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but a building block in the institution’s effort to create a distinctive program that
creates comparative educational advantage. Now plans for a new building are not
just about cost and space but are as well part of a legacy of shared meaning and a
new tool of education to reach strategic goals. The deliberations of the board and
its committees display a new coherence, a clearer purpose, and a renewed level
of commitment. That commitment in turn contributes to the board’s enhanced
ability to ensure the implementation of the institution’s strategy as a way to guar-
antee its educational effectiveness and its viability in a world of change. Strategic
momentum takes hold in the work of the board itself (Morrill 2002).
STRATEGIC INTEGRATION AND MOMENTUM
We have seen on numerous occasions that strategic leadership is an integrative
discipline as well as a systemic process. Because it is rooted in the discovery and
articulation of values, it always refers back to humans as agents and the choices
that they make based on their underlying commitments. This pattern of seeking
deeper connections defines the method at every turn. Strategic thinking finds
the continuities between the past and the future by knowing and telling the
institution’s story as the basis of its vision. A concern for meaning and values
embraces the effort to create a culture of evidence that will collect and use data
that have strategic significance. The need for resources articulated in the strategy
is integrated with plans to obtain them. The goals of the various strategies are
assessed by an embedded process of evaluation and frequently connect to one
another in broad patterns of relationship. Goals and priorities always come with
price tags, so plans have to be translated into operating budgets. As we have seen,
processes of communication and systems of implementation are efforts to moti-
vate and coordinate the translation of decisions into actions. Strategic evaluation
transforms its findings into new goals to improve results continuously. In all these
ways, strategic leadership is an integrative and systemic process of sense making
and sense giving.
In order to implement its goals, strategic leadership discerns multiple relation-
ships and is ready to create permanent or temporary integrative mechanisms of
decision making. Frequently, special committees or task forces are needed to
address connected issues. These cross-departmental groups of faculty and staff
draw together the members of departments and units, who must work coopera-
tively to implement strategies. They may become a continuing community of
practice that develops self-consciousness and meets periodically. Because of their
shared interest and expertise, they can contribute to one another’s knowledge
and growth (Wenger and Snyder 2000). When student learning or other critical
values move to the center of the strategic agenda, then the isolated points of view
of separate departments and faculty committees have to give way to the unified
perspectives of cross-disciplinary task forces and strategy councils. Strategic lead-
ership creates supple, resilient, and coherent networks of collaborative practice
and leadership, decision making, and implementation.