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A new study emphasizes the importance of building trust, resilience and communication skills among the core competencies needed for current and aspiring college leaders.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | BrianAJackson/iStock/Getty Images | Ake, McKinsey and Teddy/rawpixel
The college presidency, much like higher education itself, is undergoing a period of upheaval.
Instability and uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, slumping enrollment, state and federal politics, international conflict, and a wave of protests over the Israel-Hamas war have challenged—and ended—a number of high-profile presidencies in recent years.
Amid those challenges, presidents are serving shorter terms: The average tenure fell from 8.5 years in 2006 to 5.9 years in 2023, according to the latest American College President Study from the American Council on Education. Weighing the pressures of the presidency, a group of researchers set out to identify the necessary skills for the job. Their new study, released Monday, is titled “Competencies for the College Presidency: A National Study of Effective Leadership in Higher Education.”
Here’s what they found.
The Findings
Researchers Jorge Burmicky, Kevin McClure and Wonsun Ryu surveyed more than 700 college presidents and conducted four focus groups with a broad range of institutional leaders on behalf of the executive search firm Academic Search. They identified seven core competencies that are essential for a modern college president:
- Trust building
- Demonstrating resilience
- Communication savvy
- Crafting a cabinet and team building
- Emotional intelligence
- Leading with courage
- Data acumen and resource management
Burmicky, a professor of higher education, leadership and policy studies at Howard University, said the strengths necessary for successful higher ed leadership have changed with the shifting cultural landscape.
“Obviously we’re in the midst of political attacks and scrutiny of higher education and presidents are fielding questions from policymakers,” he said. “They are being challenged to make a case for the continued existence of higher education and the value that they provide. And they’ve had to become much stronger advocates for freedom of expression and academic freedom.”
At the same time, he noted, student expectations for the services colleges provide are rising, as are calls for institutions to “increase access and create opportunity for marginalized students.” Those challenges come as leaders are also navigating “pretty significant labor tensions on campuses.”
The researchers approached their work with the assumption that presidential core competencies evolve over time.
“Our big premise walking into this study is that we shouldn’t be thinking about presidential competencies as these enduring concepts that never change, but as the context changes, so should our thinking about what it takes to be an effective president,” explained McClure, a professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
The top-ranked key competency that emerged was trust building; 96 percent of respondents emphasized that presidents need to behave “in a way that is trustworthy, consistent and accountable.” That was followed by the need to “demonstrate resilience and an ability to cope with adversity,” named by 92 percent of respondents. Ninety percent cited communicating “effectively and authentically in formal and informal settings” as a vital presidential skill.
To build trust, leaders need to be present with their constituents, create opportunities for the campus community to share their views on institutional issues and surround themselves with a diverse array of voices, rather than just their allies, respondents told the researchers.
Presidents also stressed the need for humility.
“The leaders who struggle the most, from my perspective, are the ones who have the least emotional intelligence and [are] not able to say, ‘I don’t know how to do this; will you help?’ or reach out for help,” said one college president who participated in a focus group, according to the study.
On resilience, presidents emphasized the importance of self-care and having close confidants.
“Isolation is very real in this role … my situation is unique because I’m in a very small institution in a very small-world community … so having that network to reach out to in times of need is critical. But also giving yourself time to reflect on issues that arise from whatever perspective helps you rationalize what your heart and soul are going through at the time,” one president said.
Respondents underscored the importance of authenticity in their communications.
“We’re not an insurance company that you came from. If we put out these factual messages that are devoid of emotion and empathy and sensitivity, one, it’s not authentically me. It also doesn’t value what we do and the humanistic job or mission we have,” a president told researchers.
Though survey respondents emphasized some of the seven outlined competencies more so than others, McClure said the study does not rank those skills in order of importance and “these competencies are going to rise and fall in salience depending on the situation.” He added that college presidents “are drawing on different competencies at different moments.”
Applying the Findings
The study of presidential competencies was completed over the course of a year. Like university leaders in the U.S., respondents skewed heavily white (68 percent) and majority male (53 percent), though McClure noted the focus groups featured a more diverse pool of leaders.
Shawn Hartman, senior vice president of Academic Search, which sponsored the study, said the findings are applicable to current institutional leaders, those aspiring to the presidency and governing boards who can refer to the data when hiring college presidents.
Academic Search and its parent company, the American Academic Leadership Institute, plan to use the study in leadership training programs they put on in conjunction with other organizations, such as the Council of Independent Colleges and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
“For leadership development, it gives us clear competencies to build our programs around,” Hartman said.
The study will also be useful for boards and search committees in identifying skills needed for prospective candidates, Hartman said, as well as in helping them support presidents after they’re hired.
They can also learn something by examining the difference in responses according to race and gender, he said.
For example, the study found women were more likely than men to emphasize “equity-mindedness” and emotional intelligence. And presidents of color sought help more often than their white counterparts and were more likely to recognize “how emotions impact people and situations.”
Hartman added that while people “sometimes think of the presidency as an island,” the study reinforces the notion that it “has always been about community.” He hopes it will allow presidents to develop the skills to better serve their community, as well as help orient governing boards “to think about the whole life cycle of leadership, not just the selection.”
(This article has been updated to include Wonsun Ryu as an author of the report.)
