in it and leading it.
Achievements in one sphere trigger accomplishments in others, as a synergy of
success takes hold. The cycle of success translates from resources to programs, to
new plans, to enlarged support, to more opportunities for students and faculty, and
to enhanced reputation in a virtuous circle driven by strategic leadership (Keller
1997; cf. Lawrence and Cermak 2004).
In studying examples of successful strategy programs, one finds that the participants in the process often seek to express the ways that leadership and momentum
Implementation 237
are rooted in coherent and connected processes of strategic choice and action.
As Dooris, Kelley, and Trainer reflect on these cases, they conclude: "Strategic
planning—wisely used—can be a powerful tool to help an academic organization
listen to its constituencies, encourage the emergence of good ideas from all levels, recognize opportunities, make decisions supported by evidence, strive toward
shared mission . . . and actualize the vision" (2004, 10). In a word, even though
they do not use the term, good strategy is leadership.
Strategic leadership depends on many individuals, so it is experienced as a
collaborative and communal achievement. Problems and issues will still present
themselves, sometimes as frustration that the pace of success is not even more
accelerated. Yet it also becomes clear that the distrust and anxiety that often take
hold when people do not know where the institution is headed largely disappear.
People now see strategy as a valid enterprise because it delivers on its promises. It
responds to several layers of human need by defining aspirations that are worth
commitment, and by using an organized collaborative method to achieve them.
Strategic leadership not only sets a direction for the future but also takes the
organization toward its destination. In doing so, it embodies many of the capacities, satisfies the needs, and produces the benefits that describe the phenomenon
of relational leadership.