Leadership Transition: The One Thing New Academic Leaders Forget to Do

Episode 2: The One Thing New Academic Leaders Forget to Do

Lead With YOU Podcast | Hosted by Dr. Nicole Robinson

In this episode of the Lead With YOU podcast, Dr. Nicole R. Robinson dives into one of the most overlooked components of academic leadership transitions: culture.

Newly appointed Deans, Chairs, Provosts, and other higher ed leaders are often coached to conduct listening tours, schedule stakeholder meetings, and learn the ropes during their first 90 days. But there’s one crucial step most forget—understanding the culture they’ve just stepped into.

Nicole shares a powerful story from her own leadership journey, offers a framework to decode institutional dynamics, and explains why even the best strategies will falter if they land in a culture that’s misaligned, wounded, or unready.

What You’ll Learn

• Why the first 90 days of leadership are a critical window—and how most leaders waste it
• What “culture” really means in a higher ed setting (spoiler: it’s not your mission statement)
• The 4 P’s Framework of Academic Leadership:
   
  • People – How relationships and informal influence shape progress
  • Place – Why institutional history and environment matter
  • Process – The reality of how things actually get done
  • Power – The visible and invisible forces that dictate who has voice and agency
• A real story of a brilliant leader whose initiatives failed—not because they were wrong, but because the culture wasn’t ready
• How to begin scanning your own institution using Nicole’s 4 P’s Reflection Worksheet

Resources & Tools

• 4 P’s Reflection Worksheet:  Start assessing your current leadership environment using CCBD’s signature framework. → Download here
• Explore the ASCENT Leadership Program: A powerful transition support experience for academic leaders entering new roles or leading change. → Learn more at www.ccbydesign.org/ascent

Quotable Moments

“Culture doesn’t introduce itself at the door—it sits quietly, watches, and then… it resists.”

“If you can name the culture, you can lead within it—or lead it in a new direction.”

“Culture resists not out of spite—but out of memory.”

“Leadership isn’t about how well you perform—it’s about how well your work lands in the system it enters.”

“The first 90 days aren’t about proving yourself. They’re about understanding what you’re stepping into.”

Tune In If You’re…

• A newly appointed Dean, Chair, or Provost
• A mid-career leader trying to reset your leadership approach
• Struggling to get traction in a new or changing role
• Tired of well-intended advice that skips over the real complexity of campus life
• Curious about how to lead with more clarity, strategy, and cultural alignment

