Presidential leadership in higher education is often talked about as if it were a single, continuous role. In reality, it unfolds in distinct phases, each with different foci, activity, and leadership demands. These phases don’t follow a fixed calendar. On some campuses, they may last months; on others, years. They can overlap, repeat, or be disrupted by crises, political shifts, enrollment changes, or external pressures.
Naming these phases isn’t about creating a checklist or a playbook. It’s about helping presidents, boards, and senior teams make sense of where they are, what is being asked of them now, and what kind of leadership is most needed in this moment. Having a road map can help leaders be flexible and adjust when needed.
Phase One: Listening, Learning, and Becoming an Insider
Early presidential leadership is less about vision-setting and more about acclimation and relationship-building. This phase is often marked by listening tours, learning institutional history, understanding culture and power dynamics, and building trust with faculty, staff, students, and community partners.
This is also when senior team transitions often occur, sometimes intentionally, sometimes out of necessity. The work here is not to arrive with answers, but to become an insider without losing the perspective of an outsider. Rushing this phase can create resistance that lingers for years.
Phase Two: Co-Creating Direction
As understanding deepens, many presidents move into a phase focused on strategic direction-setting. This often takes the form of a strategic planning process, but the leadership posture matters more than the document itself.
In this phase, an effective president acts less as the expert and more as a facilitator of a co-created process. The work is inclusive and dialogic, but that does not mean a slow, years-long process. The goal is shared ownership, clarity of priorities, and alignment across constituencies.
Phase Three: Launching and Aligning
Once direction is articulated, leadership shifts again. This phase requires presidents to become champions and integrators. Words must turn into decisions. Resources must follow priorities. Structures, incentives, and expectations need to align with the stated direction.
This is where collaboration with boards and senior leaders becomes especially visible. Aligning what has been with the new strategic direction must be done with strategy, nuance, and savvy to the organizational chart, people affected, and the symbolic meaning it will convey. Misalignment at this stage can quietly undermine even the most thoughtful strategic vision.
Phase Four: Sustaining Momentum
Transformation is not a one-time event. Over time, presidential leadership often enters a phase of progression and recalibration. The work becomes about sustaining energy, communicating progress, making course corrections, and keeping the strategy alive rather than archived.
This phase is less glamorous but deeply consequential. It requires attention to culture, morale, and institutional learning. Presidents who neglect this phase often find themselves reacting rather than leading, even with a strong plan in place.
Phase Five: External Focus & Capital Campaign
The previous phases can position a president to lead a new fundraising and capital campaign to help position the institution for the future. The lessons learned along the way can give the president tools to not only set the campaign but also tell the stories, make the connections, and build the relationships to make it successful. This phase may shift the focus outward toward fundraising, capital campaigns, alumni engagement, and external partnerships. This phase demands a different kind of presence, one rooted in storytelling, trust-building, and long-term investment.
Phase Six: Transition
Eventually, all presidencies reach moments of transition. This may involve preparing for departure or committing to renewing one’s leadership for another chapter. Are you a leader who needs a new context and new challenges to reenergize your leadership, or are you deeply committed to another cycle of leadership at this institution? Is this an institution that could use a new voice, perspective, and leadership, or would continuity and steady leadership best serve the institution? Strong leaders can explore both sides of this (self and institution) and decide what is best.
Phase ?: Accreditation
Anywhere in the phases outlined above, accreditation may emerge, and it won’t come at a time of your choosing. This takes significant investment, not just for the academic aspects of the institution. It can also be a generative time of reflection for the institution if led effectively. Depending on where this lands in the cycle, strategic leaders can integrate it into the overall cycle and leverage it to build on what has been and seed the ground for what is next.
The Next Phase: Renewal & Reflection
Should the leader and institution decide to recommit to each other for another cycle, we can see how a return to the beginning of this cycle, in new ways can be helpful. Leaders might give themselves a break and time to reconnect. This reconnection after the external focus of the capital campaign might be a chance to re-listen and re-learn both inwardly and outwardly. This re-engagement can bring new insights, new perspectives, and new approaches to the challenges of leadership.
Why This Matters
Presidential leadership is not about doing everything at once. It is about leading differently over time. When leaders, boards, and senior teams fail to recognize these phases, misalignment grows, and overwhelm can set in.
When these phases are named and understood, leaders gain clarity, patience, and agency. They can ask better questions:
What phase are we in? What phase is next for us?
What kind of leadership does this moment require?
What might we need to let go of or lean into next?
That awareness doesn’t eliminate complexity, but it helps leaders navigate it with greater intention, clarity, humility, and effectiveness.
