Strategic Leadership|Mission and Vision: The Heart of Strategic Leadership

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f strategy is to become a form of leadership, we shall have to put in place

a new set of criteria for its tasks. Leadership is demanding because it addresses

human values and purposes, wants and needs. It changes the intention of

strategic decision making and planning, even as it works within the same forms. In

a leadership process, integrative thinking connects findings in new ways. Decision

making becomes sensitive to symbolic meanings at the same time that it shapes

a systematic agenda for action.

The articulation of a mission and vision is that moment in strategy when

the dynamic of leadership inescapably takes center stage. Once these concepts

enter the strategic dialogue, the logic of management necessarily cedes to the

language of leadership. Leadership is asked to perform its distinctive role in

mobilizing commitment to shared purposes and goals. Intimately linked to the

definition of purpose or mission, the articulation of a vision is a requirement

of strategy and a responsibility of leadership. It cannot simply be tacked onto

a process of strategic management that otherwise would do business as usual.

In spite of all the ambivalence that academic communities have about how

authority should be exercised, they simultaneously insist on a clear sense of

direction.

As we have seen and will find again, leadership answers to deep levels of

human psychic need and expectation. So, strategy moves into deep waters when

it navigates questions of mission and vision. Not only must mission and vision

set an authentic direction that connects with the narrative of identity, but it

must also develop the mechanisms through which the organization can attain

its goals.

136 Strategic Leadership

MISSION AND ITS FRUSTRATIONS

Most campuses regrettably identify their mission with the statements that have

to be revised once a decade for regional or specialized accreditation. Unfortunately, anyone who has sat at the accreditation table for mission statements tries

not to return for a second helping. The process is often lifeless, with dicing and

splicing words and phrases the menu of the day. Or it is clear that the effort is

largely political, with individuals trying to advance disciplinary, administrative,

or other interests. Typically the process is not intimately related to the development of strategy but is pursued as a requirement of compliance. Conversations

enriched by discussions of the key markers of strategic self-definition or the central

goals of student learning or the social forces affecting education or the results of

internal or external evaluations do not usually occur around this task (Meacham

and Gaff 2006).

As a consequence, most mission statements are bland and vague. The accreditation panels, which must read dozens of them at a time, often joke about their

sameness. When Newsom and Hayes (1990) asked institutions how they actually

used their mission statements, they were unable to answer. They also discovered

that when the names of the colleges and universities were disguised, the mission

statements could not be identified by institution.

In an even more pointed critique of mission statements that reflects the political

realities of competition for resources in state institutions, Gordon Davies says, "It

is in no one's interest that mission be defined clearly. . . . The recruiting slogan of

the U.S. Army, 'Be all that you can be,' is parodied in higher education as 'Get

all that you can get' " (1986, 88).

Why are there such disincentives to clearly define the most fundamental feature of an organization, namely its purpose? The contexts of the effort provide

one answer. Both accreditation and budget processes can distort the strategic

significance of self-definition. In one case, the mentality of administrative

compliance can stifle strategic thinking, while in the other, the tactics of budgetary

gamesmanship makes it inopportune. Playing it safe with hallowed abstractions

about teaching, research, and service keeps peace at home, and the accreditors

and bureaucrats at a distance.

In substantive and strategic terms, of course, academic institutions cannot

even begin to hide their purposes. They are manifest and unmistakable in the

configurations of the tangible assets of a campus and in the intangible values

and programs through which an institution differentiates itself. Although

missions may be avowed only vaguely in words, they cannot be removed from

deeds and actions. George Kuh and his associates (2005) suggest that institutions have two missions, one that is espoused in policies and print, and one that

is enacted in campus life and culture. Institutions that seem to be especially

powerful in reaching their goals for student learning are "alive" to their mission both conceptually and in everyday and strategic decisions (Kuh, Kinzie,

Schuh, Whitt, et al. 2005).

Mission and Vision 137

Being all things to all people can be a ploy to gather resources or hide from

hard choices, but it cannot be sustained as a purpose. In time such a standard will

consume the organization that submits to it. Humans cannot live or think without specifiable purposes, at least not well. As Leslie and Fretwell suggest, "The

freedom to be whatever the imagination suggests is also the freedom to be nothing

in particular" (1996, 173).

MISSION AND STRATEGY

As colleges and universities have negotiated the challenges of the past several

decades, the issue of purpose has been transformed into a constant strategic challenge. As we have seen in our analysis of various models of decision making from

the academy to the corporate university, virtually every turn of the clock brings

new forms of change in the social forces and market realities of the wider society.

Coming to terms with change responsibly lends a new urgency to the old question

of institutional mission.

Our earlier exploration of the ideas of story and identity provides the appropriate context for the explication of institutional mission as a primary point of

reference for strategic leadership. The narrative of identity provides the depth and

meaning, the texture and context, within which purposes have been enacted. As

the institutional story is translated into the broad themes and values of its identity,

so does identity disclose itself explicitly in a defined sense of purpose.