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Connect with Nicole

·      Website: www.ccbydesign.org

·      LinkedIn: Dr. Nicole R. Robinson

·      Email: nicole@ccbydesign.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hello there. Welcome back to the Lead With You podcast by CCBD. My name is Dr. Nicole Robinson. And if you had an opportunity to listen to episode one, you know, and that little intro that I dropped, I was just really kicking things off. And you know that this podcast is a testament of my just doing it and doing it, although it's not perfect, but just doing it. You know, in higher education, particularly as academic leaders, we have been trained that everything needs to be really, really polished. We've convinced ourselves, or I don't think it's we've convinced ourselves, I just think it's part of our culture that if things haven't been peer reviewed, if it hasn't been reviewed, if it hasn't Hasn't been branded, hasn't been benchmarked, is not ready to be shared. And sometimes I think that we wait so long for perfect that we actually miss these really key moments of opportunity. So I'm here once again as a testament of just doing it. I don't have any fancy music. I don't have any special intro outros. I don't have a sound engineer. I don't have anyone helping me write content. I am just here doing it. And I'm excited about sharing this time with you because your time is valuable. You're very busy individuals. So I just appreciate you giving me this time. The one thing I can let you know or can make sure I keep my promises. I always want to make sure I bring quality content to you and share with you. Being able to share content that's going to really impact your life and impact your work life and really be valuable to you. So I'm excited about that as far as what I am able to bring to you until I can get the fancy music and all of those other cool things actually moving forward and going forth. Those things, I keep saying they're not here yet, but we will have them here. So one quick note over the course of this podcast, I'll be introducing myself to you in small snippets over the different episodes. Why? Because we're complex people and I want to share pieces of my story when they naturally connect with the themes that we are exploring. So for now, I'll just start with this little quick snapshot. So I began my academic career straight out of graduate school as a department chair. On day one, no ramp up, no prep, no waiting in the wings, no transition that happened there. I was a brand new junior faculty member, had just graduated from Florida State University School of Music with my PhD in music education and landed my very first job at the University of Memphis School of Music. I was so excited about moving to Memphis and doing that particular work. Thank you. The position I had at the University of Memphis would have been equivalent to a department chair, but actually we were called division heads because our units were so large. So the music education division probably served annually about 500 students between our traditional undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students, including those who were in our three summer master's degree programs, our certification-only programs, our licensure programs. And when I first walked in Memphis, we had a doctoral degree. We added one for a time being. We had, I think, three master's degree, and then we had Undergraduate degree with three concentrations. So that was my intro into leadership. They won straight off the bat and I loved every minute of it. So, you know, I've always had a natural propensity for leadership and maybe because I come from a lineage of that. My mother was a school principal. And so there's probably some things that naturally I kind of legacy wise received as far as being a leader. Over the years, once I transitioned from the University of Memphis, I held faculty positions at other institutions where I held both formal and informal leadership roles, and that included Virginia Commonwealth University School of Music and Syracuse University School of Music. Eventually, I joined the University of Utah School of Music as the Beverly Taylor Sorenson Endowed Presidential Professor, a mouthful there, and that within itself had a built-in leadership piece because basically each university had an endowed position and we had a huge outreach component with the school system across the state of Utah. So it was a lot of statewide coordinated effort in that role, which once again came once again with other both formal and informal leadership roles and responsibilities. And then while I was at the University of Utah, I was asked to serve as associate vice president for equity and diversity for main campus, which I really enjoyed doing. But that was like really deep dive into a central level leadership role and position, which I learned a lot and really appreciated that opportunity. And I always make sure I specify I was the AVP for equity. The main campus, because University of Utah at the time actually had a similar position for their medical campus. So it was a large institution and they very much valued DEI. And so that was one of the things that was there. So I spent over 25 years in higher education. And those 25 years have pretty much been in leadership roles of capacity in some form or fashion. After 25 years, six years ago exactly, I made the decision to leave higher education and launch this consulting practice, Cultural Connections by Design, which now supports colleges and universities across the country. Since I've launched in 2018, I think I have served over 150 colleges and universities. I used to have a tracker. We used to track that, but it's been a minute since I tracked. And I've done lots of different things for these institutions from organizational culture change. I did a lot of DEI