I first want to congratulate you on your completion of the Shining Lights Program and to say how much I admire the decision it reflects to aspire to leadership. There’s never been a more urgent time for it. So many assumptions that have structured the university, and have supported scientific research within it are under threat—the partnership with the federal government in funding scientific research, the reliability of grants and contracts, the role of overhead in funding research infrastructure, the independence of the university, academic freedom, the expansion of opportunity for traditionally underrepresented groups, even reliance on science in government decision making. Universities—particularly our leading research universities—are in the midst of an existential crisis. I noticed that one of the sessions in your program was entitled “how leadership needs evolve with climate and culture.” Well, climate and culture sure are changing. What leadership needs does this particular crisis demand?

How do you lead in a crisis?

 
The most important thing, I believe, is clarity about values and priorities. Crises involve multiple difficult decisions—decisions about funding, decisions about program, decisions about employment, decisions about communication. Unless you are clear about your values, unless you are clear about your priorities—and those two are different things (I value a sense of humor, for example, and that is hardly a priority in a crisis—although it helps)—you will find decision making difficult, and your decisions may lack consistency and direction.
The second thing critical to leadership in a crisis is communication. Crises, by their very nature, create anxiety, confusion, hunger for information. I believe you cannot over-communicate in a crisis. As academics, we are used to thinking we should have something new to say every time we communicate. One of the things I’ve learned as a leader—and this was a hard lesson for me to learn—is that once you have determined what you want to communicate—to your team, to your community—you must continue repeating it. It helps create clarity of purpose, its helps create direction, it calms anxiety and uncertainty.

The third thing I believe is important is clarity about process—of decision making, and of implementation. Especially when choices are hard, your team and your community will want to know how decisions will be reached, and how they will be implemented.

Perhaps the most difficult crisis in my experience as a leader was the pandemic. It was obviously different in many dimensions from the crisis we’re currently experiencing, but like this one, it challenged our most basic assumptions about how we pursue our mission; we are an institution that that pursues its mission through person-to-person interaction; suddenly we were remote. What I discovered in the pandemic is the critical importance of creating a set of teams to address various aspects of the crisis—for example, instruction, research, facilities, budget–and the constant need of communication—in each of the teams, among teams, and to the community.

Determining how to lead in a crisis is a good guide to leading in any circumstance. There is a definition of leadership I particularly like developed by The World Economic Forum: “True leadership is exemplified by those who are able to energize individuals and teams; empower, fertilize and build communities; and recognize and form the talent around them. They are the coaches, learners, teachers and mentors who demonstrate the discipline it takes to make changes to other people’s lives and to our world.” Notice how other-focused this definition is.
These are the qualities I think are important to leadership.

 
First is a vision both of goals—what do you want to achieve in your leadership position–and strategic opportunities—what are the opportunities available to your organization that it is well positioned to pursue. But as important as the what is the how. A business strategist I very much like—Vijay Govindarajan—has written that good ideas are very common, good implementation plans much rarer. Once you have a good idea, it’s critical that you work out how you will achieve it—steps, timelines, people, and their responsibilities.

As the World Economic Forums’ definition of leadership states, team building is essential to leadership. In any complex organization, no single leader knows enough, or has sufficient time, stamina, and resources to do everything. I have seen many leaders fail both because of inability to delegate and inability to build a team among those to whom they’ve delegated authority. The trust and communication characteristic of good teams, together with clear understanding of what each individual’s responsibility is leads to better decision making.

 
The ability to listen is critical to team building. To get the best out of your team, you need to be good at listening to them—understanding their perspectives, their insights, creating the kind of culture in which they can disagree with you. As the World Economic Forum’s definition suggests, leadership is very much about building community and being part of community in pursuit of common goals.

 
I realize that when you are young, junior, and when you work in a male-dominated field, it is challenging both to assume authority comfortably, like a dress that fits, and to feel part of the community. In my career, I was often the first woman to hold a number of the positions I occupied, and I was often younger than those under my leadership. When I first became chair of the English Department, the first woman chair and a very young chair, my seven year old son asked me, “Now that you’re the chair, is your chair bigger than anyone else’s?” I realized with a start that it was; the black leather, wheeled chair behind the chair’s desk was indeed the biggest chair in the department. It came to me to symbolize what at first was a somewhat uneasy relationship to my authority (always larger in the eyes of some of my colleagues than in fact it was). My first year was very difficult. The department had two tenure cases reversed by what I thought of in those days as “the administration.” Two colleagues died. I thought every difficult thing that happened was a challenge directed specifically at me. I then went to a workshop for new chairs that my professional organization put on, and at that workshop I heard a talk that changed the way I was approaching my job. The talk was called “Problems, Problems, Problems.” Its main point was that things don’t come across your desk unless they are problems; they are the texture of the job. Solving problems is the essence of leadership. However, in addressing problems, it is useful to separate them from dilemmas. Problems have solutions; dilemmas most often represent tensions—often productive tensions—within an organization—teaching and research, for example, or undergraduate and graduate education, or representation and equity. You can achieve better alignment of such factors, better balance between them, but they’re not problems to be solved like a funding shortfall or a building issue.

In resolving problems, particularly when the issue is one about which members of your community have different, strongly held views, it’s critical, as I said a moment ago, to be clear about the process for reaching a decision. And it is critical to be decisive. A good decision, efficiently reached, is better than a perfect decision, repeatedly delayed. And it’s important to hold to the decision once you’ve made it, even when those opposed to it try to change your mind after the fact.

Finally, I would like to say a word about time management and balance. Many leadership positions can take more hours than exist in the day. It’s critical to learn to prioritize and to delegate. You want to spend your time on the most important things and not let the detail overwhelm you. To be a good leader, you need to set boundaries for your work; that means making time for family, for friends, for the things you love to do, for sleeping and eating. You don’t want a leadership role to take from you the things that make you the person you are. That would be a poor exchange, and it will make you less successful as a leader—less authentic, less resourceful, less perceptive about the complex issues you will confront.

Let me end by congratulating you once more, and wishing you good fortune on whatever path you choose. Leadership holds great rewards and satisfactions; it offers you the opportunity to make a difference to institutions and people you deeply value. Yes, these are dark and troubled times, but you are shining lights that will help find the way forward.