188 Strategic Leadership
Strategic Goals
As we consider the place of strategic goals within strategies, we have to reckon
with the fact that many campus strategic plans are light on measurable goals. Goals
are often expressed in general terms unaccompanied by any form of measurement,
milestones, or deadlines. Sometimes a set of more determinable goals can be found
in accompanying reports or in documents that do not circulate widely, but they
are not usually commanding features of collegiate plans.
The resistance to define strategies by measurable goals is understandable in
many contexts but remains a significant strategic weakness. It also defies the
advice of those who study and write about the best practices of strategic plan-
ning in higher education (Coleman 2004; Hunt, Oosting, Stevens, Loudon,
and Migliore 1997; Rowley, Lujan, and Dolence 1997; Ruben 2004b; Sevier
2000). The flaw surely reflects some of the characteristics of collegiate culture
and governance that we have examined from several angles, including the lack
of top-down authority, the uncertainty of resources, political infighting over
priorities, and the inability or the unwillingness to take responsibility for the
organization’s future.
Whatever the explanation, much of the influence of the strategy process,
especially as a tool of leadership, is lost if systematic vagueness characterizes its
goals, understood here as specifiable objectives. An effective strategy process
should challenge this conventional practice by differentiating and clarifying the
issues. Correctly defined, strategic goals motivate people to achieve them, espe-
cially if they incorporate central aspects of the vision of the institution and are
understood to be testable hypotheses, not rigid formulae. They can function as
powerful tools of continuous leadership and management, of motivation and
accountability, and of learning and self-discovery.
Characteristics of Goals
Whatever else they do, goals announce an intention to achieve desirable results
or create positive conditions that do not currently exist. What we set as a goal
cannot be reached by the normal course of events, or the continuation of regular
operational decisions, but requires a special set of initiatives, choices, actions, and
efforts. Goals are by nature aspirational and uncertain. Included in the very idea
of a goal is an element of risk that we might not achieve the desired results.
As most commentators suggest, goals should represent a challenge, but one
that is attainable (Sevier 2000). To propose too lofty an ambition is to cre-
ate frustration that leads to cynicism about the process or the institution. To
create goals that do not require people to stretch realistically is to fall short of
the institution’s best possibilities. Once again, goals embody the institution’s
story and the vision and share in the tension between aspiration and reality,
between dreams and their fulfillment. They embody both leadership and manage-
ment in everyday decisions.