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I work with couples as part of my practice as a psychotherapist and based on that experience as well as what I’ve learned from other therapists, training, and my own personal experience, I’ve come to understand some things that likely apply to most relationships.

First, relationships can survive some very intense and distressing problems if both partners actually want it to survive—and they act in good faith, i.e., no hidden agendas, they have a resolution orientation, they don’t want to hurt the other person, etc. That sounds like stating the obvious, but that is frequently something partners haven’t fully explored yet. The reverse is also true. Relationships can be ended by even mild challenges if either or both partners don’t want it to survive. The viability of relationships is less about the specific issues that partners are dealing with, although some are certainly more disruptive than others; it’s about the extent to which they believe they’re better off in the relationship than out of it, and whether or not there is something solid to build on.

Here are some of my observations, in no particular order.

• Couples therapy is often not initially about saving a relationship. It’s about finding the clarity to determine if being in the relationship is preferable to being out of it. Then, if both partners prefer to be in the relationship, therapy can help to make that union more rewarding and sustainable.
• Some of the most overwhelming challenges in a relationship are not actually about the relationship. They are about what each individual brings to the relationship from to their own personal history and mental health journey.
• Sometimes one partner brings the other partner to couples therapy to “fix them” or in hopes that the therapist will side with them. That is rarely a productive place to start.
• Sometimes people leave or end relationships that are “better” for them than the alternative and sometimes people stay in relationships that are harmful because they fear being alone more than they fear being hurt. Both cases reflect an inability to accurately compare the status quo to an alternative.
• Our deep, human need for intimate, relational connection underlies both the joy and the pain of romantic partnerships.
• Getting ourselves or someone else to change small behaviors is often possible. Changing who someone else is, is rarely possible, and even when it happens, is hard to sustain.
• When we can commit to hearing/understanding our partner, we are more likely to be able to accept who they are. Sometimes this requires temporarily subordinating our own need to be heard/understood.
• Relatedly, acceptance of who someone is, although hard, rather than trying to change them, is usually much more productive and less exhausting. It can even lead us to understand things about the other person that are endearing or uniquely valuable.
• Changing ourselves, even in profound ways, is possible when the desire for change is greater than the inertia of the status quo. This may simply mean that the perceived benefit of a change outweighs the benefit of not changing or the pain of the status quo becomes greater than the pain of change.
• The relationship has to be worth the effort. Sustaining romantic partnerships is usually hard work, with moments and periods that don’t feel very rewarding. In order to do the work, partners have to believe the relationship itself is worth it.
• Partners are not the same people with the same needs over time. Sometimes relationships last because they also change.
• It’s very hard to resolve difficult problems when partners are exhausted, or mad at each other or hurt. Exhaustion and anger get in the way of compassion and understanding. Sometimes, relational work requires cooling off periods.
• Sometimes ultimatums work, but they can be high risk. The partner giving the ultimatum has to be prepared to walk away if the other partner doesn’t capitulate. It’s not a good idea to “fake” an ultimatum.
• Upset partners can solve problems; partners who no longer care typically don’t have the necessary motivation to solve problems.
• Resolution is not worth loss of identity, dignity, or agency. It’s usually temporary and leads to resentment anyway.
• Many things are possible when partners act in good faith. On the contrary, hidden agendas and manipulation sabotage connection.
• Relationships can even survive fury if the fury is about what someone did rather than who the person is.
• Relatedly, contemptuous, personal attacks are toxic to relationships (see Gottman’s Four Horsemen)
• Relationships flourish when partners engage in conflicts with a genuine desire to achieve resolution rather than to “win.” The problem with winning is that, by definition, there is a loser, and that is not good for the relationship.
• Attachment style matters. When one partner is anxious and the other is avoidant, even if the relationship lasts, it will typically be filled with dissonance and distress.
• Similarly, genuine personality disorders on the part of one partner (narcissism, anti-social, borderline) may be survivable by the other partner, but often at great personal cost.
• Not all problems are created equal. Some “nuts and bolts” problems might never be solved and the relationship can still be okay. Problems related to intimacy and compatibility, however, if left unresolved, might be insurmountable.
• All relationships have conflict (and if they don’t, there is probably avoidance). Conflict is fine. It can even be an opportunity for growth. Conflict without healthy resolution is a problem.
• All relationships will experience some level of “rupture” to connection and intimacy. Fortunately, they can survive even severe rupture if the partners are capable of repair after the rupture.
• Some problems don’t merit being “resolved.” No partner should endure abuse in order to “work on” a relationship.
• Romantic partnerships can survive in the absence of physical intimacy, but they tend to evolve into something other than romantic partnerships.
• Hetero relationships benefit from being socially sanctioned. They are not easier to manage, but they can be fully open in all situations.
• Not all feelings are equal. Anger, frustration, and even despair don’t feel good, but resentment, envy, and jealousy are corrosive.
• Sex matters. In romantic, monogamous relationships, sexual exclusivity often defines what makes the bond unique or sacred.
• Relational skills matter, but they matter less than kindness, empathy, compassion, intimacy, and good faith.
• “Trust issues” sabotage relationships because they sabotage intimacy.
• When one partner takes an emotional risk (is vulnerable) and receives a supportive response, the relational bond deepens. However, when vulnerability is met with dismissal or indifference (or worse), it doesn’t simply leave things unchanged—it actively harms the relationship.
• Sometimes the most important thing a partner can do is temporarily subordinate their needs to the other partner.
• Relational success isn’t necessarily about longevity. Sometimes it’s about skillfully and kindly ending a relationship.

