MaPSAC Management and Professional Staff Advisory Committee

Chair’s Corner – May 2018

Loran ParkerThis was a very difficult column to write. It is my final Chair’s Column and it triggers mixed emotions. It has caused me to spend quite a lot of time reflecting on my time as a leader of APSAC, what progress the organization made, my understanding of what leadership is or should be, and ruminating over missed opportunities, paths not taken, and words not said. In an attempt at moving beyond paralysis of analysis, I have distilled some of the lessons I’ve learned during my time in APSAC leadership and placed them here in the hopes that others may find them useful. 

Know the direction you want to go and check your compass periodically.

I may be placing myself in a much maligned segment of higher education by admitting it, but I am a devotee of strategic planning. Strategic plans should describe the values, ideals and aspirations that embody an organization, rather than a set of specific locations on a map. They should also describe the strategies and moves that align with the organization’s aspirations, as well as manners of checking in to understand if the organization is moving in the desired direction. 

APSAC leadership spent a good deal of time in 2017 updating our strategic plan to better describe our values and aspirations and developing a compass to help us check our direction periodically. I am very proud of this accomplishment. I hope that we have begun to create a culture of active navigation in APSAC, but only time will tell if the tools we created will be taken up and used by future members to steer APSAC to spectacular destinations. 

Cheshire cat syndrome can easily derail progress.

This year was marked by sudden appearances, disappearances, and vague, often conflicting conversations across the university. I often found myself thinking of the Cheshire cat in C.S. Lewis’ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlandwhich would appear suddenly in different locations, each time with wildly varying physical features. Alice’s conversations with the cat moved in continual circles, rather than toward any particular direction or resolution. 

Personally, this year I paid too much attention to the rapidly changing landscape, set of players, and sometimes conflicting or confusing messages. My over analytical mind was sure that I could discern, infer, or deduce something meaningful from this ever-changing picture. But in the end, I learned that paying attention to these changes provides no useful guideposts and only distracts from the journey.

Leadership looks a lot like gardening.

I admit: I do not have much of a green thumb. When working in my garden at home, I lose motivation due to impatience and the lack of a short-term reward. But I have found when I think of leadership as gardening I am better able to focus on the bigger picture, not expect immediate results, and recognize the impacts that small and intentional actions can have over time. Plant seeds, provide support, remove unwanted or unnecessary items as needed, walk away and observe from the curb. Repeat. I hope that this realization will improve my actualgarden, if not my leadership skills.

I developed this idea through experience and observation. Being a scholar, however, I could not help but examine the published scholarship on models for leadership. My brief review confirmed that I was indeed not the first person to have this idea and led me to a book called Transforming Public Leadership for the 21stCentury edited by Ricardo Morse, Terry Buss and C. Morgan KinghornIn it, George Frederickson and David Matkin present this metaphor for leadership and its particular strength as a leadership style for the public sector: “We agree that leadership is one of the keys to organizational effectiveness and to organizational change but suggest that the change-agent style of leadership is often incompatible with organizational effectiveness in the public sector. Durable change (change that lasts) and effective organizational management in the public sector can almost always be traced to leaders who work like gardeners.” 

This year, APSAC spent time re-designing the garden, identifying the seeds, and preparing the soil. Recently, I had been feeling like this did not amount to much of an accomplishment. But as I think about what is next, I am hopeful that our intentional actions this year will set the stage for a healthy, prosperous garden in the coming years. I also believe we have begun to plant some seeds which I am excited to watch grow. We have established and strengthened our relationships with other leadership groups on campus. We are developing and deploying staff engagement and communication initiatives. These starts will hopefully continue to grow and multiply in the next year.


Loran Parker completed her term as APSAC’s chairperson in May.

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