Advice for a senior leader who was promoted from within (opinion)

In a job market characterized by high executive turnover and short leadership tenures, many organizations recognize the value of promoting from within. Internal CEO hiring reached a record high in 2023And Internal recruitment At all levels, it is becoming increasingly essential to enhancing organizational culture and succession planning.

If you’re a newly promoted member of a senior leadership team in higher education, we offer you our congratulations and a piece of advice: Even when you’re starting out, don’t rush past the benefits of newness that would normally accrue to a recruit coming from outside.

What does this mean for you, the newly promoted leader? By rising from within your organization, you can achieve many advantages. You are familiar with its history, goals and challenges. You know the administrative systems and processes. But over-reliance on familiarity carries risks and can deprive us of valuable opportunities. If your college or university does not provide mentoring or training for newly promoted leaders, consider creating your own onboarding program, with the following practices as a guide.

Reinvest in relationships. Given your previous interactions with senior team members or their deputies, it may be tempting to assume that you have already established sufficient working contact with them. But newness to your role represents a rare and valuable opportunity to learn about them and their work differently and more deeply – and vice versa.

Find regular informal meetings with your colleagues to ask questions. Be open with them about aspects of higher-level teamwork that may be new to you, such as board relations or organization-wide budgeting. Resist the idea that asking for get-to-know-you time from busy administrators is an imposition; In most cases, this is a welcome opportunity for them to reflect on the larger purpose of their daily work and the insights they have gained in their leadership journey. Moreover, the better you get to know each other, the more easily you can cooperate and provide mutual support.

Look with new eyes. You may not be new to the organization, but the occasion of your promotion is an invitation to see it again, clearly and broadly. The Zen tradition may describe this practice as “beginner’s mind.” Such a mindset pays off for you And Your college or university, especially when you join a large team that sets institutional direction and strategy. “In a beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities,” one observed Zen teacher“But there are few experts.” One of the gifts of being new is the freedom to ask “why?” Why not?” with little risk of punishment or embarrassment. Go into your new role from a place of potential and commit to returning to it often.

Reframe gains and losses. Serving at the senior leadership level is less about leading the action and more about planning a path. The mindset required is less than, “Are we getting the work done?” and more “Are we doing the right thing?” As a leader at this level, you are called to look broadly, at the organization level, at the full landscape of opportunities, threats, needs, and constraints. In this context, you may need to change your mindset about gains and losses. You may not have personally “won” the budget increase you requested for your department, but you, as part of the leadership team, have helped strategically allocate institutional resources to advance the organization’s work and secure its future.

Contribute to collective intelligence. In an effective organization, only the thorniest issues are brought to the leadership table. (If it wasn’t so thorny, it could have been solved on smaller levels.) There are very few issues at first team level that are straightforward or one-dimensional. Those relating, for example, to ways of expanding diversity, equity and inclusion; Crisis communication; Or developing a corporate AI strategy requires a team Collective intelligence. Your strengths—and those of your colleagues—enhance the cognitive and strategic capacity of the entire team.

It may be tempting to think that you don’t need to share your thoughts much with Thorny Topic X because it has no direct connection to your industry or area of ​​expertise. incorrect. You’re on the A-Team for more than just your knowledge of the topic; You are no longer free to say “not so.” Take time to understand the problem and its context, then bring your best ideas to the table.

Almost every notable action an organization takes, whether it is a policy change, an investment or divestment, or a program launch or closure, has ripple effects in other areas. When you join a senior leadership team, you’re called to care — and care deeply — about the entire organization. The money stops at the adults’ table. You and your colleagues – collectively “management” – rise and fall together. Carefully preparing yourself for new relationships and new ways of thinking is vital. Doing this will ensure you add value not only because you know the place and its past, but also because you are prepared to ask new questions to shape its future.