When I built a team as a provost, we together crafted some rules on how we were going to operate.  It was in response to the question—what kind of culture did we want to create?  Underlying this question, of course, was the one of, what cultural characteristics lead to a resilient institution, because out mutual commitments went in both ways—in how they related to me and in how they related to others.

As the leader of the team I went back to these rules again and again as I sought to build a resilient culture and to lead with integrity.  One of the essential rules was that my team was to tell each other truth. I remember the day when one of my team came and sat in my office to share a reality with me.  I didn’t want to hear it, yet I knew that I needed to choose to listen because my discipline in establishing and following the rules that I had established with my team were essential for both the building of the team and in turn the building of the culture.

Many years later, in the midst of this pandemic, I have been thinking about the connection among leadership characteristics, culture-building, and institutional survival.  Will the institutions of higher education who survive, have had resilience built into their DNA intentionally by leaders over the previous years?

As I contemplate the key leadership elements that underlie the effort to build a resilient institutional culture, I can identify the need for being strategic and thinking twenty years ahead, and for an ability to build a team with whom you can put your confidence and trust.  Yet one other element underlies seems to be at the center of all the others—to have the discipline to hear and tell the truth.  Thinking strategically will not be effective if you don’t have the courage to confront the reality of what metrics are telling you about the future and your effectiveness.  A team cannot be built if there is no ability to speak honestly to one another, to hold each other accountable, and to unpack failures. 

At the heart of this telling the truth is discipline—the choice to act in such a way that builds the resilience of the culture.  The leader must be disciplined in using his/her team as a sounding board and as the group that develops the truthful messaging and is disciplined in communicating it to all parties.  The leader must be disciplined in keeping everyone focused on the plan while resisting incremental decision-making.  A colleague of mine once said that if he had all the money his institution wasted in the 1980s, the institution would have plenty to invest right now.  The leader must be disciplined in looking at the truth when it is brought forward and not avoiding the metrics that show reality—whether it is deficits, retention, or demographic shifts.

Strategic thinking, team-building, and discipline, but the greatest of these is discipline.