I’ve spent my entire career in higher education, primarily as a faculty member and mid-level administrator. Ambitious since I left my mother’s womb, I knew I was drawn to executive level leadership. Throughout my tenure in academia, I grew more and more convinced I would not be selected for c-suite leadership because of one thing: my honesty. My approach to working with people seemed so entirely different to all the examples I had witnessed. Top leadership most often seemed hidden, secretive, and certainly not wearing their hearts on their sleeve as I do. I feared there wasn’t a place for my style which emphasized relationship building, transparency, and authenticity.
I was steadfast in my belief that I could only be myself and I interviewed demonstrating this. To my astonishment, one (very smart) president gave me an opportunity to live my dream of serving as a provost. One of the countless strategies and tactics I employed when I began was to send a weekly message, often with a motivational bent, to my extended team. The messages typically came from a personal space and included quite a bit about me alongside some academic theme. They appeared to be well received and I would often receive responses from staff sharing their opinions and insights. As the years progressed, I slowly began to send fewer of these messages. I felt I had established a very strong relationship with my team and wanted to save them from reading one more email.
