Thanks to everyone who participated in our #SAchat focused on Reading for Professional Development. This week’s topic produced 532 tweets from several student affairs professionals, graduate students and undergraduates interested or working in the Student Affairs field!

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For the last several years in my leadership roles, I have always enacted and espoused a solidified grouping of values connected with my leadership identity.  A prominent value in that grouping has consistently been a drive to minimize my ego in my interactions with staff and students.  It is a lesson that I  was taught very early on by faculty in my graduate preparation program, and by a variety of mentors during the early part of my career.  I believe I have always done an effective job of doing this throughout the majority of my career.  I have also been very intentional about checking in with my past supervisors and fellow colleagues about my specific leadership styles ensuring that I was maintaining an optimal balance in this regard.

Lately, however, I’ve begun to question this aspect of my leadership style.  In anonymous feedback opportunities I have offered my staff over the last two years, I’ve read a few remarks that questioned if my ego became prevalent in various decisions I made as a leader.  Each time I read these remarks, I was obviously taken aback with how important this value is to me.  Initially, I dismissed it as simple misconceptions and opinions. I knew who I was, so why should I worry about erroneous feedback?  I then started to think more critically about the feedback and my initial reactions.

I ultimately concluded that it was the topic of the feedback that impacted how I was receiving it.  At some level I was becoming exactly what I told countless staff members and for that matter, students, over the years not to be:  the egomaniac.  Initially, I was shocked and concerned about this. I then realized this was the same learning experience that staff and students I had worked with through the years had gone through.  Why was I any different than them?  Wasn’t I a learner in life the same way they were in those moments?  Wasn’t I allowed to have moments of failure in the same regard?

As leaders, we all continuously learn lessons as we progress through our development.  Those lessons can come from a variety of sources and experiences.  This experience forced me to once again be reminded of one of my most important teachers:  the staff that I lead on a continuous basis.  Something tells me that this is not the last time I will learn this lesson.  I think that is probably a good thing.  There is something about humble pie that makes us all better people and professionals!

I’ve been attending a training lately about helping students and colleagues in crisis. The sessions have been really interesting. At one point we were talking about how to build trust with individuals who are in crisis mode. One of the tactics the facilitator was explaining was all about how we need to be honest and admit mistakes when/if we made them with such individuals. We talked about this in contrast to the opposite – which would be telling lies, deflecting answers, avoiding topics…etc. The basic premise was all about building trust which would help to diffuse the situation.

I jotted this note down:

Being honest + admitting mistakes = builds trust >>> SUPERVISION!
Obviously triggering in my mind that this also applies to supervision.

For readers who have read my blog a lot in the past, you will know that I love talking about and thinking about how I supervise & how I can supervise better. While I am not going to go out and say that I purposefully deflect or lie to those that I supervise, I do admit that I have been known to occasionally sugar coat things.

As I reflect about this concept, I think about the difference between being honest and admitting mistakes vs deflecting or avoiding topics and how this impacts those that I supervise.

I know when my supervisor (or past supervisors) say “I can’t answer that,” I respect them more. While I still really want to know the answer, I realize that they have heard my question and are being honest with me. I then respect and trust them more.

For those who know me at all, you know that I am quick to admit mistakes. I have no problem telling those that I work with and for that I have messed up. Just the other day I sent an email asking for a piece of information I had already received. Once I figured it out, I was quick to send an apology email – even pointed out that I felt foolish! For me, this is all about being honest with those that you work with.

What do you think about how this concept? Do you feel that being honest and admitting mistakes builds trust, which helps make you a stronger supervisor? How? Why?

The impetus for this post is a gripe I have about student organization constitutions. Many universities require student groups to generate a constitution as a prerequisite for recognition. Yet how many of our offices have constitutions? How many of our campuses have constitutions? Does any group you belong to anywhere–besides the United States of America and maybe the Rotary Club–have a constitution? (Do an Internet search on “organizations with constitutions” and you’ll get a slew of university “how to” pages for their student groups.)

My primary concern: relevance.

Leadership/followership education is challenging, messy, complicated work. There’s no manual, no surefire way to guarantee success. But because it’s so important—so vital—this work can also be very rewarding. We must approach leadership education thoughtfully by creating relevant and meaningful ways for students to learn and engage. We need to help them see connections between all of their leadership/followership experiences–class projects, part-time jobs, families, student organizations, future careers, and more.

Here are a few things for us to ponder:

1) Effective groups have a shared purpose. In his TED Talk on “How great leaders inspire action,” Simon Sinek discusses the power of people who connect around mutual beliefs and dreams. How do we help students identify and articulate purpose and then use purpose to form and ground groups? Would developing a statement of purpose be more centering than hammering away at a constitution?

