The Slender Thread Blogs 1to 4 and articles from Higher Ed Dive, Inside Higher Ed, and The Chronicle of Higher Education make it clear that demographic cliff, when the high school applicant pool massively shrinks is looming ahead in the year. Nevertheless, Inside Higher Ed recently reported that 87% of college presidents believe that their college will smoothly ride through the whitewater rapids from the demographic cliff. Given the tightened fiscal conditions among since COVID, it would seem that the prudent course would be to prepare strategies to reduce the financial effect of the demographic cliff so that the college is not caught unawares.
So why do so many college presidents take a laissez-faire attitude to these existential threats? This issue strikes at the heart of leadership in higher education. The question boils down to a classic conundrum regarding presidents in higher education – are they merely ‘ambiguity game players’, who wait for a line-up of internal forces to confront a problem, or should they be dynamic manager-leaders, who confront threats to their institution.
President – As an Ambiguity Game Player?
What is an ‘ambiguity game player’? Michael Cohen and James March used the term to describe leadership in a university, where dual governance, multiple stakeholders, and ambiguous policies and missions muddle decision-making for the president. An ‘ambiguity game player’ as leader is passive. While they recognize that an existential crisis is on the event horizon, they do not press the organization to quickly take steps to keep the college from slipping into deep financial stress.
When ambiguous leadership conditions exist, and in most colleges, they represent common governance entanglements, presidents believe that they have little choice but to wait until the interests of the major players in the governance structure line up so that a decision might be possible. However, an alignment of interests and the decision that follows does not mean that the decision takes into account the mission, resources, and strategic needs of the college. The process of waiting and working with conflicting interests to produce a decision, reduces a president from a leader to a passive game-player who tries to maneuver around a game board with multiple opponents whose interests rarely align among themselves or with the interests of the college. In other words, the president becomes an ‘ambiguity game player.’
Involvement of the board introduces another layer to the game and if the president passive is vis a vis the board, then it a strong strategic and operational response will depend on the willingness of the board to accept heated opposition. Regrettably, many boards under the ambiguous game scenario are also passive and also prefer to avoid conflict, which leaves the college survival subject to the weak internal actions and luck that the forecasted threats will not be as intense as claimed.
Unfortunately, the current long-term forecast regarding the demographic cliff, massive technological changes, and changes in degree expectations, renders a president, who is an ‘ambiguity game player style’ an ineffective instrument of decision-making. These presidents will find that events will overwhelm the decision time horizon and push a credible response until long after a college is crushed by these existential forces.
President as Manager-Leader
In times of crisis, before a crisis appears a management-leader constantly scans the horizon for threats and opportunities to successfully. They are not passive leaders waiting for internal forces to congeal around a decision but press a solution throughout the organization. Active and expeditious management requires continuous information on external threats to operations and financial stability. Under the management-leadership concept, a management team is assigned to respond strategically and operationally. The president can either be on the team or have the team present their proposals to the president who involves all members in a critical analysis of the proposal, obstacles, and potential for success or failure. The president keeps the board fully informed because any large scale strategic or operational changes will require their sanction before the action can be taken.
Active and expeditious management does not mean being reckless. It means taking a disciplined and rational approach to threats and strategy by scanning the horizon for threats, analyzing the impact of the threat to the college, identifying operational strengths and weaknesses, formulating strategic and operational responses, testing the responses, setting-up an operational plan to put the responses in action, continuously monitoring performance, determining where revisions are needed, and regularly reporting performance, obstacles, and successes or failures to the president.
The President as Manager-Leader is not a natural phenomenon. It requires deep training in all aspects of academic and operational centers and thoughtful and rigorous review by monitors and colleagues. Furthermore, the aspirant president must continuously test their skills by identifying institutional problems and designing strategic and operational response. Then the aspirant should ask either their president or another president to critique their work. The development of a good manager-leader does not happen in months nor in a year; it can take years along with ever increasing operational responsibility.
Can a College Survive with an ‘Ambiguity Game Playing President’?
The sad story for a college with an Ambiguity Game Playing President is that this person has been educated, socialized, and rewarded to avoid risk, lead from the rear, and hope fate is good to the school. Here is a partial solution to this problem, but it depends on the willingness of the board of trustees to press hard for strategic change.
- If the president is reluctant to lead, then the board must determine if that is the person that they want as president.
- If the board or several key board members see rising deficits as a threat to a college’s financial stability, the board should contract with a financial analyst to review the current and five-year forecast of financial performance. The forecast should use the best available estimates for enrollment, expenses, and other threats that may be on the horizon.