Of course, the items above comprise a partial list of what I’ve learned, and an even smaller list of what there is to know overall about relationships. While working with couples, I’ve seen a wide variety of issues and approaches in relationships that contribute to my observations above. Also, most of the adult individuals I work with bring relational issues into individual counseling as well. Human connection really matters to us!

I’ve seen wonderful, inspiring things happen in relationships. I’ve seen people behave well and badly. I’ve seen relationships end. And I’ve flat out told individuals that they are abusing their partner and that I can’t work with them as a couple as long as the abuse continues (while providing resources and advocacy for the abused partner).

Working with couples (and individuals as well) is a privilege. Being invited into the inner sanctum of intimate relationships is something most people rarely experience and a powerful way to learn about people and how they relate to one another. One other thing I’ve learned is that we humans are capable of deep, deep love for others. We are capable of compromise and sacrifice. And we can love, lose, and love again. At any age and under any circumstances.

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As parents, we will make a whole lot of mistakes before the parenting journey is done. And the journey is never really done; it just changes.

In my experience working with parents and children, both in educational settings and as a psychotherapist, it has become clear that many different parenting styles and choices can be “successful” if the goal is to produce healthy, well-adjusted adults. In fact, if we do certain things well most of the time, we can do other things not-so-well and still support our children on the road to being well-functioning adults.

Of all the things we have to do such as keep them safe and feed them well and teach them skills, when all is said and done, there are two things we cannot mess up if we want our children to experience overall well being, be able to form and maintain good relationships, and engage life with confidence and self-esteem as emotionally evolved, resilient and healthy humans.

The first thing we have to get right is that we can’t make our children surrender authenticity for acceptance. From the day they are born, they are assessing whether or not our love and acceptance are contingent upon them being a certain way or behaving in certain ways. If they are forced to sacrifice what they think, how they feel, what they value, who they are, etc. in order to be accepted, they will often grow into adults who struggle mightily with low self-esteem and even shame, having learned that “I don’t matter enough to be accepted as I am.” As children who have been forced to sacrifice authenticity, they may appear compliant and low maintenance, but that is typically related to coping rather than being well-adjusted.

The second thing we have to get right is attachment. This is a powerful psychological concept based on how, as children, we bond to key caregivers, which are often, but don’t have to be, parents. This article does not afford the space to go into significant detail, but in short, as children (and later as adults) we form emotional/relational bonds that are broadly secure or insecure. Children with secure attachment feel protected and safe and that they can depend on the caregiver. Insecure attachment is typically subdivided into three additional styles: anxious/ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized, which is basically a combination of anxious and avoidant. Insecure attachment leads to a host of relational problems and behaviors, both as children and later in life.