2) Effective groups have active participants. How do we help student groups establish organization norms–member-generated and mutually agreed upon standards for participation? And then, how do we work with students to identify and address unsatisfactory performance in their groups and to confront, coach, and even “fire” when appropriate? Some faculty members are now allowing groups to remove project-team members who fail to meet agreed-upon standards. Students generally appreciate this option (and use it), and it teaches a valuable skill (and lesson).

3) Effective groups understand that problem solving is a process. Simply saying that food service or parking sucks isn’t enough. How do we coach students to explore why something is the way it is, first? Our campus library houses our University’s archives, where students can learn things like why our institution once had a child-care center and now doesn’t. Many colleges have well-known “historians,” faculty and staff members who have lived through years of changes and enjoy talking about them. Solutions that show a grasp of the past have a better chance of gaining approval.

4) Do we overuse the term “student leader” when we could/should be saying “students when they’re leading”? When we speak about “student leaders,” we are often referring to students with titles–Resident Assistants, Student Government officers, etc. These students are certainly leading in this single capacity; however, they are also participating in groups led by others. They are following. When non-titled students hear us speak about our “student leaders,” they often don’t see themselves, even though they may, in fact, be leading without a title.

5) How are we learning about leading and following? We have access to much wisdom through TED Talks, blogs, and other resources (all of which can be used with students, too). Are we practicing what we teach? Students are watching us. They see how we are leading and following, both in terms of actual behaviors and skills and in terms of the quality of decisions being made.

What are your experiences with leadership and followership? What initiatives and tools are having the most impact? How have your leadership programs evolved? What work still needs to be done?

Lisa Tetzloff is the Director of the Office of Student Life at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

“I’d like to know: what do you do to show that you’re a leader on campus?”

The student’s inquiry stopped me for a second. After all, I had just asked her that exact question no more than ten minutes ago during an RA recruitment interview. We had come to the portion of the interview where the students could ask questions of me, the professional. And I didn’t quite know what to say. Though it pains me to admit it, my first thought was “I just am a leader on campus, because of my role in the residence halls.”

When you’re a professional on a college campus how do you show that you’re a leader? While our titles can give us the privilege of leading, guiding and advising students, it is up to us as professionals to determine how we’re going to lead those who look to us. I was unsure of how to answer the question because I hadn’t intentionally thought about my leadership role on campus in a long time—on a regular basis I give more energy to the day-to-day routines and to-do lists than the big picture, which I think happens to a lot of us in the field. When I began to ponder this subject, more questions began to surface. Do my actions reflect my values, goals, and abilities? What can I do to better lead my students? How am I proving that I deserve to be seen as a leader in my community?

The truth of the matter is I’m still contemplating the answers to these questions. Intentional reflection is necessary to grow—I expect it from my students, so why wouldn’t I do the same myself? As a professional, I must remember that it is my responsibility to not only connect with my students, but also to know who I am so that I can empower them to authentically grow and make meaning of their collegiate experiences. The student’s question was a good reminder to take time out to reflect and refocus on bigger picture items like leadership—something that everyone in our field should do every now and again.

I spend a lot of time gathering and sharing information with others via Twitter. If I have a lull in my day, I like to scroll through the last hour of my tweet stream and see what new gems I can find. Usually, I end up opening several new tabs, which I then try and read during the rest of the day. (Current tab count for those who are interested is 12, divided among two windows. It’s been a slow news day.) Sometimes I wonder why individuals share the information they do — does it have personal significance? Is it a cause they are associated with? An issue or topic that they are currently researching and learning more about?

Recently, Niki Rudolph shared an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education discussing student organizations who offer micro loans to entrepreneurs in the surrounding community. Niki and I have shared some tweets back and forth over the past couple of years, and we have even worked at the same institution (Go Fighting Pickles!), but I have never met Niki. What I know about Niki is gleaned from her Twitter bio and her tweets. She is a great supporter of women in higher education, she works in the academic affairs side of the house, and loves diet coke. After reading the article she shared, my brain was churning. What a great idea this seems to be, and how empowering it must be for the students! However, my next thought was, why did Niki share this? Sure, anyone who works in higher education can see that it’s an innovative student practice, but I was curious about the heart behind the RT. Does it have personal significance? Does she donate through kiva.org? Is she currently involved in launching a similar project on her campus?

So, I decided to ask. The result? I feel like I know Niki a bit better now. I’ve also adjusted where she sits in my mental rolodex, and know that I can bounce ideas by her that may relate to service learning and student leadership. By taking that step further to ask “why?”, I strengthened my connection with this twitter based colleague.  You can read Niki’s response question below.

