Last December, the Forbes Council published an article I wrote about the human side of transformation, listing five lessons every leader in higher education should know to keep their institution’s ability to prosper in the face of change.
In this Insight article, I will explore the personal and professional experiences that gave me the opportunity to consolidate these lessons. As president of The Chicago School, I have spent the past 15 years leading a mission-driven, nonprofit university through significant changes, from physical expansion to digital transformation. All those changes came with their own set of opportunities, but what all of them had in common were the five lessons shared in Forbes:
- Growth requires a strong, durable foundation.
- A leader is only as strong as the team.
- Collaboration speeds progress and improves results.
- Transformation is ultimately about people.
- Integrity and care must guide leadership through change.
I will elaborate on The Chicago School’s physical expansion to illustrate this point.
When I took over as president, the university was already a well-established institution in Chicago, with a respected and sought-after Professional Psychology program, an impressive roster of alumni, and distinguished faculty. At that time, I was tasked with establishing our university’s first advanced campus in California. Both personally and professionally, this meant uprooting myself once again and building anew at an unknown place.
The need for the very first physical campus outside of Illinois came from the realization that our limited footprint was inconsistent with our mission to educate culturally competent professionals who can support underserved communities throughout the country. We then decided to begin an expansion that is still underway today.
Over these past 15 years, we have grown from a single campus in Chicago to six campuses coast to coast, with over 6,000 students, 20,000 alumni, contributing to more than 1.2 million bro-bono service hours through long-standing partnerships both national and international.
I close the Forbes article by stating that:
Growth and change are inevitable, and how we navigate them determines the impact we create as leaders. The most important lesson I have learned over the years is that leadership is less about where an institution is going and more about how it brings its people along for the journey.
Every new enterprise The Chicago School launches is backed by the impact it creates for its teams, its students, and its partners in the community. That, alongside strong alignment with our mission in every single facet of what we do, and having a strong principles foundation, is the main ingredient of our longstanding, sustained momentum and growth. It is what makes people embrace change.
I am endlessly humbled by what we have accomplished together, the trust the team places in me, particularly during challenging and uncertain times, and all the important lessons I’ve collected and keep collecting from this amazing collaborative journey.