The Failure of Operational Leadership

I'm a "leadership" junkie. Increasingly, I'm drawn to books, articles, posts and commentary relating to what higher ed needs in its leaders at this moment of reflection and inflection. Not surprising, much of the conversation is focused on presidents and provosts. And while this is a necessary and important focus, it's missing the operational leader tier of individuals tasked with turning strategy into outcomes. My experience and sense is that there are a lot of individuals in these mid-tier operational roles who are immobilized by the existential crises battering higher ed and struggling to reconcile their roles and authority with their leadership capabilities (or lack thereof). 

The retort, "That decision is above my pay grade" has always frustrated me when working with operational-level leaders. It's almost always a skittish reflex to elicit a chuckle, but to me it exposes the frailty of individuals placed in roles where mistakes and failures are highly visible. When afforded the opportunity and responsibility, I've worked hard to move these individuals forward by equipping them with the training, preparedness and support that frames decisive leadership. Of all leaders within higher ed, these are the individuals who need to do what has to be done, when it has to be done, as well it can be done. And then do it that way all the time. (Yes, that's an old Bobby Knight quip about discipline, but I've long found it applicable beyond the hardwoods.)

Real leadership from operational staff takes courage. Not reckless, willy-nilly decision making. Just the belief in yourself and a willingness to make a decision with a clear scope, rationale thinking, and positive or negative results you can stand behind. The best operational leaders I've known are capable of doing this because they can quickly and confidently determine which decisions don't require permission from someone in the provost's office to enact.

The challenge, of course, is that higher ed is a weird place with plenty of pockets of make-believe. The entire system is full of silos, egos and unqualified senior leaders who routinely answer the wrong questions and make inexplicably poor decisions only to look downstream at the operational level with that "Well, we're waiting," expression on their faces. At institutions where this is the accepted form of senior leadership, operational leaders need to be capable and comfortable with carrying "corrective but aligned" strategies down to their teams. Then they need to be courageous enough to carry the ground-level reality back up to senior leadership. That is the core competency of a highly effective operational leader.

Train, prepare and empower your operational leaders, because this is the leadership tier where real institutional resilience is created.