A Moral Center

Wednesday’s Inside Higher Ed piece about college presidents needing entirely different skills in the wake of COVID than the ones for which they were hired got me thinking.

Let’s say that you’re a member of a Board of Trustees for a college, and the time has come to put together a profile of the next president you’d like to hire. The world is spinning off its axis, and nobody knows what’s coming next. Previous experience may be helpful, in that it will reduce the likelihood of rookie mistakes, but it may also be harmful, in that it may have taught ways of operating that have become obsolete.

Some trustees default to the corporate CEO model, looking either for someone who’s all about numbers, or someone who’s larger than life. To trustees from outside academia, those may seem like familiar traits of leadership. But I see them as peripheral at best, and occasionally toxic. Too narrow a focus on numbers can lead to the all-too-common “cut your way to greatness” approach that has never worked. Over-the-top charisma is often comorbid with narcissism, which can be devastating to the organization over time.

Others will go to the beloved figure as a caretaker. That can make sense for an interim appointment when the world is on fire, but it’s not a long-term strategy.

Some will go to the politician or the fundraiser, hoping for a magic influx of money to make everything good again. I see that as the “lottery ticket” approach: it could work, but it’s not terribly likely. Philanthropy is not going to bail out operations at most community colleges; the scale is simply too different. Yes, political skills and fundraising ability matter, but the days when some strategic schmoozing would make it all better are long gone. The skills of 1980 don’t have enough juice for 2020.

The first thing I think of, which nobody mentioned in the piece, is a moral center. Circumstances are changing too quickly, and the future is too fluid, to know for certain which tactical skills will be the most relevant. But someone with a moral center can be counted on both to act with integrity and to set an organizational climate encouraging others to do the same. The payoff to that comes slowly, but it increases over time. More to the point, it’s relevant almost no matter the circumstance.

This is a variant on the classic argument for the liberal arts. Whatever else happens, you want someone who can see the big picture and realize their own place in it.

When a leader has a strong moral center, it’s much easier to build trust throughout the organization. Most people will come around to the view that the leader can be trusted to do the right thing, even if they might disagree over what the right thing is in a given circumstance.

Prudentially, someone with a moral center is much less likely to cause a scandal. But it goes beyond that. They’re much more likely to make decisions that are coherent over time. They’re also likely to hire others who are the same way.

To steal a metaphor from David Riesman, a moral center can work like an internal gyroscope. When the waves are tough and the ship is being buffeted, you want someone who knows which way is up. When the sailing is smooth, that might not matter as much. But in stormy seas, which is clearly where we are now, it’s essential.

The really shocking part is how easy it is to spot, if you know where to look. You just have to decide to look.