work, diversity, equity, and inclusion work and support. And then now doing a lot more leadership development because what I found in the work that I was doing, that one of the gaps were making sure that our leaders were prepped and ready for the work and the organizational change we were doing. CCBD primarily works with academic colleges and universities, but we have done some corporations healthcare organizations and a lot of nonprofit organizations primarily, but those who tend to have an educational kind of bent to them as kind of the organizations that we tend to support moving forward. So that's a little bit about me. Like I said, over time, you'll learn a little bit more about me as the context matters, right? And I'm able to provide you more about my background, but just kind of mainly I wanted you to hear and understand the leadership threads that have worked and moved throughout my Well, I'm very excited about the topic I'm going to spend sharing with you today because it's very timely and it's very much needed. And I think it's something that we don't speak about often and that we need to do regularly. more concentrated work around this particular topic. So I want to talk to you, and I'm going to be talking about this over the next few weeks, leadership transitions. This particular episode is called The One Thing New Academic Leaders Forget to Do Basically in Transition. And I just want to make sure what I refer to as new. New does not mean you're a brand new academic leader. New means that you're navigating new context. So you could be a brand new leader, like you're literally your very first leadership role at your institution. So that's new. But new also can be that you have moved to a new institution. Right. And so you're navigating new context. culture and climate. The other new part could be that you are an experienced academic leader, but maybe you have a new high stakes initiative, like maybe your college or university is going through environment shifting. So anything new, just basically you're walking into a new space in a way of how you you engage with your institution or maybe you're, like I said, you're at a new institution. So the reason why this is timely is because this time of year, this is, I mean, higher ed, we're buzzing, right? We're buzzing with newness, new positions, new assignments, new appointments. We have new deans, new chairs, provosts, everyone's stepping into new roles. I should call this kind of like a leadership transition season. That's something I made up. So it's not anything that, you know, I can quote, but it is a time when so much transition is happening. And it's not just happening in leadership. It happens, of course, on the faculty level as well. But particularly for this particular podcast, we focus more on leadership. So that's what I want to center on. This is a very exciting time, right? For many of us, we're excited about the new opportunities and new roles, but it's a very much a very vulnerable time because how you enter into a new role shapes... not only your experience of that role, but it also shapes how others experience your leadership in that role. And that is the reason why you hear a lot of people, a lot of theories and philosophies talk about the first 90 days is the important window. And it is true. And that first 90 days, really a lot is happening in that first 90 days, not just for you as the leader, but for those who are experiencing your leadership. So what typically happens is that when we walk into a new position, we do what we're kind of told, trained our mentor to do. We go in, we're at a new institution. We host our listening sessions. We schedule our introductions. We're getting the lay of the land. We're reviewing org charts. We're reviewing budgets. We're doing all of those different sorts of things. And that is absolutely great advice. And it is very important to do. So I want to make sure that I position that this is not about saying that those baseline, basic sorts of work tasks are not important. They are very much important. But there's one piece that is crucially missing. And there's one piece that most leaders, when they enter into a new organization, a new institution, they do not do. And this particular oversight can absolutely derail everything, right? And you're probably wondering what in the Is it, you know, I did my listening tours. I found out what people wanted. I met people. I met the students. I've held a meeting to share my plan, all those different sorts of things. But there's one thing that many leaders almost always skip. And that is taking a moment to understand the culture in which they are entering. Understanding the culture in which you're entering. Leadership transition is not just about stepping into a role. You need to understand that you're actually stepping into a system. And that system includes a web of lots of unspoken rules. They can have legacy tensions. There's some informal power dynamics that could be at play or that could be rubbing against one another. They're expectations that no one names out loud, but the truth is everyone feels. And that's where I have seen the most prepared, strongest leadership individuals actually derail, right? They have all the parts of being a really great leader and then they step into an institution, they step into a culture and they can't understand why things are kind of not functioning. a specific way. We make the assumption that culture will eventually introduce itself to us over time. And I think that is very, we could say that everyone knows there's a culture. Everyone knows. Like if I say, do you even know there's a culture at your institution? Absolutely. That's not the question. What is missing is taking the time to understand that culture, to evaluate the culture, to assess the culture, and to understand what to do with it. Information, the data that