Create uniform ways to tap in to employee goals. One thing that we’ve done, for example, is that we have started using common language and common experiences for the administration, staff and the faculty. Through the president, through the dean, through the administrative staff and now also through the support staff and others on campus … we all have a common language.
We’re having people develop their own personal mission statements. We have the same language, such as people understand when I say, ‘A win-win situation,’ what that means.
By using common language and then looking for opportunities to demonstrate that, because I use that language, it helps people to believe where we’re going and buy in to the kinds of things that we’re doing.
Preach and embody your vision. Part of it is through a constant communication of all sorts.
So we use the Web site. That comes out in something called What’s up @ Widener. I have town-hall meetings about every six weeks, every two months, where faculty and staff are invited to come in, and we present on issues the university is facing.
And then we also do it through letters, through our magazine, the traditional ways. You need to keep communicating in all the various ways that are possible and available.
It seems to me that there needs to be a balance. I don’t think there’s any one way.
It goes back to the way that people learn. Some people learn better by reading, some people learn better by hearing. And I think, as a leader, we need to recognize that people will absorb information better or differently, so we need to find different ways to get that information out.
The key is if you want the institution to move in a particular direction, the leader needs to become the living embodiment of that change.
For example, we’ve talked about civic engagement and how we prepare students to be involved in our democracy. So I think it’s important as the leader that I demonstrate that by doing things such as being involved in community activities.
It’s being the living embodiment of the mission of the institution and that people see that by what I’m doing they can do similar things.
How to reach: Widener University, (888) 943-3637 or www.widener.edu
