Dealing With the Ghosts of Leaders Past

One of the challenges for new incoming academic leaders can be coping with the legacies of leaders who preceded them. These legacies can be favorable or not; they can be grounded in realities or exaggerated, for better or worse, through the unreliable lens of memory. Consider some varieties:

• The egregious and public mistakes of a past academic leader cast a shadow on the actions of a current leader, who fears being accused of making similar mistakes.
• A former dean set up a monthly faculty lunch seminar that is thriving more than ever, but it costs a considerable amount of money in an increasingly tight budget.
• A charismatic, beloved department head is replaced by another who, though competent, focuses more on numbers and output than on collegial relationships; people often comment on the “good old days.”
• The remnants of a nasty rivalry between two retired faculty members has left a fissure in an academic unit, with people still taking sides and spewing quiet vitriol toward the other faction.
• A department chair wonders how, after they retire, they might contribute to the department they helped build—and whether those who remain will want their opinions.
• A new faculty member hears of a former leader with an ill temper and autocratic style that people can’t seem to move on from.

These situations and others may invite questions for new leaders seeking to find their own way. For example:

• Is it possible that leaders from the past wield too much influence after stepping down?
• Should past leaders step in to help a current leader address long-standing problems? If so, when and how?
• What should a new leader do about the lingering influence of a negative, toxic leader?

At the National Center for Principled Leadership and Research Ethics (NCPRE), our goal is to help academic leaders build cultures of excellence in rigorous, practical ways. One element of leadership effectiveness can be to understand the influence of past leaders, the historical context in which they worked and the things they did that resonated (or didn’t) with people currently at the institution. By being aware of the historical background you walk into as a new leader, you can absorb important lessons that will help you to lead change and avoid some leadership land mines.

If you are stepping into this role from within the department, you probably know much of this history already; if you are new to the unit, you will need to ask questions and do a lot of listening. In fact, either way you should do a lot of listening. Let’s unpack how current leaders can look back on and learn from—or sometimes move on from—the legacies of former leaders.

Looking Back

Academic units have a sustained, longitudinal identity: Experiences of the past can continue to resonate, for better or worse, and set a context for current challenges. For example, what if your department’s budget is reduced and you need to redistribute resources? Or what if a faculty member engages in misconduct and needs to receive formal discipline? Sometimes, information about how prior leaders dealt with such situations may provide some perspectives for how to engage with current problems—as well as indicate missteps to avoid. Ask yourself:

• Has this situation happened before? Who handled it, and how was it handled? How can I learn more?
• Is anyone in the department still in contact with previous leaders? Are they willing and/or able to meet? Are they likely to be reliable and helpful?

The past can also provide answers to different questions that academic leaders encounter. For example, suppose your department has a culture with clear boundaries between professional and personal lives, such that colleagues rarely socialize outside of work. That may present no issue for your unit, but perhaps you or others have considered initiating departmental social activities to enable faculty and staff members to intermingle so camaraderie and morale might increase. Or perhaps your department has long-standing expectations about how people are expected to show up for meetings, accept teaching assignments or attend departmental functions. Asking questions about the history of the matter can help you to more effectively think through these norms. You might consider the following:

• What is the origin of this policy? Who authorized it, and does it remain relevant today?
• What are the implicit norms about “the way things work around here”? Do they still work today?
• Why is a given practice or artifact sacred to current members of this unit? How did it become so important or central to the unit’s culture? Is it supporting or detracting from current goals and directions?

Looking back can be an effective way for leaders to explore how to solve problems in good faith. The past offers a wealth of knowledge, and past leaders—and their policies and values—can be valuable resources for knowing how to operate in the present. As we have said, learning more about them is one of the first priorities for a new leader.

For example, it may be that a former leader became so important to your department or institution that their memory serves as a measuring stick against which other leaders evaluate their own principles and performance. Those individuals may seem larger than life, and as their absence allows their legend to grow, they may come to be revered more and more.