When I was a hall director, one of my RAs decided to spend a semester in Bangladesh. I cannot say that Bangladesh was a popular destination for study abroad students, but off Robin went. He went to see the impacts of micro-loans, or micro-credit, first hand. It was the first I had heard of such financing, and I was amazed to hear that many of the loans were directed to women, who often reinvested in their communities and were more likely to repay. The repayment of these loans was up in the area of 98%. So, when I saw the article, I began thinking of what amazing potential such programming could have on college campuses, the surrounding communities, and the students involved.

1. Service Learning. Many service learning efforts are day-long efforts, or drives on campus, or having students spending a few hours putting together care packages. I am not discounting those programs, since for many of the students, that may be all the time they have to commit, and those efforts help people. However, what amazing learning could occur when the effort is long term. An investment in the people of the surrounding community, with an end result of long term connections and students wanting to see those people succeed.

2. Leadership. Truthfully, when I first read the article, I thought, “Hey, Cindy and Chris might be interested in this.” What a great way to show students not just leadership in terms of creating nice programs, but leadership in terms of seeing the impacts of service and coordinating group efforts for a tangible end. Can you just imagine what kinds of experience these student leaders can talk about in their future interviews?

3. Skill Building. I would be remiss, as an academic affairs professional, to not discuss the wonderful application of academic learning this kind of programming can provide. Not just the business majors, but the communication majors and social work majors and engineer majors, getting a better understanding of community needs, economics, budgeting, planning, and client service is a learning opportunity that few classrooms can provide.

This is what education should be. Not just learning, but doing something with that learning that has real value, real impact on people and communities, and not just a means to a job. Employment at the end of two or four years is important, but employment with strong citizenship is even better.

Three quick stories, one important point.

Story #1:
Last week, before my soccer match, I watched a little league softball game on the field next to us. Surrounding the field was a collection of parents multitasking between the game, their blackberries, and babysitting their, even younger, offspring. One parent in particular was having a hard time keeping her little one under control. Her kid kept racing up and down the sidelines while mimicking a train. He put his hand in the air, pumped his fist, and as he passed us let out a loud, “Choo Choo!” Then 30 seconds later he’d come steamrolling back. The kid clearly had extra energy and needed to let it out. The parent, and most parents would agree, didn’t try and stop him from running, instead she calming kept looking a few yards ahead to clear away any dangers that might be in his way. The little kid was motivated to run, so instead of trying to stop him, the parent took on the role of laying tracks for him to keep running.

Story #2:
My brother and I were playing Frisbee Golf and he lodged his frisbee square in the middle of a mud pit. I quickly looked around for a large stick and without much thinking took two steps into the mud pit, reached out my arm, and started to retrieve his frisbee for him. With my foot half covered in mud, my brother said, “never get in the way of a motivated individual.”

Story #3:
At this year’s ACPA conference in Philadelphia, the conference organizers hosted a special social media strategy session with several individuals to talk about how they could better leverage social media for the ACPA community. Throughout the session it was clear that someone needed to step up and lead the charge. Looking around the room, there were many capable individuals, but the question was who was the most motivated and ready? Kathy Petras raised her hand and agreed to lead the group. Since then,  she has been a wonderful leader, and had we had enough data to work with, probably could have predicted so because Kathy was already a trending leader in the community. She was a newer associate that recently took on a leadership position in another committee as well as led an ed session for the first time this year. If we were to tally up her actions, we would’ve seen she was a trending leader and was hunting for her next level of growth. In this case, leading the social media adoption committee was a perfect fit for her.

Point:
Every student group/classroom can be broken up into varying levels of engagement. Based on a specific student’s engagement level, they want to be treated in different ways. A fully involved students wants to be treated in a totally different way than a student lurking on the edge of the wall. A student’s engagement level is constantly shifting though, with a hope of always trending towards more involvement. It’s up to the leaders of the community to thus recognize the individual engagement level of each student, and also to recognize how an individual is trending. Find out who the Kathy is of your community that is trending towards being a leader, then lay down tracks for her to continue to be great, because the worst thing a leader can do is get in the way of a motivated train.

How many times have you sat in a meeting where hundreds of great ideas are tossed around, but in the end, not much happens? In his book Making Ideas Happen, Scott Belsky repeats the adage that creativity (or productivity, progress in our projects, and growth in relationships) is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration.

He examines this idea through a simple formula: Creativity x Action = Impact.

So someone who is incredibly creative (a perfect 100) but doesn’t translate those ideas into action has very little impact. (100 x 0 = 0)

But someone who’s marginally creative (a 50) and even marginally moves those projects forward (a 50 again!) can have an exponentially greater impact. (50 x 50 = 2,500!)

This has powerful implications for higher ed, where thinkers thrive and “vague-agendaed” meetings can creep up from every corner. We can have all the ideas in the world, but if we can’t move them into reality, we miss the point. Moving ideas to action takes practice. It takes systems. It takes a willingness to fail. In fact, we can count on some things failing.

