The Pressures of the Presidency

In the throes of mounting pressures, navigating the daily life of a university leader can feel like a Herculean task. Campus protests, FAFSA difficulties, and political interference have dominated headlines, testing even the most proficient leaders. Yet, beneath the radar, is another troubling issue: the isolation experienced by college presidents.

Surprising? Perhaps. After all, a president’s schedule is often packed with meetings, events, and interactions with students, faculty, alumni, community members, and more. The task of balancing professional boundaries with personal relations often leaves them in a solitary position.

My colleague, Melody Rose, NACD.DC, Ph.D. , a former university president and two-time System chancellor, understands this all too well. Recently, she published an insightful article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about the topic. Her key question: Can a president have friends on campus?

Included below, her suggestions should prove valuable, whether you're battling loneliness or not.

It's important to note, however, that despite feelings of isolation, many university leaders find their roles immensely rewarding. There's a wealth of joy in their positions, too. This is a topic that Melody will be exploring further in an upcoming article. So, stay tuned!

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Can a President Have Friends on Campus?

By Melody Rose

The American college presidency has taken quite a beating in recent months. Critics have debated the pressures of the position, the impossibility of doing it well, and even its core desirability. All of those stresses are made even more difficult by a central quality of the work that leaders rarely talk about until they step down: the loneliness of the job.

A college president is academe’s version of Rapunzel: trapped alone in their own tower by virtue of their position and unique authority. Literally peerless on their campus, a president often confronts a kind of loneliness that leaves them feeling isolated and apart even while they are connecting, networking, and handshaking on a daily basis. Is there a real chance to let their hair down? Or, as a recently appointed president asked us, “Can I even have friends?”

Given the generous salaries that most presidents earn, plenty of people across academe may have little sympathy. But as executive-search consultants, we think this aspect of leadership affects people’s willingness to take on the role, especially in tense times. We have some suggestions on how leaders can escape the tower of loneliness.

An “n of 1.” Let’s presume that you are that college president — alone, staring down wistfully at the bustling campus below or across the picturesque quad outside your window. First off, let the record show that you are not alone in your feelings of isolation. In fact, loneliness is a common experience among leaders across various professions. Ernest Shackleton may have stated it perfectly with his summation: “Leadership is a fine thing, but it has its penalties. And the greatest penalty is loneliness.”

“On a campus you’re sui generis,” said Marjorie Hass, former president at Austin and Rhodes Colleges and current president of the Council of Independent Colleges. A higher-education lifer, the formative years of her career were spent as a faculty member and filled with shared experiences, comradery, and commiseration. “Whatever I was going through, there was a colleague who had had similar experiences,” she said in a Zoom interview. “As you transition into leadership roles, that group gets smaller and smaller and smaller. The jobs become more isolating.”

As president, she added: “There are certain things you can’t discuss with anyone on campus. You carry the weight of confidential information.”

You’re lonely but never alone. Whether at the local store or on a trip abroad, someone notices you and wants your time. Frequently it’s to gripe. The president acts as a sponge for a drumbeat of negative (and, yes, positive) emotions, Hass noted. “You bear the full weight of difficult decisions. You’re an ‘n of 1.’”

“It is very difficult for a president to make friends inside the campus,” agreed Javier Cevallos, former president at Kutztown and Framingham State Universities. “It could lead to conflict, favoritism or at least the perception of favoritism. Not to mention that your cabinet members work at your will, so they cannot be ‘friends.’”

“As the president, your work BFFs become figments of your past,” wrote Felicia Ganther in an essay published last summer, a few months before she stepped down as president of Bucks County Community College. She added: “There is a level of respect that is ingrained in our culture that won’t allow your team to step beyond a certain level of comfortability with you. As important, there is a level of comfortability that a president should never go beyond with their team or with anyone who works at their institution.”

You as president must create an inherent separation between yourself and everyone else that should not be (and, really, cannot be) breached. You must exercise caution when assessing potential friendships and maintain a balance between professional boundaries and personal connections.

You have two reputations to maintain — yours and the institution’s. As president, you are the bridge connecting the campus (its students, faculty and staff members, and alumni) to the outside world. An institution’s successes are shared. But when it comes time to answer for an oddity, mishap, or a scandal, your name is first on the list for the media to interview and for critics to blame. A crisis may be the loneliest time for a president, when it’s easy to become the scapegoat for problems that were not entirely yours in the making.

Additionally, as a president, oftentimes you are thrust into the spotlight of your college town, becoming a public figure whose every move is scrutinized. The constant attention can lead to increased stress, heightened expectations, and a loss of personal privacy. Especially in small towns, everyone you interact with has an opinion about the institution, and sometimes about your performance. People who don’t actually know you may believe they do because of your ubiquity and outsized significance within a close-knit community.

And you are always — wherever you are, whoever you are with, or whatever time of day it is — the president. One of us (Melody) was a chancellor and will never forget being in a grocery after a run, sweating and in workout gear, when a fellow shopper and complete stranger tapped her on the shoulder in the checkout line, and said, “Well, you don’t look like a chancellor.”

Balancing the public demands of the job with your personal well-being can exacerbate the sense of loneliness. (Dimensions of gender, race, and sexual identity add further nuances.)

5 WAYS TO LESSON YOUR ISOLATION

So how can you alleviate what is clearly an inherent aspect of the college presidency? Here are five strategies:

The loneliness experienced by college presidents is a complex issue rooted in the nature of the role and the challenges you face. And obviously, part of the solution is to make time in your schedule to take care of your own personal needs (even if that occasionally means being spotted in workout gear). Presidents rarely talk about their own mental health, as a recent essay by a former president noted in these pages. But participating in activities that bring you joy and fulfillment outside of work — hobbies, exercise, family time — can provide a much-needed sense of balance and connection.

It may not be much solace to know that you are not alone in feeling isolated as a college president; many of your peers feel the same way, too. But by seeking peer support, fostering open communication, developing external connections, engaging in professional development, and drawing on established connections, you can allay some of those feelings and create a more fulfilling and connected presidency.

Melody Rose is a Principal in the Education Market and Leadership Advisory solution at WittKieffer.

If you have a need for executive or professional search, interim leadership, or leadership advisory services, visit our website at www.wittkieffer.com or contact me at [email protected].

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