Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from LGBTQ Leadership in Higher Education, edited by Raymond E. Crossman, president of Adler University, and published with permission from the Johns Hopkins University Press.
While there are many ways to become, and succeed as, a college president, I believe that every chief executive generally goes through the same presidential life cycle. Based on my own experience as a former university president, I see this cycle as having four stages: aspiring, acquiring, attending, and adjourning.
What follows is a leadership model based on those stages. I offer it in the hope that it will help you — either as a would-be or a current president — to evaluate your own career path and create a plan of action.
Aspiring to a presidency. I didn’t seriously aspire to, or specifically prepare for, a presidency until about a year before I submitted my credentials for a position. So you could say that my “aspiring stage” was rather brief. I did spend many years preparing to be a vice president, during which I developed particular leadership skills and honed key areas of expertise. I served as a vice chancellor and executive officer of a large, complex university for 11 years, which was valuable preparation for a presidency.
Whenever you begin your serious interest in a presidency, I suggest that you do the same: Figure out which leadership or management experiences and which areas of expertise you might want to cultivate over time.
This is also the time to engage the important people in your life in your exploration — if you aspire to a successful outcome for both your relationship and your future presidency. Think about what a great fit would look like for you and those close to you. For me, fit was the extent to which the institution’s location, mission, vision, values, priorities, power base, history, and culture were in alignment with who I am and how I lead.
About a year before I applied for a presidential position, I reflected deeply on what mattered most to me as a higher-education leader and presidential wannabe. I created my “fit-filter,” which I used to sift through my preferences. In my fit-filter, I included my vision, mission, and goals for my leadership. I also included a list of preferred institutional characteristics and a list of who I thought would work well with me, as their new president.
I began to gain clarity about myself and the institution that I might lead. I knew that I could be a great president, but the question for me was which university would value my leadership. As an out lesbian, my task was to locate a university that had a power base, culture, and history that would be in accord with my values and would be willing to take a risk in hiring me. Among the factors in my fit-filter:
- The type of institution was important. Was it public or private, religious or secular, rural or urban, west coast or east coast, research or teaching-intensive, two-year or four-year, part of a system or a stand-alone institution, and well funded or “a turnaround.”
- The students also mattered. What about them would inspire my leadership? Certain types of students “spoke to me” and might speak to you, such as first-generation college students or those of a certain socioeconomic status. Institutions that were majority women, historically Black, or Hispanic-serving might influence your fit.
- I also looked at the LGBTQ climate in the institution, community, and state. I looked at the historical roles of the presidential family or spouse, and I wanted to consider what might be expected of my spouse and family.
Based on my fit-filter, my strengths, and my past accomplishments, I chose which positions to consider.
Acquiring a presidency. This was the stage of evaluating specific presidential opportunities and entering the search process. Using my fit-filter, I reached out to headhunters I’d met over the years for advice on which searches to enter. I looked for positions where I felt I met all the minimum qualifications (and most of the preferred qualifications) and where I saw an alignment with how I wished to lead and manage.
For each position I identified as a potential fit for me, I did some research:
- I examined the history, culture, and politics of the community and institution.
- I reviewed the institution’s strategic plan, news articles, accreditation reports, mention of lawsuits, minutes of faculty senate and board meetings, and everything I could find online.
- I read about the current president and that person’s public statements, writings, and talks.
- I looked at all the institutional policies and particularly ones that related to executives. I tried to locate any policy that might relate to the presidential spouse or family.
I was a detective discovering the inner workings of the institution. In the end, on July 1, 2010, I was hired to serve as Clarion University’s 16th president.
Attending to the presidency. Now that I had the job, I was determined to keep it. I call this stage the “attending stage.” It begins the moment a public announcement is issued that you have been hired and continues until the moment — hopefully many years later — that you announce you will be stepping down. During this stage, I focused on my brand or “presidential reputation.” I thought a great deal about how I showed up to my presidency. My brand was represented in my everyday actions.
As president, everyone really does watch you and judge you. How you choose to present yourself is significant to a successful presidency. My showing up also included being a very out lesbian with a spouse of 25 years. It was crucially important that I was very comfortable with myself — so comfortable, in fact, that I was able to help others be comfortable with me and my spouse. This comfort space was key to building and maintaining relationships as a president.
Equally important was understanding how my identity related to the history and culture of the institution. While I was the first out lesbian to lead my university, I was not its first female president. I was fine not having multiple firsts to navigate.
To keep fresh and forward-looking, every summer of my presidency, I took stock of what I had accomplished and reflected on the time and context in which I was leading. I sought critical feedback from many in order to learn, reflect, and adjust my leadership and management for the next year.
Adjourning a presidency. This last stage is most often overlooked in the literature on campus leadership. I have to admit: This was the stage that I, too, paid the least attention to, and I regret not being more thoughtful about what I and my spouse needed as we concluded the presidency. For me, this stage is about how to end and transition out graciously. It’s about completing the appointment and securing one’s legacy.
The adjourning stage began the moment I thought about leaving. To mitigate the downsides, prior to the public announcement of my departure, I developed an exit plan and an out-boarding process in close collaboration with the university’s board chair. Looking back, I should have done more planning and perhaps gotten feedback from current and former presidents. I made sure that I included my spouse in the exit plan since, in many respects, it was her presence in the presidency that made our LGBTQ identity most vivid, and I was determined that she be appropriately recognized as a loyal and engaged presidential spouse.
The public announcement of my exiting was both a relief and an overwhelming experience. Once the announcement occurred, I went into a completely different leadership space. In an instant, everyone associated with my presidency treated me differently. It was neither good nor bad — just different. Tensions with a few folks who often enjoyed fighting with me (think rage against the machine), simply evaporated once they knew I was leaving.
Once you announce your exit, the institution instantly pivots to securing and on-boarding the next president. It’s an odd and lonely feeling. I focused on my road ahead and let the institution move on.
