Education
Balancing act
How to establish yourself as a hands-on leader without micromanaging
By John Nank
Smart Business St. Louis | April 2008
Mark S. Wrighton
Chancellor, Washington University in St. Louis
Mark S. Wrighton is traversing a theoretical high wire.
On one side, the chancellor of
Washington University in St. Louis
stares down the hands-on
styling of micromanagement.
On the other side, he sees a
macro approach facilitated by an
autonomous group of direct
reports. Finding the balance
between those two, he says, has
been one of the keys to his successful tenure at the university.
Wrighton says that to strike
that balance and establish your
footing, you need to recognize your limitations: Participate in
areas where you can make a
positive impact, but let key
managers make the day-to-day
decisions in areas where your
expertise is limited. By taking
his own advice, the chancellor
has found his balance while
juggling the needs of approximately 12,000 full-time faculty
and staff members while managing an operating budget of
$1.7 billion.
Smart Business spoke with
Wrighton about how to develop a
strong sense of community and
how being consistent inspires
confidence in employees.
Practice consistency in leadership. Tell everybody that you interact
with the same thing. Tell each
person that here are the priorities, and do not change them
depending on who you speak to.
That relates to integrity. Be
honest in all that you do. Not
only say, ‘We are committed to
high integrity,’ but also live that
way — conscientiousness,
doing what you say you’ll do
and being attentive to detail.
I would like (my direct reports)
to have confidence in the person who does have the responsibilities that a president has. I’d
like them to feel that they’re
working with a person they can
trust, a person who would be
willing to listen to them and a
person who will be honest and
conduct not only the affairs of
the institution but also their personal affairs, with integrity.
Create opportunities for participation. When we talk about setting up
priorities, another characteristic I
strive for is to be a good listener.
What are my key leaders telling
me that’s necessary to bring
about great success for them
and, therefore, for our university?
Collaboration is key in any
organization. No unit is completely independent; otherwise
they wouldn’t be part of the
organization. It’s important to
provide opportunities for people
to share their ideas openly and
to have people offer their own
views, the ideas of others and
what makes most sense in
terms of pursuing a plan.
People that would have an
interest in a potential area of
development should all have an
opportunity to help shape a plan.
We are in the midst of a major
planning process. We are drawing on all of the stakeholders,
so to speak, and encouraging
everybody to take part.
Everybody will have been able
to play a role in shaping that set
of priorities.
It’s very consultative. It involved
lots of people. It takes time. It’s a
process that enables people to
not only put forward suggestions
but to rationalize them and to critique the suggestions of others.
When one thinks about setting
priorities, these key groups need
to be included. Customers need
to be consulted. People who are
the front lines of executing the
plan must be consulted.
Celebrate achievement. We have
a strong sense of community.
(To develop that,) one of the
key things is to lift up what each
part of the organization is doing
and to make others the focus of
attention and to encourage
them by being willing to stand alongside them and to be with
them at events and activities of
importance to them.
Celebrate individual achievement and encourage individual
initiatives and entrepreneurship
within the organization, and celebrate those successes.
The principle outcome is one
that it provides the best environment to realize the great potential of our students and faculty.
Therefore, that makes us a
stronger, higher-impact university.
Maintain momentum and stay
focused. One of our biggest challenges is maintaining momentum. We cannot rest on our
laurels. We cannot become
complacent.
When communicating about
both the new opportunities and the challenges that we face, you
need continuity. No amount of
communication can really ever
be enough.
They have to be effective communications, but we need to
start early and go late and work
hard every day to keep people
informed and enthusiastic about
what we’re doing. It’s easy to
backslide.
Another challenge is to remain
focused on your core responsibilities. With the passage of
time, more people are anxious
to interact and take part in the
life of the institution, and it’s
easy to be distracted.
There are a lot of things that
can consume time and energy
and resources, and I need to
weigh how they stack up
against this priority of remaining
focused on the mission.
Approach each year with enthusiasm. I once heard a bit of interesting
advice that I often remind myself of: Every organization that
has some maturity has an annual cycle of activities and events.
For a public company, every
quarter you come out with your
earnings. You have your annual
meetings. There are seasons.
For universities, that is certainly true. We welcome students.
They graduate in the spring.
It’s important to try to treat
every year like it’s your first
year. Exhibit the same enthusiasm — the same sense of
renewal — and treat each year
as if it’s going to be a new and
exciting undertaking.
Associate Editor Patrick
Mayock also contributed to
this story.
HOW TO REACH: Washington University in St. Louis, (314) 935-5000 or www.wustl.edu
