A lot of colleges and universities conduct comprehensive reviews every five years of every dean, vice president, or other senior leader. Unlike performance appraisals that determine raises or promotions, an “administrator review” is supposed to be a coaching tool to help leaders improve on the job, not decide if they get to keep it. The reality, however, is that people on campus — the faculty and staff members who weigh in and the leader under the microscope — often view the review as a performance evaluation. And a potentially helpful process turns into an uncomfortable spotlight.
One of the unintended side effects — unfortunate yet not terribly surprising — is the turnover of valuable administrators. It’s not uncommon to hear stories of leaders who opted to leave a position, just shy of their scheduled review, perhaps because they feared it would fixate on missteps and potentially damage their careers.
In such situations, the many benefits of a fair, intensive review get lost. I know from firsthand experience that the process can be useful, personally and professionally, but only if you approach it with humility and open-mindedness. That requires laying down your own sword and shield. It means being vulnerable — accepting that you have made mistakes and have areas in which you need to improve. Finally, it means embracing leadership as a journey rather than a destination.
At my university, where I am an associate vice president, administrator reviews occur every five years. The findings are discussed and used as fuel for mentoring and self-reflection, not for raises and contract renewals. This type of review includes:
- A written self-assessment that is shared with the people you work with, oversee, and report to.
- An anonymous 360-degree survey on multiple dimensions of your leadership, given to the same recipients of your self-assessment.
- A committee — made up of between five and as many as 17 people — that digests the information and produces a report that is presented to you and your supervisor. The report is otherwise kept private and is intended to be used for mentoring and reflection.
- And an “after-action review” in which you share your takeaways from the experience with those who took part in it. Usually this comes in the form of an hour-long presentation within a month of the committee giving you its report. In your talk, derived from the totality of the administrator review, you might cite specific information from the survey, the committee report, and the mentoring you’ve received. The idea is to summarize what you’ve learned about yourself and your leadership, as well as the changes you intend to make. You can also comment on the review process itself.
My most recent administrator review took place in 2018, and I still find its contents thought-provoking and inspiring. I’ve also led a colleague’s review committee and been a close observer of a half-dozen others. Along the way, I’ve gathered insights that may help you as a leader or a future leader to not just survive your own review, but make the most of it.
A good committee chair is key. The people who make up your review committee have a responsibility to seek all valid viewpoints about your leadership and put them in context so that a holistic picture of your time in office emerges — actions taken, outcomes achieved, temperament, inclusive decision making, diversity efforts, communication, humility, and acceptance of mistakes.
The committee chair plays a pivotal role. A good chair is seasoned and able to create an inclusive environment that elicits participation from even the most taciturn of members. The chair has to be strong enough to manage the process fairly and prevent those with biases from putting their thumbs on the scale. All of which means the selection of the chair and members requires careful consideration. If you are invited to suggest names, do so. I was lucky enough to be asked for my input on the composition of my review committee, making the final product all the more insightful to me. I’ve seen weak chairs who were unable to expel bias, and disruption ensued. The end result was not only meaningless but hurtful to the recipient.
Take your self-assessment seriously. What you get out of it will depend on what you put into it. Don’t treat the self-assessment as a quick exercise or dismiss its potential for self-reflection and growth. Given that various stakeholders invest dozens (or even hundreds) of hours in every review, putting in a minimal effort is disrespectful to those involved and shortchanges you, too. Some administrators write barely four pages, listing surface actions and calendar events. Others write 80 pages of detailed rationale and defense. Find a happy medium between those two extremes.
An administrator is a leader of a team. But keep in mind: Many team members are unaware of the big-picture challenges you face in that role — the resource constraints, competing priorities, organizational resistance, internal and organizational politics, and multiple and sometimes conflicting missions. The people reading your self-assessment need to know that big picture. They want to see how you defined a problem and found its solution; how you led change and what was the outcome; what you honestly think worked and didn’t work; and how you view your personal growth as a leader.
Your self-assessment must, ultimately, answer two questions: What is your vision for the next five years? And are you better prepared to lead through the next five-year period than you were when you started?
Recognize the positive feedback. Every administrator I know who underwent a review has received an assessment that was mostly positive yet, without fail, they were most affected by the negative feedback. Some ruminate on it for years.
Instead, plan to celebrate the praise and recognize the positive impact you’ve had and the strengths you possess. Avoid the tendency to put too much weight on the criticism. Keep it in proportion to the total feedback you receive. If 15 percent of the comments were negative, don’t give them 90 percent of your attention.
I was at one post-review meeting where the administrator went to great lengths to defend himself against the feedback. At the conclusion, his supervisor stepped up to thank the administrator for his presentation and sagely reminded both the audience and the administrator that the overall review had been very positive — a message the administrator had missed in his desire to counter the criticism.
Mean comments can offer insights, too. Even the most popular administrators will receive negative remarks. Don’t waste time trying to ascribe motivations or figure out who said what on the anonymous survey. Someone who wrote a nasty comment about your leadership may just have been having a bad day. Yes, anonymity encourages incivility, but it’s necessary in this process.
Administrators who have made the most meaningful organizational changes have the greatest potential to upset people. In one case I know of, an administrator had to restructure the finances of a failing department. He did what he could in the short term to increase revenues and had no choice but to reduce spending. His cost cutting was unpopular among professors and provoked many negative comments in his review, but was absolutely required for the program’s long-term survival.
Administrators doing the right things — often hard things — will be criticized. Brace for the feedback and use the self-assessment to explain the circumstances and the leadership struggles that led to unpopular decisions.
Don’t dismiss negative comments completely, however hurtful. Sometimes they hold the greatest insights. A particularly mean comment in my review described my lack of connection with individual staff members. What I had viewed as professional distance and empowerment, the respondent had interpreted as aloofness and alienation. Looking for the words beneath the song gave me the insight to engage my staff as individuals even while giving them professional space.
Look to your supervisor and mentors for guidance. They can help you put your review in context, highlight the positives, share their own experiences, and be a professional ear to help you process difficult feedback. Your supervisor is the most important person to understand unpopular but necessary decisions and remind you that you did a great job (especially if it was in the face of criticism).
But what if the feedback uncovers serious allegations of discrimination or harassment? Your supervisor can’t ignore such allegations and has to manage it in accordance with institutional policies. Other than that, the findings from the survey and the full report are strictly private.
Now, a word of advice for the supervisors of administrators undergoing review: Resist the urge to protect an administrator’s ego by suggesting that person disregard criticism. Instead, tactfully discuss these issues and provide wisdom and suggestions so that the administrator can improve. Part of a leader’s development includes learning how to give and receive difficult feedback. Ignoring a problem because it is uncomfortable undermines the purpose of the review and does a disservice to the administrator and the respondents.
Academic leaders begin their careers headed toward scholarship, research, and teaching. Administration comes later. But leadership is a required ingredient of every successful institution. The question becomes: How do organizations support the transformation of Ph.D.s from academically gifted scholars and teachers to organizationally minded leaders? The administrator review can be part of the quickening, if done with growth as the outcome, rather than treated perfunctorily.
Mutual respect is at the heart of a fair and meaningful administrator review. After all, it takes courage to give honest and thoughtful feedback, and courage to accept it and learn from it. The challenges facing higher education require not only our best academics, but also our best leadership. Administrator reviews can be the tool that makes the difference to you and the people you lead.