We support secure attachment in our children simply by consistently meeting their emotional and physical needs in a responsive, nurturing environment. A bonus is that when we validate authenticity, we also support secure attachment, which leads to better emotion regulation, independence, self-esteem, appropriate risk taking, and social skills among other benefits. In essence, we support secure attachment as parents by being a secure and dependable base from which children can explore and return to for reassurance. Providing reasonable, logical boundaries can also support a sense of safety for children. However, any discipline that results in a child feeling physical pain or bad or humiliated about him/her/themself rather than evaluating what they did, can result in long term, negative outcomes. Pain can modify behavior, but when it is caused by an adult that is supposed to be the source of safety and unconditional love, it is profoundly confusing and hurtful to a child. In fact, it can even be traumatizing.

Importantly, meeting children’s needs does NOT make them dependent or “needy.” In fact, the research is clear that children who develop secure attachment through having their needs consistently met, become much more independent and self-sufficient as adolescents and adults. Moreover, such independence and confidence are further supported by consistent opportunities to exercise autonomy and explore without adult intervention.

I estimate that 70 or 80 percent of the adult clients I see are dealing with downstream effects of having had to sacrifice authenticity for acceptance or insecure attachment or both. I hear things like, “I wasn’t coddled and I got physically punished, but I turned out okay.” Except that they are in counseling because they can’t maintain relationships or they feel intense lack of worthiness or are struggling with anxiety, etc.

Fortunately, adults can heal at some level from almost anything, but everyone is better off if the work they have to do as adults is around the edges rather than rebuilding after neglect or abuse or other forms of trauma and the resulting shame, deep sense of inadequacy, anxiety, depression, insecure attachment and other symptoms they have carried with them from childhood. We can avoid that for our own children by committing to validating authenticity without conditions and supporting secure attachment. Our kids will survive a host of our other mistakes if we get those two things right.

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The new, 2025 Microsoft Work Index report was released a couple of weeks ago and two major themes are 1) a growing shift toward AI enhanced work, and 2), something Microsoft has coined the “infinite workday.” This blog will address the second point.

Unlike other research related to the workforce, in addition to surveying workers, Microsoft is able to vacuum up billions of data points from real time use of its Microsoft 365 office apps. In other words, rather than just asking workers how they spend their day, this data tracks, at a microscopic level, what people are actually doing. Although the data is anonymized, it’s also a little creepy that your largest tech vendor is watching your every move.

Probably the most compelling finding of the research is that the workday literally never ends. That has been an anecdotal feeling for a long time, but the MS data shows that the average worker sends and receives 50 or more messages per day outside of normal business hours and over half of “meetings” aren’t on an already full calendar; they happen spontaneously. As the report’s authors note, “The modern workday has no clear start or finish,” with robust use of MS 365 apps beginning at 6 am or earlier and a surprising number of meetings happening after 8 pm, with nearly a third of workers checking email again by 10 pm. This is also likely influenced by workers across global geographies and remote work.

Another disturbing finding is that regardless of when work is happening, it is a non-stop, chaotic flurry of interruptions, with workers being pinged by some MS app every 105 seconds, or nearly 300 times in a typical eight hour “workday.” Keep in mind that this only includes apps that Microsoft can track. As the report aptly notes, for many people, work is as much about “navigating chaos” as it is about actually doing something productive and coherent. The MS study also finds that the timing of interruptions, particularly via messages and meetings, spikes when people are most likely to be productive. For example, email and Teams messages, as well as meetings, spike from mid to late morning, precisely when most people have the greatest energy and focus. In other words, workers are using the highest performance part of the day to deal with massive volumes of messages and meetings rather than on things that truly bring value. One fascinating data point reveals that editing of PowerPoint slides spikes 122% in the ten minutes before scheduled meetings. This suggests that the tsunami of digital noise in the days and hours leading up to presentations prevents workers from dedicating necessary focus to what they are going to present, resulting in a last-minute scramble.