In the ResLife world that changes how we look at events, projects, and even tactics for growing RAs. Try things. See what succeeds. Move forward and learn.

We need to go through quicker learning cycles, moving ideas to action.

One quick, incredibly simple example. I put together a “lessons from last year’s RAs” booklet this year – by emailing the RAs at the end of the year and requesting feedback. We just needed enough to fill it out. Is it perfect? No. But it’s much better than what we had before – nothing. And in the end, it was a useful, helpful piece that carried more credibility than some of our training sessions because it was from RAs to RAs.

What about you? How have you seen a bias toward action make a difference on campus? Where can it be more challenging?

Jon Sampson is a Program Coordinator and Residence Director at Azusa Pacific University.

When I heard a student affairs administrator make this statement awhile back, it gave me pause.

She explained that big budget cuts at her institution a year or so ago meant she had had to find ways to accomplish the university’s mission with fewer staff members. She began the process by assessing employees’ strengths relative to their positions. As a result of her assessment, she kept some employees where they were, she moved a couple to positions she determined to be a better fit for their talents and skills, and she let others go (with several months’ notice and assistance with their job searches).

The competencies she displayed—building and maintaining trust, assessing people and situations well, and making difficult (even painful) decisions without pause—are invaluable.

“Releasing an employee troubles, disturbs, and unsettles every leader,” writes Phillip Clampitt and Robert DeKoch in Transforming Leaders Into Progressmakers: Leadership for the 21st Century (2011, p. 166).

Therefore “cutting your losses [is] . . . an act of judgment and courage,” they concluded.

In higher education, the phrase “cutting your losses” sounds insensitive and incongruent with our culture of learning. Instead, we teach, correct, guide, and motivate . . . sometimes indefinitely. We may convince ourselves that “if only I were a better supervisor, then he/she would be a better employee.” And so we try yet another approach and give the employee more time.

The costs of keeping marginal employees, of course, can be very high. Their actions (or inaction) can affect recruitment and retention of students, the learning environment, risk and liability, and customer service. They also can affect morale, as other employees compensate for deficits or create ways to work around them.

What does it take to be able to handle challenging personnel decisions well? How can we develop these traits and/or skills? What are your thoughts about the statement: “We cannot afford mediocre employees”?

Our students deserve our best, including courageous leadership. How are we building and sustaining our value to our campuses?

Lisa Tetzloff is the Director of the Office of Student Life at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

As both a leadership educator and the director of a department, I keep an eye out for new resources on leadership. One of the books I read recently is Transforming Leaders into Progressmakers: Leadership for the 21st Century by Phillip Clampitt and Robert DeKoch.

Some leadership literature seems to lend itself better to higher education and student affairs than others. I found the key concepts in Progressmakers to be a good fit for a daylong, mid-year retreat I had been planning for the Student Life staff. My intent was for us to evaluate our programs and services based on their reach, impact, and connection to our mission. What was lacking or missing?

Our goal is always progress. We want to make changes that result in something better. In Progressmakers, Clampitt and DeKoch (2011) suggest that improvement requires two separate but equally important activities: “exploring” and “refining.” They define refining as tweaking to optimize what we already offer, and exploring as creating bigger, more revolutionary change. Exploring results in leaps, such as from newspapers to news on the Internet, or from the printed Sears catalog to amazon.com. (The authors contend that Sears could have preempted amazon if it had chosen to leap rather than tweak.)

According to Clampitt and DeKoch, “The most fundamental leadership judgment is determining when the organization needs to explore new opportunities and when it needs to improve (or refine) current practices” (p. 6). My experience in student affairs has been that we tend to favor refining rather than venturing into the risky unknown.

So how might these concepts relate to Student Life? A simple example: A few years ago we decided to temper our “bigger is better” approach to programming by planning some intentionally small, more intimate activities that we thought might be more appealing to some students. We then took the fairly unusual step of initiating a series of informal book discussions. We saw this activity as a tool for facilitating self-awareness, for increasing students’ comfort with conversing, and for promoting reading. For us, this was a leap—and it worked. Today our book discussions draw students, faculty, staff, and community members, and they remain capped at 12. We have since refined our book discussions by offering some via Skype (with the authors joining in!).

Another example: We are constantly fine-tuning our fall leadership conference, which typically draws highly engaged, on-campus students. We are now exploring ways to address the leadership needs and interests of our non-traditional students, who spend very little time, if any, on campus. What topics are relevant to their experiences? What methods and technologies would appeal to them? We want to leap. Ideas?

In what ways are you, your department, and/or your campus refining and exploring? Would you describe yourself as more of a refiner or as an explorer? Does your organization have both (and does it value both)?

Clampitt, P. G. & DeKoch, R. J. (2011). Transforming Leaders into Progressmakers: Leadership for the 21st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.