(Enrollment Manager, July 2012 – by Scott D. Miller and Marylouise Fennell)
With some 50 percent of all college presidents at age 61,
or older, according to a recent American Council on Education report, many
campuses will experience significant change in leadership in the near
future. Further, these shifts will not
be limited to the presidential level; because changes at the top usually result
in replacement of a number of senior personnel, an institution stands to lose
momentum, vision and significant funding without a solid succession plan in
place.
Unlike corporate America, which has witnessed countless
quick internal appointments during recent transitions, higher education has not
actively embraced the importance of this ongoing and vital process.
In the words of our colleague Dr. Jack P. Calareso, president of
Anna Maria College in Massachusetts: “Succession planning is really about
leadership. . . it is developing a clear roadmap for the future and ensuring
that strong leadership will be in place to guide the institution.”
Further, Calareso continues, “Succession planning is more
than thinking about the next president. It is just as important in anticipating
needs at every senior level of the institution, developing internal candidates
and being prepared for a search.”
Therefore, it is critical not only for institutions to
begin ongoing discussions about succession planning now, but also that these
conversations include the following steps suggested by Dr. Calareso in a recent
conversation.
● Defining clear timelines and processes for
selecting an interim administrator;
● Delineating the profile
of the desired leadership qualities, skills and experience;
● Engaging the best consultant
to conduct the search for a permanent replacement;
●
Identifying a search committee; and
●
Preparing for the transition and induction of the new president
or senior administrator.
Several of these key elements require special
consideration, among them the significance of identifying and mentoring
internal candidates with the potential to succeed in senior-level
positions. Because of shared governance, multiple
(sometimes competing) constituencies often play an active role in the search
process. They tend to believe that external candidates always bring prestige,
translating into enhanced institutional reputation and an ability to attract
other candidates from aspirational colleges or universities in future searches.
However, “Insiders have a better ability to understand how
to affect change within an organization than outsiders typically do,” reports
Per-Ola Karlsson, managing director of Europe for Booz & Co. in the
corporation’s recent newsletter. Its recently-released survey on succession
planning suggests that in terms of their tenure, “inside” CEOs usually outlast
those hired from the outside.”
“When you do an external executive search and bring in an
external leader,” notes Lucie Lapovsky, president of Lapovsky Consulting and
past president of Mercy College in New York, as quoted in the Booz & Co.
newsletter, “you often lose a year or more of time. Productivity is likely to
suffer during the 1-2 years of transition in executive leadership.”
Not only do boards and senior management need to be
consistently developing promising administrators who can think strategically,
not just tactically, but also they need to take a more proactive role in
grooming colleagues as part of the entire succession process, notes John P.
Butler, III, Chairman of Barnes & Roche, Inc. “There is often an
unwillingness among senior academics to mentor colleagues in lesser
administrative roles, limiting their preparation for higher positions,” Butler
observes.
Succession
planning today will mitigate institutional crisis tomorrow. As Dr. Calareso notes, “Succession planning
helps to avoid a leadership crisis.
“The Lewis Carroll quote, ‘If you don’t know where you are
going, any road will take you there’ is a dangerous approach for colleges and
universities,” Dr. Calareso concludes.
We couldn’t have said it better.
Dr. Scott D. Miller is
President of the College and M.M. Cochran Professor of Leadership Studies at
Bethany College in West Virginia. Now in his third college presidency, he
has served as a CEO for nearly 22 years.
Dr. Marylouise Fennell, RSM, a former president of Carlow
University in Pittsburgh, PA, is senior counsel for the Council of Independent
Colleges (CIC) and principal of Hyatt Fennell, a Higher Education Search Firm.
They have collaborated on nine
books, including “President to President: Views on Technology in Higher
Education” (2009) and “Presidential Perspectives: Strategies to Address the
Rising Cost of Higher Education” (2012). Both serve as consultants to
college presidents and boards. They are regular columnists for “College Planning and Management” and “Enrollment Manager.”