you receive from doing those particular steps and processes. Culture is very interesting because it's a little silent partner that's there working. Oftentimes, not always in favor of the direction of what it is that we are attempting or wanting to do. It doesn't come and introduce itself to us. It sits quietly. Culture watches. Culture waits. And then it resists. And a lot of times when we feel that resistance, we are not quite sure what's happening, what is it coming from. And what we have to understand is that the resistance that the culture does when it's pushing back on some of the work and initiatives that we're planning on bringing into our new institutions, our new roles, our new initiatives, is not out of spite to derail the work that we're trying to do, but it's out of memory. And if you ask me, what do I mean by out of memory? It's out of memory of the institution of areas that have never had an opportunity to kind of reflect, rebound itself, and maybe heal itself. So a lot of times the pushback that we receive is memory from past harm, memory from broken trust, and memory from unspoken trauma that's running around. throughout our institutions. And what we don't account for, we may be solving problems or we're going in with our agendas, we're going in with our 90-day kickoffs and our specific sorts of initiatives that we're excited about initiating and sharing and launching. But It's very well possible due to some of these culture issues that no one's ready to receive the work that we're ready to bring in. So we're ready to bring in really good stuff and it could be helpful, but we may have to go back and do some work till the soil and make sure everyone's ready to receive that. I'm going to leverage Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw's quote. She said, we all know that when there's no name for a problem, you can't see a problem. And when you can't see a problem, you pretty much can't solve it. Now, she was using that quote in a really, really popular TED talk of her intersectionality, where she was emphasizing the crucial role of naming, of framing and addressing issues in social justice. Well, I'm going to use that because I think it's the exact same things. If you walk into an institution and you cannot identify the culture, then you can't name it. And if you can't name it, then you will not be able to lead it. you will not be able to lead within it and you will not be able to lead it in a new direction. So culture is so vitally important and it's the aspect that many of us as leaders, we don't actually consciously think of because in all of our leadership development, our leadership teaching, our leadership training, just our mentoring, that's not something that is usually centered as the forefront of the work that we do as academic leaders. I believe that this is the first step and this is the first aspect of being able to move forward effectively in an institution in regards to the role that you're doing. So let's start by defining what is culture. It's very important that we understand that culture is basically the collective personality of your institution. our organization, right? But we're talking about academic institutions. The culture is not written down in the policies and it's not posted on the website. So that's the reason why our general approach to how we kind of ascertain what's needed does not work when it comes to the culture work. Because it's not the things that are written, it's not the things that are published, it's not the things, it's the stuff embedded in how the people behave. It's the things that are embedded in how decisions are made. It's the things that actually really exhibit how power is really distributed throughout your unit, your department, your academic institution. So culture actually, because it's not written in a place for us to go kind of read and figure it out, it shows up in various ways. It shows up when people move in what is considered an acceptable behavior for this institution. This is how we do it here, or this is the XYZ institution's way, right? The ABC University's way. We say that a lot. Culture also shows up in how conflict is handled or how conflict is avoided entirely. Culture shows up about which type of ideas are celebrated. And which ones are ignored? Culture shows up in regards to who gets invited into the conversations and who's consistently left out of conversations. Culture shows up as what are the unwritten rules. Culture shows up as who holds the informal influence. And culture shows up in what behaviors are quietly rewarded, are quietly punished. Now, you can think of culture as kind of this invisible current that is beneath everything that you see. So the culture is the invisible part. And what we see is the climate, elements of the climate. And we'll speak more about the difference between culture and climate throughout this podcast. But the climate is basically the components that you do see. The things that you can see through your senses, through your sight, your smell, your hearing, all of those different sorts of things, right? So a lot of times when we are trying to identify culture, we actually are looking at wrong aspects of the organization. So the culture is not the mission statement that's written on the website or written in our institutions. It's rather people believe the mission statement. It's rather, do our stakeholders live the mission statement? That's the difference in culture. Culture is not the org chart, right? It's not the org chart. It's not the budget spreadsheets. It's not any of those things. But culture is who are the people and where do the people actually go when they need to get something done? So the org chart says, here's the organizational structure, but where do people actually go when it's time to get things done? Culture is not just the stated values, but it's how these