Interestingly, other recent research by Gallup has found the lowest level of worker engagement in over a decade. Although that surely has something to do with poor management, lack of trust and purpose, and other culturally related issues, it is almost certainly also related to the fact that the nature of the workday itself likely makes purposeful engagement extremely difficult. It would appear that technology has taken a cultural value that places more importance on being busy than being productive and turbo charged it to ridiculous levels. Based on the MS research, focus on any one task for more than a couple of minutes is a mirage, both due to constant interruption and the fact that just “navigating the chaos” sucks huge amounts of any individual’s bandwidth, leaving little left for truly thoughtful, meaningful, and coherent work.

This reality is not just a “wow, that’s crazy” phenomenon. Because we know that employee engagement is essential to organizational success, leaders must very intentionally address the out of control and fragmenting demands on worker attention created by the modern workplace. If you want your people doing work that actually matters and that results in meaningful outcomes, part of your job is protecting them from what the Microsoft report calls overwhelming “digital noise” that “hijacks” focus and productivity. This is fascinating coming from the company that sells the tools that are being used to support busyness, but not necessarily engagement and quality work.

Several years ago I wrote a book about leadership based on my, at that time, 20 years of experience as a senior executive. There was and is some good stuff in that book. It’s also true that more has changed in the last five years, than in that first twenty.

What have I learned—or figured out—since then? A lot. Here are ten things.

1. Leadership is more about people than it is about anything else. Period.
2. Empowerment creates far greater success than control does.
3. You have more choice when it comes to doing things that don’t feel right to you than you think you do. And if you don’t, you’re not in the right place.
4. Doing the right thing is based on values, not rules or policy.
5. Long term effectiveness as a leader is about influence and relationship, not positional authority.
6. You will win over more people with authenticity than certainty.
7. Vulnerability is not weakness. It is self-aware courage.
8. The most important thing you can provide a team is psychological safety.
9. Risk is unavoidable. Embrace it. How you approach risk can be the difference between paralysis and competitive advantage.
10. Leadership affords privilege. Make it about service.

And a bonus learning: People you are accountable to (other executives, owners, boards, trustees, investors) are sometimes wrong. They are typically siloed with limited perspective and narrow ideas of “success.” This may be one of leadership’s greatest challenges: influencing those with more “power” or resources than you have to pursue a path that is more in their interest, but that they cannot yet see.

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I have written before about dysfunctional values and behaviors in organizational cultures, such as esteeming being busy over being productive or, relatedly, rewarding doing over thinking. Recent research from USC’s Marshall School of Business, reported in the  Harvard Business Review, reveals just how deep our dysfunction actually goes.

The researchers reported in the HBR that, “even when leaders recognized that detaching from work boosts employee well-being and improves job performance, they still penalized employees who engaged in these behaviors when they were up for a promotion or being considered for a new role. This is because these workers were seen as less committed than those who worked around the clock, even if their job performance during working hours was perceived to be higher than their ‘committed’ counterparts.” Read that again. Even when leaders understood that employee behaviors were better for the employee and the organization, and their performance exceeded that of colleagues, those same leaders’ biases were so deep, they still rewarded other employees who “appeared” to be more committed based on sacrificing work-life balance than the employees who were actually more effective and productive on the job!

How is this possible? As I’ve noted before, most managers and leaders, particularly those in senior roles, were “brought up” in organizational cultures in which regardless of espoused values, they observed what behaviors were rewarded, who got promoted, and what employees were held up as exemplars. As the researchers note, “We are trained, often unconsciously, to value visibility and responsiveness as a proxy for dedication. Employees who respond late at night or skip vacations are seen as “going the extra mile.” Meanwhile, those who protect their non-work hours are viewed as less passionate, less committed, and therefore less promotable, even when they are equally or more effective on the job.”

You can imagine how this dynamic feeds into burnout culture. Half-hearted statements and superficial commitment to supporting detachment from work do not align with what actually gets rewarded, resulting in employees not detaching from work while engendering cynicism as well. And guess who gets promoted into positions that then continue the dysfunction: Employees who are rewarded for being most visible, busy, and responsive even at night, on the weekend, or when on “vacation” (regardless of their actual performance).

