Lead with Your Heart
Make exceptions judiciously. These two phrases combined were an important leadership lesson I learned early in my career. My first full-time job was as Associate Dean of Students at McMurry College (now McMurry University.) It was a great first job. I served as Director of Housing for our four residence halls which housed about 450…
Read MoreFeeling Blah?
I have a bit of a confession to make. I’ve been struggling with getting this newsletter out for the past few weeks. I’ve wondered if I need to change things up. Would a hiatus help? But none of the questions I asked myself resulted in helpful answers. It was all just a bit blah. Then…
Read MoreThe Work We Do
Max DePree, former CEO of Herman Miller, ends his book, Leadership Jazz, The Essential Elements of a Great Leader, with this story: “In the late fourteenth century, the members of New College, at Oxford, moved into their quzdrangle, the first structure of its kind, intended to provide for the residents all that they needed. On the…
Read MoreWorking on the High Wire
Several years ago, I was sitting at lunch with a group of college deans as we interviewed a candidate for the position of Vice President for Business Affairs. The candidate asked us what we liked about the current VP who she knew was both liked and respected on campus. I don’t remember what the deans…
Read MoreUnderstanding Budget
Today I decided to try a new way of coming up with a topic for the newsletter – Writing Topic Tarot. No it’s not really a thing, but it’s how I picked today’s topic. A few years ago, one of my ideas for a book was a series of essays about various lessons I have…
Read MoreOnce Upon a Time (Part 2)
Last week, I shared part of the keynote presentation I gave this month at the Professional Development Day presented by the Academic Counselors Association at The University of Texas at Austin. Today, I’ll share the rest. In preparing for this speech and looking up information about stories, I came upon the idea of the monomyth,…
Read MoreOnce Upon A Time (Part 1)
Last week, I had the opportunity to present the closing keynote speech for the Professional Development Day Conference presented by the Academic Counselor’s Association at the The University of Texas at Austin. In preparing for the speech, I had a couple of insights I found interesting, so I thought I’d share the first part of…
Read MoreWhat A Year!
I’ve seen a few people on social media posting their experiences from a year ago – before COVID-19 changed our work and our worlds. I know where I was and what I was doing. On March 9, I talked with my class about the way we might structure class IF we moved to online learning…
Read MoreLearning Lessons
(This essay is, in part, modified from a speech I gave to the SMU Lions Club in 1997.) Over the years I have learned many things, in many ways, and from many people. I learned a great deal about being an effective university administrator from Ron Brown, a former Vice President for Student Affairs at…
Read MoreCold, Hard Leadership
I was scheduled to teach my undergraduate leadership class at Trinity University the evening of September 12, 2001. I didn’t know whether or not students still needed to talk about what had happened the previous day, but I started the class as I usually did asking them about the leadership or lack thereof they had…
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