What the Best Universities Are Teaching Us About Executive Search

Several of America’s most prestigious universities are simultaneously seeking new leadership, and the timing feels anything but coincidental. As Harvard, Yale, Penn, and Stanford search for their new presidents, what can we learn from them about the state of executive leadership in this dynamic moment?

Everything Private is Easily Made Public

Whether in academia or the corporate world, the stakes of leadership are higher than ever. Executives are, if not held to higher standards, held to more public standards in the era of social media and heightened political sensitivity. As The Wall Street Journal reports, “One of the biggest changes over the past decade is how much attention the public pays to what school leaders say and do. An offhand comment made at a donor dinner or a gaffe at a faculty meeting can end up online within minutes.”?

Also at issue is the fact that universities tend to promote from within, meaning they are less likely to feel a need to vet individuals they feel they know. The Wall Street Journal also reports that while the search committees appointed by universities to vet potential presidents once assumed a degree of prior vetting for candidates who had made it this far in their careers, “universities aren’t taking that chance anymore, beefing up background checks for allegations of sexual or academic misconduct, financial settlements, DUI citations and personal bankruptcy.”?

Outside Expertise is Increasingly Desirable

My colleague @Anna Kupik recently posted about the rise in skills-based-hiring over more traditional background-driven qualifications such as academic degrees and tenure. The Wall Street Journal highlighted universities that appointed presidents with gubernatorial experience over college careers. In the insurance world, we now more regularly see property/casualty insurers hire leaders with practical experience from the industry segments they insure—such as financial institutions like banks, or technology firms—to help launch new practices and portfolios. Especially in the insurtech space, pulling skills-based talent is helping fill in gaps in the insurance talent pool.?

Additionally, an outsider perspective reduces potentially innovation-curbing groupthink. According to Psychology Today, "groupthink" is "a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people makes irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible." Groupthink in the corporate world can look like an executive leadership team comprised mostly of like-minded and like-experienced peers of similar tenure; or hiring managers regularly selecting candidates from a pool of talent they've previously worked with. In the academic world, groupthink draws criticism that universities are politically polarizing and isolating, which has contributed to a handful of recent resignations.?

Augment Your Process with Executive Search Professionals?

No matter how specialized your industry—from academia to insurance—every executive search is improved by bringing in a search team to operate a thorough and strategic candidate search and placement resulting in the best possible outcome. Even the most democratically arranged committees and boards have other commitments and priorities, and can become influenced by groupthink. Your executive search partner has one singular goal, and that is not simply to fill the role but to find the absolute best executive for the role.?

Typically, hiring an executive search partner will end up reducing many more hours and money spent by internal resources in the search, interview, and vetting process. As the top universities compete for talent to fill their open presidential roles, The Wall Street Journal reports “The presidential search process can be a slow one, sometimes lasting more than six months” with “each of the big-name schools now searching for leaders will have some unique needs, but search firms say their target candidates will likely overlap.” Working with a reputable executive search firm builds credibility on the candidate side as well. At the executive level, you are competing for talent as much as the talent is competing for your offer.?

In Summary

The only people who need to stay sharper than executives are the people responsible for hiring and recruiting them. Make sure you’re staying abreast of the trends, and follow Galecki Search Associates on Linkedin.?