130 Strategic Leadership
campaign may indeed be associated with the motivating power of the story, and
the campus climate for decision making remained focused and highly constructive.
Direct evidence for a changed perspective by alumni leaders about the university’s
national horizon of aspiration was quite persuasive at the time, and the resent-
ment over change seemed to abate. But those changes may have been driven by
other events, and there is no easy way to prove the relationships.
Nonetheless, I and others became convinced that the legacy of the university
was authentically defined by seeking academic distinction through a sense of
possibility. The story set the conditions within which much of the university’s
achievements took place and through which its evolution made sense. The story
worked its way into strategic plans, reports, speeches, fund-raising campaigns,
and all the forms of governance and management. Most importantly, perhaps, it
provided me as president and the leadership team with a sense of clarity, confi-
dence, and conviction about what the place stood for and what it might become.
The story became an authentic source of energy and purposefulness for the tasks
of leadership. Studying epochal events carefully, encouraging dialogue about their
meaning, interpreting their significance consistently, motivating others to affirm
common values, and translating the story into plans and priorities are some of the
elements of narrative leadership.
Narratives in the Discipline of Strategic Leadership
The examples of narrative leadership that we have examined all have a theme
of continuity and change, which is undoubtedly one of the central motifs in
collegiate stories. Yet its recurrence should not lead us to think that narratives
have no other plotlines. In other cases stories have to do with recounting the
transformation of apparently negative characteristics into resoundingly posi-
tive results, describing national or global supremacy in applied or fundamental
research, telling of a steady rise to greatness through an unchanging focus on
student learning, narrating an institution’s disproportionate influence relative to
its size and resources, or telling of a singleness of purpose that does not change.
As leadership unfolds through strategy, the story remains a touchstone of iden-
tity, a point of reference for sense making and sense giving, and a source of the
integrative and systemic possibilities of the total process.
Identity and Mission
Perhaps the most common word in the lexicon of higher education for these
matters of self-definition is “mission.” “Identity” is, however, a larger concept
and richer word than “mission,” which is often misinterpreted as static. Identity
encompasses culture as well as structure, meaning as well as purpose, motivation
as well as accomplishment, and aspirations for the future in addition to past and
current achievements. Identity is about uniqueness. In relating his experiences