Not everything concerning the organization's identity—its unique life as a culture and its forms of community, its full range of memories and hopes, assets and

achievements will be explicit in its purpose. In considering purpose, we focus more

on why we exist, and less on the specifics of how we came to be. The emphasis

is primarily on the content of what we do. The strategic discipline of leadership

that explicates purpose is focused. It aims for precision in unfolding the distinctive values, aims, and capacities of the organization. In doing so, it engages the

institution in continuing reflection on its self-definition as it differentiates itself

within the wider world of higher education.

Although the discipline of purpose is sharply concentrated, it yields findings

that are crucial for the exercise of leadership. The need to fulfill purposes is built

into the nuclear structure of human inclination, so it comprises a central component of the sense making that participants seek in an organization and the sense

giving that they ask of its leaders. In turn, purposefulness provides leaders with

a powerful rallying point that creates energy and commitment to common goals

(Hartley and Schall 2005). The sense of conviction, commitment, and calling

that belong in the idea of mission can be recaptured and then released.

Developing a Mission Statement

Before a college or a university's mission can become a component in a process

of strategic leadership, it first has to be raised to lucid awareness. The SPC or 

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one of its subcommittees offers the most likely context for a continuous strategic

conversation on mission. It brings leaders of the faculty and administration

together around the same table. Whatever group or groups actually undertake

the task, by whatever process, the following kinds of questions will help to bring

an institution's mission to explicit form as a pattern of self-definition that places

a claim on its members. To articulate a mission as lived, we must ask of ourselves

(cf. Hunt, Oosting, Stevens, Loudon, and Migliore 1997; Sevier 2000):

 • Where did we come from? (the issue of legacy, of the founders and the founding,

of decisive events, and of notable leaders)

 • What really matters to us? (the question of values)

 • By whom are we governed? (the issue of sponsorship by state, church, profession,

or independent board)

 • Why do we exist? (the essence of the purposes we serve)

 • What do we do? (the question of the range and type of the institution's educational programs and services)

 • How do we do it? (the issue of the specific ways we create value and quality in

executing teaching, research, and service programs)

 • Whom do we serve? (the size and scope of our activity by types of programs,

clientele, and geography)

Although they represent a place to start, serial answers to separate questions do not produce an effective sense of mission. Criteria that emphasize the

differentiation of the institution should wind through the process of inquiry and

self-definition, producing a coherent sense of purpose. For example, which of the

proposed defining characteristics in the mission rise to a level of effective strategic

differentiation? What are the things that set a place apart from others, that make

it what it is? What special educational or administrative capacities does it possess?

What particular economic, social, and political challenges define its past and its

future? The notion of core competencies (which we explore in depth in the next

chapter) asks us to look at the distinctive, creative capacities in an organization

that may cut across departments and programs. Have any competencies risen to

a level of consistent distinction, so that they have become legitimate defining

characteristics of achievement and quality? In the language of business strategy,

we ask how educational value is created and competitive advantage is achieved

(Alfred et al. 2006).

The process of strategic differentiation has other criteria to guide it, including

the test of effective measurement. As purposes are articulated, an organization must

have some way of knowing that it does what it claims to do. The measurement

need not be quantitative but can be substantive. The purpose of "student transformation" is not verifiable by quantification alone but may be evaluated by a large

variety of other forms of analysis and assessment. So, as an institution considers

its mission in a strategic context, it tests itself continually by asking, "In terms of

what measure, indicator, or evidence can we advance this claim?"

Mission and Vision 139

The clear and coherent articulation of purpose in a strategy process is a critical

task for many reasons. Among the most important is that it gives the organization

a template for systematic strategic decision making. It provides the focus for

the development of strategic initiatives and goals and for the establishment of

financial priorities. Achieving strategic wisdom in effective financial decision

making is critical in organizations like universities that are filled with talented

and ambitious professionals. In such places, perceived needs and good ideas always

outstrip available resources. A clear sense of purpose is a vital mechanism of good

management.

Mission and Strategic Leadership

A compelling sense of strategic mission provides more than just an effective

benchmark for decision making. It answers to deeper features of the human constitution and the need for meaning. If people sense that any choice is as good as any

other, they soon become demoralized or confused. The loss of a sense of purpose

or development of meaningless systems of control in bureaucracies, including

academic ones, deadens people or makes them cynical or rebellious. On the other

hand, when people are able to shape the purposes of their organizations and know

why they are doing things, they become engaged. Lived purpose is a basic form of

sense making that contributes to the growth and the empowerment of a person. As

a consequence, the articulation of authentic purpose is a dimension of leadership,

not just of management.

As people in all organizations know well, a sense of purposefulness not only

empowers the individual; it also creates a sense of community (Senge 1990).