At the Transformation Collaborative™, our leadership model is radically different than what has come before and radically different than what is described in the research reported in the HBR. We understand that to be effective in today’s hyper-change, volatile, and complex environment, leaders must drive success through others, building human capital as their primary competitive advantage. Leaders must model their own authenticity, vulnerability, and values, while honoring the humanity in those they lead. In such a context “work life balance” is a given and leader behaviors align with the stated values. Such leaders recognize that engaged employees are far more powerful and produce far better results than busy employees, and they focus their leadership on supporting that engagement. Our Leadership Discovery program teaches leaders how to move past anachronistic practices—that also burnout leaders—and shift to practices that rekindle one’s joy for leadership! It’s time to be part of the solution.

Humans have been discussing some version of “happiness” at least since the 4th century BCE, although Aristotle wisely framed it as living a good life or living well, which, to him, meant being true to a set of values and virtues that made both the individual and those around him better off. He referred to this as “eudaemonia.” It’s not known if Aristotle actually created the word, but it roughly translates to pursuing the best conditions possible for a life worth living. Importantly, this concept was not about personal reward, although one might feel that, but rather about creating a better life for the collective good. Surprisingly, even in the 4^th Century BCE, Aristotle’s writings implied that he understood that achieving eudaemonia required some level of privilege or even luck. Today we might refer to this as “living with purpose or meaning.”

Interestingly, this notion of happiness being connected in some way to virtuosity and the greater good was preserved for well over a millennium, up through the Enlightenment as multiple philosophers described “happiness,” which didn’t show up in the English language until the 15^th century, AD, as still connected to alignment between virtuous behavior and the collective good, with “happiness” being a reward for such values and behavior.

Post-enlightenment, happiness, or at least the pursuit of happiness, began to be seen as a “right.” However, it was still primarily focused on civic benefit rather personal happiness at the expense of others. It was not until the 19^th century that happiness began to be seen as a personal pursuit or even an emotion. This came just in time for the industrial revolution, which put capitalism in overdrive, and accelerated the shift in happiness from “eudaemonia” to something much more self-focused and materialistic. This trend continued through the latter part of the 20^th century until the classical notion of happiness had been obliterated and replaced with individualistic pursuits of pleasure, wealth, and materialism. The combination of zero-sum capitalism and, in the 21^st century, social media, put the nail in the coffin for anything society-wide resembling happiness as virtuosity for civic benefit and the greater good. Some refer to zero sum capitalism as “late stage” capitalism, but either way, it refers to a state in which fewer and fewer people actually benefit from that economic system and collective benefit has been structurally weaned out of the model. It drives notions of “happiness” that are less and less attainable and unfulfilling even when they are attained.

So… this is why the pursuit of happiness, as it is understood today, is probably not the best way to go if we want to “feel good” or have a life worth living. Extensive research on what drives a sense of well being in life clearly shows that beyond basic means, it is not connected to wealth and certainly not connected to acquisition of materialistic possessions. It is not connected to professional status or power. The most important variable for flourishing in life is human connection (in particular feeling loved and that we matter), followed closely by having purpose and meaning in life. As such, rather than dedicating ourselves to the pursuit of self-referential happiness, which even when we achieve it, is temporary and fleeting, it probably makes much more sense to dedicate ourselves to supporting relationships and choosing actions that give us purpose and meaning in our lives, which, by the way, are likely to benefit others as well. Aristotle was on to something.

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Most of “modern” management theory, going back to the industrial revolution, has been about “controlling” employees—controlling their activity, time, access to information, productivity, etc. Even more recent concepts such as “management by objectives,” “performance management,” and even Six Sigma, were about maximizing the value an employee brought to their employer through their labor by optimizing use of resources, time, information, process, etc. More importantly, these approaches are based on the notion that someone in an organizational hierarchy “knows better” than the employee, and therefore must closely manage the employee’s efforts based on some management protocol. And, relatedly, in these models, the employee’s input is not particularly valued. The hierarchical organizational structure that drives these top-down approaches to management, has existed, with little significant evolution, since the turn of the last century. The only significant change has been related to flattening the hierarchy while preserving a less vertical chain of command—and that is frequently more about cost than about distributing power.

Now that we are operating in a world that is not only defined by constant change, but also by tectonic instability, neither the hierarchical leadership model nor the discounting of insight, perspective, knowledge, and experience of those “lower” in the hierarchy is sustainable. Even if the vertical model of control could operate quickly enough—and it can’t—the narrow, siloed perspective of those “at the top,” is wholly inadequate for the kinds of difficult, rapid, risk-based decisions and actions required in the current environment.