values show up under pressure. So here's the kicker. Culture determines whether your leadership will land and stick, or it can also determine whether or not your leadership will get lost in the resistance. If you're unaware of the culture that you're stepping into, you might mistake different cues and misread them. You might mistake silence for support when that silence means something very different. You might interpret compliance as buy-in when that compliance means something very different. And this is the reason why I believe culture isn't just a side note in leadership. it is actually the main stage. Everything that you do, your vision, your priorities, your strategies, everything you do plays out on this main stage. Culture isn't what you say about the institution. It's about what the institution shows you when no one is actually performing. It is what is said after the honeymoon period. So you may be asking yourself, okay, how do I figure out What are the components of culture that is important for me to be able to identify to think about how to move forward? So there's four primary pillars of organizational culture. I call them the four P's of organizational culture. And those four P's for me are people, place, process, and power. I'm going to do a quick overview of each one of them here. But in future episodes, I will be speaking about each one in depth. So let's start with people, the first P. People, every thriving institution begins and ends with this people. Okay. Now for us, people is a, represents a diversity of stakeholders. It includes our faculty, our staff, our students, our alumni, external partners, our donors, our, you know, community partners is such a plethora of individuals that are part of our people component of the four piece of culture. This diversity as richness to our culture, which is why our institutions are so vastly rich in this particular area. However, All of that diversity and richness also can introduce complexity. And without intentionality, this complexity can lead to misalignment and misunderstandings and fragmentation. Leaders must recognize that the collective attitudes, behaviors, and values of their people directly influence their success and or stagnation in leadership. So your people, like when I start this particular word, start with people because it's the most valuable and most priceless aspect of our organization. OK, so the second P is place. So usually when we think about place, we're thinking about the physical environment of the academic institution, which serves as a representation of its culture and values. Now, I think about place in addition to that a little bit different. I think that place also is a representation of the identity of the institution shaped by its history. It's geography. It's community. It's unspoken norms. It's all of those things that come together that represents and creates place or space. is more than just our physical location. It's basically our institutional storyline. It tells the story of what this institution has been through. It tells the story of what this institution is proud of. It tells the story of what this institution may be trying to hide. And it tells itself how does it position itself in the community or the region as far as being able to support other aspects of our others in our community region organization. Each institution has its own scars and its symbols. And leaders, we have to understand that, right? And at CCBD, we believe that place is where the past narratives shape present dynamics. And when misaligned with mission and leadership strategy, then place becomes a silent barrier. And when that is understood, then it becomes a powerful lever for change. So in addition to understanding the histories and the kind of values that undergird the institution, yeah, Also, the physical aspects, like what barriers are keeping our people from being able to absolutely be able to thrive in the work that they do, how maybe place is supporting or hindering that. OK, now process is how work actually gets done. This is not just about documentation, but this is also about how the work is experienced. Right. So we think about process, especially in academic institutions, we have a gazillion processes. So let's use tenure as an example. There's a slew of processes, microprocesses that has to get a person from point A to point Z through the tenure process. But in addition to that, when we're thinking about the organizational culture, it's not just like, did you follow the steps from point A to point Z, but how did you experience those particular steps and what occurred along the way of that? So at CCBD, we define process as both formal and informal systems, workflows, routines, decision-making pathways that shape daily operations. So process for us, it's not just about what's in the handbook. It's not that, but it's also who gets included in the decision-making process and how does information flow? Or how does it not flow? And then what steps are skipped and why? And then where is it that people are creating workarounds because the system's not actually working very well? Now, process reveals misalignment between intent and implementation. So oftentimes when I'm working with organizations or institutions, and when I'm coming in to do a problem solve, I promise you probably 95% of the time we stop and it's usually a process problem. Even though it appears to be my faculty are not getting along with one another, it really is not that. That's the surface, but the culture piece that's underneath that just running as maybe some breakdown and communication processes, a breakdown in how we leverage the strengths of one another in our faculty, among our faculty members. So the last P is one that we don't talk about often, but it's actually one of the most important P's. And that P stands for power. So power is not just about