Early one morning I was finishing an entry in my journal when I was interrupted by the telephone. On the line was a good friend who nervously conveyed the news that she was a candidate for a college presidency -- the first such opportunity in her administrative career. She had served as a well-respected counselor during my own quest for a presidency. But now she seemed to have lost the footing that I found so reassuring when seeking advice from her.
I listened as she talked about her upcoming interview with representatives of the university: a higher-education headhunter, veteran administrators, trustees, faculty members, and alums. They would doubtless gather at some distant airport -- convenient to all of them but unfamiliar to any of them. There they would try to overcome the artificial surroundings, the pressures of time, and the distractions of other duties in order to evaluate -- in only 90 minutes -- my friend's capacity to serve as the chief educational officer of a university with assets and annual revenue that together easily approach $1-billion. As I listened to her story, I was overwhelmed by déjà vu.
When I was a candidate for the chancellor's job I now hold at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, I wrote about the search process in my journal. In my new role as the counselor, rather than the counseled, it helped me to go back to those pages and read the words that ultimately served as my best advice to myself: "The venues of the search process present the same challenges with which I am familiar as a leader -- political resistance, short attention spans, hidden and conflicting agendas among the participants, healthy differences of opinion, unclear objectives, and ambiguous instructions."
The airport conference room -- where vital search interviews for university leadership too often take place -- is just another venue where leadership can be exercised. The first time I had an airport interview, I, like my friend, refused to recognize the venue as a legitimate one -- form eclipsed content. In that interview, I responded to questions with two objectives in mind: convey how much I knew about the topic and show my prowess in analyzing the issues. What I did not do was behave like a leader, capable of constructively engaging my interviewers on issues as they pertained to that university. I was proving that I was knowledgeable rather than "being" their leader. I failed in that interview, but I did not understand why until later. (I sought coaching to help me understand what had gone wrong and I did some mock interviews, a process I highly recommend.)
I told my friend that now -- of all moments -- is not the time to lament the search process, but to try to understand it. Now is not the time to label it chronically flawed, but to prepare for it. After all, form eclipses content in many of the venues of university leadership.
So, what's the difference between participating in a search process for a new university chief executive and participating in any process where a leader is trying to advance a particular agenda? Not much. In the search process, your career seems so clearly on the line. But isn't your career on the line every time you demonstrate the courage to make decisions that you, and only you, can make? At what point do these incremental decisions either demonstrate progress or show failure?
The search process is simply a series of moments in which your performance, your ability to rise to the occasion, will be put to the test. I've had plenty of those moments in my first six months as chancellor: the inaugural speech, the meetings with faculty members and students, the testimony in front of the state legislature, the strategic planning process, the monthly meetings with the Board of Governors, the telephone calls from reporters about my unpopular decision to change basketball coaches, the debate over the capital campaign, the encounter with the wealthy but seemingly disgruntled alumnus.
I've learned that the principles that have always served my leadership well should also be followed in the search process. I follow five basic principles that I think would also benefit my friend and other presidential aspirants:
To thine own self be true.
This axiom has far less to do with helping the search committee understand you and far more to do with following your own best instinct on whether you think there will be a real fit between you and the campus. The potential mismatch between the institution and its leader is the real dilemma in the presidential search process. The process is so tedious, so time-consuming, so fraught with bureaucratic and intellectual challenge that by the time you become a candidate who seems to have the edge on the assignment, you just don't want to confront the real possibility that the chemistry isn't right. This is when courage is really required: the courage to lead your own career rather than believing in providence, fate, or coincidence. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it.
Ironically, the group that reads your cover letter and your résumé -- normally the same group that does the airport interview -- is not the group that will decide whether to hire you. The decision-makers are the members of the governing board. The process, therefore, allows for a committee that has a different view of what is needed than the board and vice versa. I have experienced both. Consequently, you can't always make a decision on whether you and the institution match until the final stage.
Be clear about the desired outcomes.
The mechanical process of writing down your desired outcome before each stage of the process is enormously helpful in keeping your focus. For me, the desired outcome of the entire process was to find a university that would allow me to fulfill my educational vision.
The desired outcome of your first conversation with the search firm might be to maximize the amount of information you obtain about the institution, the search process, the search committee, the board, and the community. For your cover letter and résumé, the outcome is to connect with the committee so that they will see you as accomplished in those arenas that they are looking for. The desired outcome of the airport interview for me was to connect with the committee so that they could see me as a leader and then see me as their leader. At the same time, I wanted to gain some insights that would help me decide whether I really wanted the job.
Know and connect with your prospective employer.
Do not write one word of a cover letter or assume that you have a ready-made résumé without extensive research. Learn about the institution, the search committee, and the governing board. Use the institution's literature and its Web page, use your network, and most importantly, use the search firm. After my flawed airport interview, I have never gone to an airport interview without first walking the campus incognito, even when the campus was in a different city than the airport interview.
Academics who are seeking administrative posts often have scholarship-heavy résumés, but they do a poor job of delineating their accomplishments as leaders. Executive résumés should list accomplishments that are most relevant to the institution to which you are applying. Similarly, my reading of cover letters over the years suggests that 50 percent of applicants say, "I want to apply and enclosed is my résumé." Another 40 percent do that and tell you what they think the issues on the campus are. Only 10 percent relate their accomplishments to what you are trying to achieve. Only half of that 10 percent take time to understand your institution and who you are. Now that I am a president, and in the position to hire deans, vice presidents, and other administrators, this is the 5 percent I look for.
As you move through the later stages of the process, your job research should begin to focus on identifying what I call the "disconnects." Study what the institution stands for rhetorically and then compare that to the reality. The search committee may say, "We stand for opportunity and encourage diversity." But you have walked the campus and seen the void, and you look around the room at the airport interview and see one minority face and two women. This is a disconnect. But it gives you an opportunity, if you proceed cautiously, to show the committee members how you would help them achieve the difference between what they're saying and what they want to be. You have to show them the kind of courage that helps them know you can help them get there. It is also an opportunity to talk with the search firm in order to push for more information about the reality of the disconnect.
Now for an aside about search firms. They are highly valuable to you in your quest to learn about the institution. My real ally in the process turned out to be the search firm. I smile as I say this. There was a time when I thought search firms were a hindrance. In truth, they provided me safe territory to talk about the lock that internal candidates often have on a position, about committees and personalities, about salary, about perceptions of single women, and countless other sensitive issues. And they are experts at referencing. They gave me the signals about where I really stood; I needed only to listen.
"Be" the Leader
Instead of talking about leadership, demonstrate your leadership in the written material and in the interviews. Do not hand them a menu; give them a taste on their terms. Cultivate their appetite for your leadership by letting them see, feel, taste, and savor it.
My coach has a term for this: "Theater in the Workplace." With substantial work and no small amount of discomfort, I have changed my view of what it means to communicate effectively. I moved from telling my story, explaining the issues, and delineating my vision to listening and observing, connecting with the audience, engaging them in exploration, making them comfortable, and establishing a relationship. There would be no listening to me on their part unless we had a relationship. You simply interact as if you already were their leader. Interaction in writing or in person from the mind-set of "I want to be your president" produces behaviors, body language, and voice tones quite different from those produced by a mindset of "I am your president and we are discussing the issues."
Take Time for Reflection
Keep good company with yourself. For me, the most effective mechanism for staying centered and well-focused is writing in my journal. Only when I free myself of emotions like frustration and anxiety can I find room for creativity and humor.
In short, the search process offers a rich and varied set of venues where you can exercise your leadership skills. Identify the principles that got you where you are now and apply them to the search process systematically. And don't forget that the opportunity to lead is the obligation to serve.
