Why this seasoned president plays the viola each morning at 7:30
Carol Christ is stepping down at the end of June after seven years as chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. She got her start there as an English professor, and later provost, before serving as president of Smith College from 2002 to 2013.
Last week Christ shared advice on some of the thorniest topics that leaders face, like managing a budget deficit, handling a campus crisis, and forging a strong relationship with your board. She also talked about how she stays sane in such a demanding job.
She implores other leaders: Make time to do things that bring you joy and balance. Administrators who devote too much of themselves to work make a huge mistake, she said.
“You really have to make time for friends, make time for family, make time for sleeping, make time for exercise, and make time for things you love,” she said.
Two things that Christ loves are playing the viola and reading contemporary novels. She tries to pick up the instrument for a few minutes each morning around 7:30. One benefit of this ritual is that while she plays, she’s incapable of thinking about anything else. On days she is at home in the afternoon, she tries to pause her work at 5 p.m. to read for half an hour (she just finished Maggie O’Farrell’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox).
“If I didn’t do the things that I really love to do, I wouldn’t be the person that they hired as a leader,” she said. “You can hollow yourself out by doing too much bureaucratic work and then you lose something of yourself.”
Here is her advice on six challenges leaders face.
On finding time for big thinking: Christ uses ordinary moments — walking across campus, sitting on an airplane, emptying the dishwasher, folding laundry — for deep, strategic thinking. A busy schedule precludes large blocks of time for such reflection, but it’s crucial to your success, she said. You must find time to disconnect from immediate tasks like email to really contemplate what has already happened, particularly when something didn’t go well, and also your goals for the future.
On creating a strong cabinet: When hiring senior administrators, she looks for people who listen well and have a vision for the role. Equally important, she said, is to intentionally create a sense of community within the cabinet, where all members feel responsible for the whole university, not just their departments. Everyone should feel free to express their view about any issue, she said.
On managing a board: Spend time each year with each board member, she said. Go to lunch, have a Zoom call, learn about people and their concerns and expertise. As a new president, Christ was surprised how much of her time — about a quarter — she needed to devote to the board.
With regard to board meetings, structure them over the arc of a year, so there is a rationale and a flow to the sequence of topics you discuss. One year you might focus on the institution’s international profile, the next on physical planning, but don’t get caught panicking before each meeting about what you’ll discuss.
It’s also important to have the right number of board members, she said, with a variety of expertise. If the board is too big, people will tune out; if it’s too small, you might lack vital perspectives. The sweet spot is between 20 and 25, she thinks, depending more on the number of stakeholder groups that should be represented and less on the size of the institution. Term limits, rotation, and good governance including annual reviews are also crucial, she said.
On handling a campus crisis: Plan for the inevitable by deciding who will be part of your emergency group to meet continuously during a crisis, she said: probably your chief of staff, a lawyer, operations people, and also your communications chief. It can be tempting to leave comms out of crisis meetings and fill them in afterward, she said, but they will do a better job communicating about the situation if they understand it fully.
Continuous campus communication is crucial, she said. You can do all the right things, but if you’re not communicating well, the community won’t feel like you’re dealing with the crisis, she said.
Christ views herself as “storyteller in chief,” she said, both in a crisis and in good times. People think in terms of narratives, and it’s up to the leader to figure out what the institution’s story is and to share it as a common thread that runs through everything you do.
On navigating a budget crisis: The right advance planning here is to take time to educate your campus on how the budget works, she said. When there’s a challenge, be clear and direct about it, she said. It will help if your community is up on institutional finance.
On keeping yourself inspired: Leadership jobs are really difficult, with many hard days, she said. Take heart from the moments that remind you why you do it, she said. For Christ recently, that was spending an afternoon with donors, hearing how Berkeley had changed their lives. “You really have to take joy in the things that are wonderful” about leadership jobs, she said, “and see them as a privilege that is deeply rewarding.”