who holds titles. And that's important to know that power is also about who holds the influence. At CCBD, we define power as power. both visible and invisible structures that determine who has voice, who has agency, who has access, who has authority within the institution. It includes both formal hierarchies and informal dynamics. So yes, we do have power that are positional power, right? Someone has a position, all of you listening, most of you listening. If you're an academic leader, you have positional power because of your title as an academic leader. But what we do not focus on are those informal power dynamics that are always moving and always showing up. So power actually shows up and who gets to say without explanation, who gets to say no without explanation, having to explain themselves, who can speak up without retaliation, whose concerns are consistently prioritized and whose are ignored, and then what decisions get made in a room and who gets to decide on those particular decisions and who gets to decide when those decisions are implemented and then the things that we need to do. What we need to understand, power is always present. But power is something that you don't see. It doesn't mean that because we can't see it, that it's not operating. It just means that it's operating without our awareness. For many of us as academic leaders, some of our staff members have an immense amount of power in the organization and understanding that. And then how do we support and leverage that for the good of the work that we're trying to do? For leaders, ignoring power does not make you neutral. It just makes you vulnerable. So it's very important to understand power and power dynamics. One of the things I do when I work with organizations, we do some stakeholder mapping and then looking at how to map out power dynamics that are moving within the organization. It's just important to know and understand. And that is why cultural responsive leadership requires noticing, naming, and navigating power with intention. All right, so that's a brief overview of the four Ps. As I mentioned, we'll go through them more over the next few weeks or so. But I want to kind of, as we start to close up a little bit, I want to talk about what happens when we ignore culture. So what happens when we ignore culture? I think the best way to do this is actually share with you a story about a client that I had been working with. And maybe some parts of her story will resonate with you as to kind of where some of the missteps were that she took in when she moved into her new institution. So I was working with this brilliant, brilliant vice provost. She was sharp, visionary, witty. And deeply committed to equity and innovation. So she had accepted a new role at her new institution. So both the role was new and the institutional environment was new for her. She stepped into her role. She had a clear plan. She had bold ideas. And within her first semester, she had launched three major initiatives. All of them were rooted in the best practices. All of them were aligned with the mission and vision of the institution. All of them would have been definitely considered value-added projects to the institution. Yet none of them seemed to gain traction and she couldn't figure out why it felt like she was kind of a little bit in quicksand is how she described it to me. She felt like she kept running into resistance, particularly in areas that she did not expect to be running into resistance. So we began our collaborative work together to try to unpack and figure out what was going on. What I learned is that although as she was rolling out these initiatives, she had key faculty that would opt out and a lot of these key faculty had a lot of power. So, of course, it was creating a domino effect of some things. She had a lot of staff that started canceling meetings rather than do the tasks that were charged to them in those specific committees. And overall, the momentum just stalled, right? She was excited. She was new. She was launching this in her first 90 days. So it's very important to understand it's not because our ideas were flawed. Actually, when I reviewed the projects that she was initiating, they were flawed. Excellent project. So this is not about her or the projects itself or the initiatives themselves. But after a little bit of talking, what we realized is that she missed some of the culture cues that were in the institution. Now, she did what we usually do. She came in. She did her discovery interviews. She did her informational sessions. She did all of those sorts of things. But those sorts of things, unless they are crafted to actually get to the culture issues, you're not going to actually walk away with the data that you would need to know. And that's what happened to her. What she learned once we kind of went back and we did kind of a little four-piece audit so we can kind of see what was going on. What we learned is that the unit that she was actually trying to implement one of these initiatives into, had a history of a very top-down decision-making process that left many people feeling very guarded. So now here's the new person in town bringing in a new process. Here we go again, right? So there was a lot of broken trust that was there. The other issue around the faculty, what we learned is that the faculty had learned over time that even though they were asked for input, input did not mean influence. So now it was kind of, once again, a broken trust of like, you're asking me for my input because she's a very much of a collective people-centered type of leader, right? But that was very different from the culture that they were used to. And the third thing which you learned is that the previous vice provost had exited the, or left the university during a time of an unresolved conflict that left a lot of trust fractured and unspoken