104 Strategic Leadership
those aspects of the enterprise that are easily measured. The goals of a strategic
plan in areas such as finance, admissions, and fund-raising should obviously be
based on a careful analysis of prior trend lines and not represent an eruption
of wishful thinking that has no quantitative foundation. If the institution has
a history of good assessment practices in the academic sphere, then its strategic
goals can also be based on demonstrable results and prior evaluations.
When a basic set of indicators is combined with other sources of information
and assessment in a continuing process of scrutiny and analysis, the institution
creates a powerful strategic engine. It takes control of a valuable form of quantified
self-knowledge that combines with and certifies the images, values, and metaphors
that define its identity and its vision. The integrative knowing that it achieves
leads to effective, coherent decision making. The groups and individuals involved
in the total process of institutional leadership and management now share com-
mon points of reference. As goals are met, new and more elevated ones can be
set. Where they are not, changes in operations can lead to improvements. The
faculty, administrative, and trustee participants in strategic decision making now
have a common language with which to communicate. They may speak in different
accents and dialects, but they understand one another. The indicators they use
together do not produce rankings among institutions, as many want to force them
to do. Rather, they reveal the distinctiveness of the institution and its success in
reaching the goals it sets for itself. When used this way, indicators become part of
an unbroken process of strategic sense making, decision making, and action, and
the same disciplinary processes are at work. Since its aim is to move the institution
toward its chosen future, the insights and decisions are inscribed into a process
and discipline of strategic leadership.
As essential as they are, the work of strategy as leadership requires more than
just effective procedures and good preparation. Finally, the methods and the
content of strategy have to be adequate to the tasks of collaborative leadership.
We now turn to a detailed consideration of the components of a strategy process
that is oriented to the challenges and possibilities of leadership.