Two of us, Jacob Brown, and Jeffrey Bednar, recently published a research article about a merger between two firms that became complicated as two former leaders—both long since retired—continued to exert influence on current employees. In summary, leaders who are seen as embodying what the organization stands for—its values and identity—and who instill admiration in the people they lead qualify to become “organizational ghosts.” Memories of those leaders are woven into the tapestry of the organization in ways that are visible (e.g., putting up plaques or pictures, keeping their name on a website) and less visible (e.g., sharing stories, following established norms and practices). Further, past interactions with such leaders can come up in discussions about current concerns as remembrances (e.g., “I remember when Sergio said this …”) or imagined scenarios (e.g., “I wonder what Sarah would have done here …”).

Indeed, research shows that leaders who come to embody a group’s values and identity can become particularly influential—or even become ghosts who haunt current members in their work. And although that may be inspirational in developing our own values and identity as leaders, it may not be fair or appropriate to compare ourselves to past leaders, as we operate in distinct contexts. Again, consider the following:

• Which leaders retain a lingering influence in your unit—who are the ghosts? Why did they become so revered in this unit? What did they do? What values and priorities did they represent? In what situations, and from whom, are you hearing stories about their tenure and actions?
• What kind of influence do these ghosts leave behind? Is it positive, negative or mixed?
• How is my leadership style different from the former leader? How might it be perceived as a result?

Sometimes a lingering former leader needs to take some distance from a unit they no longer lead. Other times, even though a leader may have moved on from the department, their insight and experience may still be useful.

For example, suppose your department is relatively new, and the former leader served as the originating department chair. They very likely encountered many situations that you and your colleagues will find valuable. How, then, can you encourage that former leader to stick around in a constructive way without impeding progress on your current priorities? And how do you determine when and how to ask a popular former leader to step away, or when and how to seek to invite them back in? In making such judgments, consider these questions:

• What knowledge or expertise do you not have that a former leader does? Is the leader willing and available to help?
• What will it take for you and the former leader to be on the same page? If you disagree about important topics, what is the nature of this disagreement? How will you reconcile the differences between your perspectives? What merit does their perspective have?

Moving On

Of course, past leaders do not always present an example that new leaders should follow. For example, suppose a former department chair made clear and obvious mistakes that hurt your department’s reputation, and now you are left to pick up the pieces. Perhaps a former leader was a despot who ruled with an iron fist and whose toxic leadership instilled a culture of fear and finger-pointing in the unit. Perhaps you as the current leader need to take responsibility for the conditions that former leader caused without placing overt blame on the previous administration. Given those potential issues and many others, you might ask yourself:

• Which problems have past leaders left for us to solve? Are they solvable?
• Do we need to pivot from the way things have operated here previously?
  • If we want to pivot, how can we do this while being true to the perceived long-term legacy and traditions of the department?
  • Do we need to create a new vision for where we are going in the future and leave some elements of the past behind?

Thus, the longitudinal view can highlight various constructive and less-than-constructive ways that former leaders exert a continuing influence on an academic department. Sometimes they are viewed ideally, as leading a golden age for the unit, and you as the current leader must find a way to cope with their idealized legacy. Other former leaders might have a difficult time letting go and seek continued influence in order to maintain their legacy, unintentionally undermining the legitimacy of the new leader. Other times, former leaders can provide valuable experience and institutional memory, and a new leader might actively seek their continued involvement. In yet other cases, former leaders did damage to the quality, morale and interpersonal dynamics of the unit, and the new leader must repair the damage and chart a new course. Staying alert to building a sense of this history and continuing to test it throughout your entry to the position and your continuing work can be a valuable asset to your leadership.

In our years of experience at NCPRE, we’ve seen many ways that a department can go awry, and deciding how to handle the legacy of a former leader can be one of them. We invite academic leaders to examine their values and the long-standing values of their units, which may spring from ghosts in the institution’s history. We also encourage you to ask yourself as the new leader some of the questions we’ve outlined. Developing and learning from leaders from the past—the good and bad—will help you to lead your academic unit more successfully and with greater confidence.