tension in the air. So it was a situation that never kind of closed out itself. So here she was, right? In this particular situation, technically she was right, right? Ideally, her plans were right and her process in many ways was right, except she missed one step. And that one step was that the culture was misaligned with the vision that she had for what she wanted to do and what they were ready for and so in leadership when this happens I call it a gap right there's a gap between the expectation of what is to be, and then the actual implementation of what we did. So in this particular case with this particular colleague and client, we conducted a mini four-piece audit. We broke down those different components. We looked at people, place, process, and power, figure out how can we realign to realign her success. From there, we realized we had to do a little bit of repair work, right? So in repair work, we had to figure out some ways to try to quickly build trust. Now, that don't mean we completely build trust, but at least the of the need to build trust goes a long way when it's broken trust. We reframed a few of the initiatives to better suit the faculty and staff where they were at this moment. So still moving forward with the initiative, but reframe that initiative a little bit. And ultimately, we relaunched a new 90-day plan grounded in clarity and aligned now with information we learned from the four Ps. And so I'll talk about this a little bit later that you can launch a 90-day launch anytime you want to. Sometimes people go, oh, I've missed my window. Nope, you can launch it anytime you want to, right? So this kind of organizational change work that my client and I did, it's not easy work because we're dealing with people, we're dealing with human beings, We're dealing with some of the times the workplace trauma and those sorts of things is never easy work, but it becomes far more manageable when you have a clear framework of how to guide that particular process. And that is the reason why I created the four P's like thinking about organizational culture, goodness, organizational culture. That's, feels massive just to say it. What is the organizational culture? What's making it up? What's occurring? What's happening in that organizational culture? But if we can take that organizational culture and have a lens of looking at it through the four Ps, let's first right now look at the people, then let's look at place, process, and power. And we look at these things independently and then we look at interdependently of one another because at the end of the day, they are interdependent of one another. As we know, I think I'm not sharing anything with you that you don't know, that leadership isn't just about launching the initiatives. It really is about understanding the emotional and historical landscape of where you are landing in, where you're entering in, maybe where you're transitioning to. And for those of you who are at your same institution, this can still happen, especially now in the past. few months as to what we've been experiencing. A lot of our institutions have shifted and they're different institutions, right? And so it's the same sort of thing. We've got to survey the landscape and understand kind of how these four components are functioning within the organization. Please remember the culture doesn't block progress out of spite. We talked about it a little bit early, like the culture is not there trying to intentionally block the progress. The culture is there to actually kind of protect them in some ways, the memory of what is, what is occurring, even though a lot of times it's not functioning in a healthy way. So it resists based on this bad, past workplace harm, unresolved conflict, unspoken trauma. And until those patterns are acknowledged or even the best strategies won't take root. So if you don't account for that, you may be solving problems that people are just not quite ready for you to solve because they are entrenched in some of these things that are driven by the culture. The culture is very, very strong. So you know when we are hiring a new member into our academic community, whether it's a faculty member, a staff member, or a new leader, We usually approach these searches with such great high hopes and such great excitement and joy, not just about the person coming to be a part of our community, but for the hope of the change, we are excited that we believe this person is going to bring to our community. Now, I'm stepping away from the ideas of what kind of initiatives and skillset. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about now necessarily thinking about behavior and aspects of community development and those different sorts of things. And so oftentimes when we have this great hope, inadvertently, we've kind of have looked at ourselves as a collective and said, this is the type of person that we need. And this person is going to help elevate us or take us to the next level or help us fulfill this particular void and position that we have. And in many ways, what we're saying is that we're identifying a person who may not have the things that doesn't have the things that we have because we value what they have. And we understand we need what they have in our community, in our organization. I I don't necessarily know if this is spoken out loud, but I just think that, you know, deep down we kind of sometimes have this particular expectation of our newcomers that are coming into our community. So anyway, we hire a person, our individual, and then we are so thrilled. We do the fanfare of welcoming them to our institution. We are so thrilled of the newness that they're bringing, so excited about all of those different sort of components. And then we may take a look several months down the road or a year or so down the road. And then we look and we realize that that