Retaining Talent and Cultivating the Next Generation of Leaders
As the traditional hiring season in education heats up I have been thinking a lot about how much effort we put into attracting and securing talented individuals for our institutions – and how little we put into supporting and developing them after they are on board.
Tell me if this sounds familiar:
The Assistant Director of Essential Things that Need Doing who reports to you accepts a new position and you have an unexpected vacancy to fill. You reassess what you need from the position, update the job description, form a search committee, and spend anywhere from a few weeks to a few months conducting a search to identify and hire the ideal candidate. After an offer has been made and accepted, you breathe a momentary sigh of relief, thank the search committee, relish a flurry of congratulations from your colleagues, and begin counting the days until the new person can start.
When the start date rolls around, you excitedly welcome your promising new hire with coffee and bagels, a shiny new travel mug emblazoned with the college seal, and their own set of keys to the office. After the required meetings with HR and IT for an ID, parking sticker, and a tutorial on how to navigate their new computer, you give them a cursory tour of campus and take the whole office staff out for lunch. Then you have a one-on-one meeting to go over tasks you want them to work on and point out several files and documents they can review to help orient them. And, if you’re really on the ball, you set up a handful of regular check-in meetings over the next week or two to answer any questions that arise as they settle in.
But after they start, you mostly turn your attention back to the ever expanding “To Do” list on your desk. Your interactions with the new hire settle into a routine of weekly or bi-weekly supervision meetings, and you hope they will be able to thrive on their own and they turn out to be as good as you thought they were during the search.
This synopsis is not intended as an indictment or criticism of senior leaders or supervisors. For better or for worse (I would argue worse), this is the way most of us have been onboarding people into new positions for as long as anyone in the business can remember. The reasons why are not complicated and they are completely understandable. Despite the prevailing narrative that colleges suffer from runaway administrative bloat, the reality for almost every college administrator is that the daily demands vastly exceed the capacity of the available staff to meet them. Senior managers and supervisors are stretched thin, leaving them only limited time to devote to orienting and mentoring new members of their teams. Most institutions don’t have the resources or an infrastructure that is set up to coach, mentor, and guide new staff members as they transition to roles with greater responsibility. So, inexperienced administrators are largely on their own from day one and expected to learn how to build the proverbial plane while they’re flying it.
The good news is that most of the time new staff members figure things out – even if they make a few missteps along the way. The bad news is that they aren’t being introduced to crucial skills and concepts in a particularly intentional way. What’s worse, very little attention is given to building a strong bench of emerging talent through ongoing professional development, which hinders performance in the short term and increases the likelihood of turnover at the entry and mid-management levels over time.
To the extent that colleges invest in meaningful professional development and support, it tends to go to people in more senior positions who may be funded to attend a summer institute that runs for a week or two or in the form of executive coaching. Don’t get me wrong, as both a former supervisor who has sent staff to summer institutes and a current coach who works with senior leaders I can attest that these are worthwhile endeavors from which even more people can benefit. They are valuable tools that should be maintained and expanded wherever possible.
But neither is doing much to attract or retain talent in the pipeline leading to more significant leadership responsibilities in the future. At a time when the intrinsic rewards of working with students in fields like admissions, student affairs, academic support, and communications are less tangible and capable individuals can choose more lucrative professional pathways, colleges should be particularly focused on retaining talent and cultivating the next generation of institutional leaders.
Specifically, entry and mid-level administrators should have opportunities to learn skills including staff supervision, budget oversight and management, fundamentals of strategic planning, partnering with internal and external stakeholders, balancing competing priorities, and “managing up.” Additionally, attention should be paid to ensuring that they are introduced to the other functional areas of the college and have opportunities to collaborate with colleagues from different departments and divisions.
In my experience, the most valuable and lasting professional development occurs in the context of the actual work staff are doing. When the question or task that a staff member is working on serves as a springboard for learning new skills, expanding their knowledge of the institution, and providing practical experience with tangible outcomes the lessons are more meaningful and impactful. So, the objective should be to provide outlets for new and emerging staff to engage regularly with seasoned professionals. who can provide skillful coaching and mentoring – ideally in a setting that allows them to ask questions and admit knowledge gaps without worrying that it will diminish their standing with new colleagues.
My approach with James Terhune Consulting clients is grounded in a coaching framework that includes an intentional commitment to help them learn and develop specific skills and competencies (e.g. staff supervision, budget oversight, strategic management, etc.) they need to succeed and advance in their careers. This model can be applied to working with both individuals and cohorts of new administrators, and is designed to be tailored to meet the specific needs of the participants and the institutions they serve.
There are a variety of productive and cost effective ways to provide valuable transition support and professional development to entry and mid-level administrators that are practical and sustainable for all institutions. Regardless of the particulars, given the litany of challenges facing higher education at this moment, retaining talented staff and cultivating the next generation of institutional leaders is more important now than ever before. Demonstrating a commitment to helping staff succeed and advance in their careers leads to better outcomes for everyone – students, staff, and institutions – both now and in the future.
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