The answer is what I call Radical Autonomy. The current reality is so volatile, ambiguous, complex, and uncertain, that traditional leadership structures are simply unworkable. And a key point here, is that radical autonomy requires a shift from management and traditional power-based leadership to leadership in which success is achieved through others who are empowered to operate with “radical” levels of autonomy. In this model, most of a leader’s efforts are directed toward ensuring that others have the resources, support, information, skills, and freedom, to innovate, create value, and solve problems in a culture that honors psychological safety, collaboration, risk-taking, tolerance for ambiguity, freedom to fail, agility, purpose and entrepreneurship.  In short, the leader’s primary responsibility is to leverage fully engaged human capital as his/her/their greatest competitive advantage and as a hedge against rapid change and instability. This organizational structure for radical autonomy is neither hierarchical no flat, but “fluid,” which is based on competence, shared interest, collaboration, engagement, radical autonomy, and desired outcomes. It is not based on seniority, title, or even expertise. While radical autonomy at least initially introduces additional risk, sticking with traditional hierarchy represents existential threat.

Of course, neither leaders, nor those they lead, can switch from a highly controlled environment to radical autonomy overnight. Such a shift requires a purposeful, thoughtful campaign in which all parties can learn to think and operate differently. The Transformation Collaborative™ can support such a process through our Leadership Discovery program and our “vested partner” approach to helping organizations reinvent themselves.

Higher education continues to find itself in a palpable crisis of leadership in at least two ways. First, we are seeing a significant loss of continuity as more and more college presidents go through revolving doors. Second, regardless of how long they are in the role, very few actually have the skills, traits, temperament, etc. for the role as it exists now. Presidents and chancellors whose preparation and competence may have been adequate 20 years ago, and certainly 30 years ago, find themselves thoroughly unprepared for what they are facing today. One outcome of course, is simply that they are out of the job much more quickly and thus unable to make an impact regardless of their intentions.

Depending on whose recent numbers you use, the average college president tenure has fallen from about a decade to either 5.9 years (American Council on Education) or 4.5 years (the Chronicle of Higher Education). However, even the lower Chronicle number overstates the average tenure because it purposely excludes presidents who stepped down for reasons the Chronicle could not identify, what they call “job hoppers,” and interim roles (which were caused by turnover). Although it’s difficult to land on an exact number, the average tenure, including all presidents in all sectors of higher education, leaving for all reasons, is probably closer to three plus years.

So, what’s going on?

First of all, in some cases, presidents are doomed by governance structures, political realities, and strategic and operational challenges that almost no one could survive. Many colleges are now rife with highly politicized and inflexible camps embodied in faculty, students, alumni, boards, unions, legislatures, and even outside groups that actually have nothing to do with the institution itself. In many cases these groups are motivated by narrow agendas that they see as more important than the institution itself and will engage in activities that are designed to weaken or remove college CEOs. In other cases, presidents are faced with years of mismanagement and/or financial exigency from previous administrations or interference from regents and other political figures that either must be addressed with extraordinary means related to survival or are simply not “fixable” within the mechanisms available to the CEOs.

Secondly, even in situations which are not insurmountable, very few leaders are equipped to meet the challenges their schools actually face. There is frankly a profound misalignment between the traits, skills, behaviors, and experience that most college leaders need vs. what they actually bring to the job. And a badly broken executive search process continues to produce the same inadequate candidates through a very expensive protocol that is pricey on the front end and devastatingly expensive on the back end. So, presidents and chancellors are shown the door because they were either set up or don’t have the capacity to do what they were hired to do, then they get replaced by folks who are equally incapable of meeting the actual challenges of the job. Presto. Average tenure drops to a little over three years, compromising continuity, while cycling through many leaders who are not right for the job to begin with.

How do we break the cycle?

