Measuring Operational Leadership

A colleague asked me about my comments on operational leadership in this post and suggested that there is less a dearth of good operational leadership in higher ed than there is an absence of measuring it. It's a great point and brought me back to the oft-cited quote by Lord Kelvin (and always incorrectly attributed to Peter Drucker) that "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."

I believe the absence my colleague was suggesting has much to do with the time and intention it takes to identify the quantifiable metrics unique to operational leadership. Time and intention that many universities simply don't have or care to assign. But assume your university cares enough about the mission-critical operational leadership tier to want to continually improve and refine it. What would you measure?

Nearly every university would begin with the easy metrics: budget variances, enrollments against targets, project deadlines, etc. These are important numbers and they do matter, but they don't really get at operational leadership because they measure the unit, not the leader. The more appropriate metrics measure decision quality and capability. 

Start by identifying the level at which most operational decisions are made then track escalation up to the point of implementation. If every decision needs to climb to the VP of Someridiculousjobtitle or the Provost's office, you've identified your "that's above my pay grade" leader. Once you located the problem, assess with this individual how many escalated decisions were genuinely beyond their scope.

After determining which decisions can and must be made at the operational level, assess if the leader is actually equipped to make decisions. You can do this simply by measuring the time from the problem, issue or initiative being identified to when the decision is made. Do this for 60-90 days, then have the leader explain their decision rationale and their willingness (and ability) to own the results.

Finally, assess how effectively decisions made at the operational level travel upward. This is really the crux of operational leadership. Ask senior leaders when the operations leader last told them something they didn't want to hear. Ask the operational leader's teams whether they understand the "why" behind decisions and directions. If you hear that every update is positive and that decisions often lack clarity and explanation, you have an operational leader who avoids discomfort and is incapable of carrying ground-level truth upward. 

The nice thing about these measurements is that you don't need a fancy dashboard. However, you do need a willingness and the patience to do the measuring, make the assessment and have the difficult conversations. If operational excellence is important enough to you and the university at which you work, you'll find the space and time to do it.