colleague now looks a lot like the rest of us, right? And what I mean by that is that those types of behaviors that we've probably identified as like, we want less of this, which is what we have, and we want more of that, that this individual will be bringing into the organization. And then suddenly we look and say, what happened? They look like the rest of us. So my friends, this is a perfect example. of the power of culture. Culture is so strong. The culture of the institution serves like a magnetic force and is actually pulling everything towards it, right? And many times, the reason why things get so misaligned when it comes to the culture of the institutions because we have not taken a moment to stop to understand that, hey, there's this gravitating force that is working really underneath the surface and it is charging and it is guiding and it's pushing or pulling, it's resisting, it's supporting, whatever, everything that is occurring on that college campus. So when you enter into a new position or a new role, or if you enter into a, maybe you're not even new in a position or role, but you have been leading a role for quite a while, but take a moment and look and examine the culture. Every institution not only has a singular culture, right? We have a primary culture as the institution, but every department has a culture. Every unit has a culture. When you start breaking down into committees, a certain committee can have a culture. And this makes sense if you think about why Department X can look very different than Department Y and they're on the same campus. Or Committee X can functions very differently than committee y and they are in the same department because culture is made up of people place process and power and all those different dynamics shifted create those dynamical differences so the institution has a culture of its own all the different there's different micro cultures that are moving around on the campus and many times leaders have don't understand the need to do the work to assess and understand the culture in which they are leading. So being able to do that type of assessment is vitally important. But more important is once you do the assessment, the understanding of what to do with the information and the data that you collected is vital. It's even more important on how to move forward in a very strategic and meaningful way. Those leaders who are able to connect their mission and their vision and align it well with the culture and then also understand aspects of the culture that may need more support or may need some healing, may need some development, then those leaders who are able to piece those components together, boy, they do really well in adjusting to the different cultures in which they are navigating. So culture is vitally, vitally, vitally important. And culture is the primary source of understanding what is occurring in your workspaces. In conclusion, here's something I want you to remember. Culture is like your invisible co-pilot in the work you do in your leadership role. It's like your silent partner. If you ignore it, it can quietly steer your efforts off course. But if you can see it clearly, and understand it clearly, you can lead with strength and more importantly, lead with strategy. So whether you just stepped into a new leadership role or you have been in your position for a while, I strongly recommend starting with a four-piece scan of your organization. Why? Because leadership isn't just about the work you plan to do. It's about understanding what is already in motion. And culture, my friends, have been in motion at your institution for a very, very long time. So by evaluating the four P's, people, place, process, and power, it will help you uncover the hidden dynamics, the culture patterns, the operational gaps that can either support or sabotage your leadership efforts. So before you set a new vision, before you launch a new initiative, before you restructure a team, take time to assess what it is that you're walking into. Take time to understand the culture in which you are going to be a part of. A four-piece scan gives you clarity on how to lead with alignment and not just lead through ambition. So for you, I've included a four piece reflective worksheet to help you get started. So if you're listening to this podcast through a traditional podcast platform, you will find the link in the show notes. If you're listening via our LinkedIn lead with you podcast newsletter, it's available to you in the content area. Now, please note, a true organizational scan is much more extensive than this worksheet, but this worksheet includes a few key prompts to help you to begin thinking critically and more strategically about the environment that you're leading. It's just going to help you start understanding the types of questions that you should be asking as you continue to do this work. So I hope this worksheet really does help and support you. And also for those of you who may be new in transition, or once again, you are transitioning into a new initiative or a new program, feel free to check out our new Ascent Leadership Transitional Program at www.ccbydesign.org. Backslash Ascent, A-S-C-E-N-T. And there's lots of different ways in which we can support you in resetting your leadership path and being able to support you to make sure that you launch with a really great leadership support and understanding the culture that you're in. I have thoroughly enjoyed being with you today, and I hope that you have enjoyed this episode of Lead With You. If it did resonate with you, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review, And more importantly, maybe share it with a colleague who may be navigating some leadership challenges in higher education. Now, until next time, lead with clarity, lead with courage, and always lead with you. All righty. Have a great day.