As noted above, some amount of churn is now inevitable no matter what because certain stakeholder groups are willing to “destroy the village to save it,” and some institutions are foundationally unviable regardless. Having said that, there are also many cases where the right person in the right institution can be game changing. To get there, colleges and universities have to abandon the traditional search process, because in most cases it is frankly incapable of delivering the right candidates, and at worst, it is culpable in supporting a fraud on the institutions using it. While there are some individuals who have been “raised in higher education” who are capable of effective leadership in today’s reality, they are unicorns and represent a tiny fraction of what is needed. Colleges and universities have to look outside of the academy, and even then, truly exceptional candidates are few and far between.

Wherever future college presidents and chancellors come from, they will need to bring value in ways nearly foreign to most institutions of higher education. They must be extremely skillful in management of constant change; they must relate to people in their institutions and organizations with empathy and care; they themselves must be self-aware and comfortable with vulnerability, transparency, and humility. They must be genuine and believable, even in the midst of skepticism and cynicism. Ultimately, they must leverage human capital as the institution’s most powerful asset and competitive advantage. They must recognize that their success comes through the directly supported success of others. They have to ensure that the people they lead have clarity around mission and purpose—a reason to be fully engaged and committed. They must drive a shared, powerful vision of why the institution matters and what is possible. And, when it comes to discreet skills, it is no longer about what college CEOs knew or were able to do in the past. It is now about business and revenue development, ROI, marketing, partnership, negotiation, political skills, building culture, crisis management, innovation, change management, and execution. Even skill with strategy is no longer adequate. Leaders today must be able to lead transformation and reinvention as a perpetual process, with strategy as a tool, not a discreet outcome. And doing that in cultures typically found in IHEs is not for the faint of heart. Effective leaders have to be successful in spite of environments that are typically not structured to support that success. Astonishingly, if one just looks at the numbers and dynamics related to school closures and mergers over the last 15 years, it appears that many colleges and universities will actually choose failure over change, which itself requires very unique leadership to overcome.

Recent research by Gallup suggests that most organizations still use criteria for assessing “leadership potential” that disadvantage women.

Examples include everything from expectations of availability outside of working hours and extensive travel to technical and performance based measures that men are more likely to demonstrate (because they’ve been socialized and supported in those areas), but that don’t actually correlate with effective leadership traits, skills, and behaviors. In other words, women tend to possess characteristics that support effective leadership, but those characteristics are less likely to be valued when deciding who gets chances in leadership roles!

The reasons that women are often less able to “accept” certain requirements of leadership positions is not because they aren’t capable or don’t want them, but that most family structures still require that women assume greater domestic, particularly parenting responsibility, than men do in the same families. For example, Gallup reports that “Women with children are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to have had to decline or delay a promotion because of family obligations. In addition, women with children are 2.9 times as likely as men with children to have seriously considered leaving their job because of childcare issues.”

Interestingly, similar numbers of men and women say that they would be open to longer working hours, additional responsibilities, and travel, for example, as part of leadership roles, but a smaller number of women can actually accept those challenges.

So, how can organizations support the promotion of more women into leadership roles?

First, senior leaders in organizations today – the vast majority of whom are still male and mostly white – must redefine the criteria they use for identifying and promoting individuals into leadership roles. Forget focusing on employees who have traditionally achieved and overachieved performance objectives, i.e., who have “hit their numbers.” Such employees may become great leaders, but if so, it won’t be because of their performance on discreet tasks. On the other hand, if executives look for things like communication and coaching skills, empathy, patience, creativity, and perseverance as criteria for future leaders, they will not only choose more women, they will get better leaders overall.

Relatedly, organizational leaders must learn to meet leadership candidates where they are, providing flexible options. For example, women rate both work-life balance and wellbeing higher than pay and benefits when deciding what jobs and roles to pursue and accept. This does NOT mean it is okay to pay women, or anyone, less, simply because you provide flexibility. It does mean that when considering which employees to offer leadership opportunities, flexible work arrangements will attract more women candidates. And, as Gallup notes, it is about more than just policy. It’s about culture. Employees who leverage flexibility cannot be punished for doing so or considered less than employees to choose more traditional schedules, work locations, etc.

In short, women tend to naturally possess characteristics that support effective leadership if organizations will only recognize that and adjust traditional criteria so that women are more likely to be offered, and accept, increasing leadership responsibility. Moreover, those same criteria support more powerful leadership regardless of a leader’s gender, so revising the lens through which leadership candidates are evaluated and selected will not only result in more women in leadership roles, it will result in more effective leadership overall.

Image Credit: Chronicle of Higher Education

We’ve heard a lot lately about how the sheen has worn off the traditional college degree. Multiple surveys now show that fewer than half of Americans believe that higher education is net positive for our country, let alone for each individual graduate. What’s going on? Well, the three most powerful forces are political, economic, and structural.

Politics

The growing polarization, demonization and tribalism in our society is equally reflected in views on higher education as it is in other milieus.

The lion’s share of the decline in favorability is among those who describe themselves as Republicans. Astonishingly, less than 15 years ago, nearly 60% of Republicans had a favorable view of higher education. Now that figure is 33%. That precipitous decline is less about actual change in the role or function of colleges and universities and more about the fact that republican politics have associated higher education with elitist, liberal, democratic forces, which are “bad,” so therefore higher education is bad. While there are legitimate things to criticize about higher ed from across the political spectrum, the free-fall in republican opinions of higher education cannot be explained by objective changes in higher ed alone.

Economics

A more tangible criticism of higher education, and larger contributor to market-driven declines in enrollment, is economic. Over the last 40 years, the cost of going to college has increased 180% after accounting for inflation. At the same time, state level funding for public colleges, where most students go to school, has declined. As a result, the burden of paying for college largely shifted to students and families, who until recently, willingly filled the gap with borrowed money. For students without the ability to pay who have attended private colleges, the debt incurred is often high five figures and, about 20% of the time, six figures! The increase in tuition and debt has happened at the same time that opportunities for “college level employment” have stagnated and even declined. National unemployment is technically low, but full-time, professional level employment for recent college graduates is poor.

According to a Strada education report released in early 2024, “While typical college graduates fare substantially better in the labor market than workers with only a high school education, half are underemployed. Even 10 years after graduation, the majority of those who were initially underemployed still have not secured a college-level job.” So, young college graduates are not just struggling with their first job out of college, but underemployment for the youngest Millenials and older Gen Zers is incredibly sticky, lasting for a decade or more.

So, many (52%) of graduates end up with work that often does not even support basic living costs, let alone the ability to pay back substantial student debt. And, of the half of graduates who are underemployed, 88% are severely underemployed, which as defined by Strada, means work for which they only need a high school diploma, and often is not even full time. It is also true that for at least 16 majors, early career income averages $40,000 or less per year even for graduates who are employed full time in their field. The financial coffin corner would be something like a degree in early childhood education or social work from an expensive private college.

Of course, there are still four-year college degree options that are very favorable for graduates—particularly those who do not have to go into substantial debt. However, the bifurcation between degrees that really pay off with full time employment right out of school vs. those that are often a net-negative is growing.

Structure

For most students, most four-year degree options in most institutions are not only expensive with often marginal economic reward, but running the gauntlet of unfriendly, inflexible, poor service systems for a minimum of four years, is just not viable. Compared to several decades ago, fewer students live lives that allow for the typical time, schedule, and financial commitments required for four-year degrees. As a result, many folks are choosing not to attend college, even if they want to, because the typical college structure is simply not workable, and for many, the economic calculus is not viable either.

Interestingly, from a cost and employment perspective, the most dependable return on investment in post-secondary education is currently related to technical training for jobs that are high-skill, but do not require bachelor’s degrees—or in some cases, even any college. Examples range from allied health to welding and many other “vocational” fields, but the bottom line is that a 12-month program in HVAC or a 24-month program in nursing leads to full employment and a much more likely ticket into the middle class than many four-year degrees. Even shorter programs in high demand fields such as electrical lineman or cyber-security can provide ROI that crushes some four-year degrees.

In short, there are some very good reasons that a growing number of Americans are souring on higher education, particularly the traditional four-year degree. Families with means will continue to send their children to college, but for the vast majority of Americans who cannot pay the grindingly high cost of traditional higher education today out of pocket, their view of higher education will likely remain skeptical, if not outright negative, and their buying decisions will reflect that. Parts of post-secondary education will continue to grow, while traditional higher education will continue to shrink.