Just as an individual flourishes by understanding her work as a calling, so does

an academic organization empower itself by interpreting its life as a community,

which is a consistent theme in the historic narrative of higher learning. Communities are created around many things—experiences, memories, values, and

common space—but they are always defined by shared purposes that create a sense

of common enterprise. Through awareness of a common mission, the members of a

community forge a fundamental relationship to one another created by service to

a common cause. The shared allegiance to the cause creates bonds between people

that come with mutual obligations and expectations and express themselves in

acts of reciprocal affirmation and correction.

In a time when market realities dominate higher education and its worth as

a public good has been has been clouded, it is important to emphasize that it

serves purposes that provide the foundations for a free society. One of the tasks

of academic leadership is to lift up and affirm these powerful values as a source

of commitment and inspiration. Though often perceived to be eternal skeptics,

academic professionals are fundamentally motivated by a commitment to the

power of knowledge and to the integrity that is required to pursue it. As Burton

Clark puts it in his masterful study, The Academic Life, "In our cultural world the

academy is still the place where devotion of knowledge remains most central, 

140 Strategic Leadership

where it mot merely survives but has great power. Many academic men and

women know that power. . . . In devotion to intellectual integrity, they find a

demon who holds the fibers of their very lives" (1987, 275). To try to understand

the mission of an institution without awareness of the depth of these values and

beliefs is to miss a central motif in the institution's story of identity. When we

see an institution's mission as the self-investment in worthy ends, then we see

more clearly how strategic leadership draws on a rich well-spring of motivation

and loyalty.

CASE STUDY: THE MISSION OF THE

NEW AMERICAN COLLEGE

We have emphasized the importance of clarity of purpose for the tasks of

leadership while knowing that most academic institutions produce mission

statements that are vague or perfunctory. Rather than fill our text with lengthy

examples of flawed mission statements pulled out of context, it will be more

useful to describe an effort to reconceptualize mission that has made a telling

difference for many of its participants.

Now formalized into an association of colleges and universities called the Associated New American Colleges (ANAC), the group began in the early 1990s as

an informal but continuous dialogue among the chief academic officers of a set of

small primarily undergraduate universities and comprehensive colleges offering a

range of programs in liberal and professional education. (At the time, the institutions included the University of Redlands, the University of the Pacific, Trinity

University, the University of Richmond, Ithaca College, Susquehanna University,

North Central College, Hood College, and Valparaiso University.) The conversations began in frustration occasioned in part by classification and ranking systems

that listed their institutions as an indeterminate "regional something else" that did

not fit the primary and more prestigious categories of national liberal arts college or

national university. There was no clear model of educational quality to which they

could aspire, and their missions were portrayed and perceived negatively, as that

which they were not or, as one of the deans put it, as the ugly duckling of higher

education (cf. Berberet 2007).

In fascinating ways, the deans' conversations paralleled the concerns of the

inimitable Ernest Boyer, whose uncanny ability to frame old issues in novel

ways crystallized an emerging consensus in the deans' conversations. Boyer

(1994) wrote about the need for a new kind of American institution of higher

learning, one that was more engaged with the world, more practical in its

vision of the power of education, and more spacious in its understanding of

the different forms of faculty scholarship than traditional colleges and universities. In a word, Boyer portrayed an institution that would be definitively

integrative in working across the boundaries between disciplines, the liberal arts

and professional studies, undergraduate and graduate education, the campus

and the wider world, and the classroom and campus life. In doing so, he coined

the phrase the "New American College" to describe the institutional type he

was describing.

Mission and Vision 141

The following paragraph describes many of the common features of the missions

of its member institutions:

ANAC . . . members make student learning primary within a traditional

higher education commitment to teaching, research, and service. Most

express dedication to education that is value-centered (often reflecting the

church-related heritage many ANAC members have in common). . . . ANAC

institutions acknowledge their comprehensive character and qualities of

practice, integration, and application that reflect their identification with

the New American College paradigm. These include the mission of educating diverse graduate and professional as well as liberal arts students; a

commitment to service in their surrounding region; and the goal of developing applied competence as well as theoretical knowledge. (Associated New

American 2004)

The effort to reconceptualize the mission of these institutions has been richly

rewarding for many of the participants. The ANAC schools asked themselves what

it meant to be a distinctive type of collegiate university and found that the theme

of "connectedness" was especially suggestive in describing their strategic intent.

In virtually every direction they turned, the theme of integration, of crossing

intellectual and organizational boundaries, illuminated their strategic initiatives

(Boyer 1994). It gave them confidence that the idea of a small undergraduate

university was rich in possibility and could stand by itself as a model of quality.

The mission of the new American college has inspired a number of dramatic

success stories in which the academic and financial strength of the institutions

has improved markedly (Berberet 2007).

Many of the ANAC schools discovered that a clear and authentic purpose brings a focus to all the work of strategy and surfaces issues that are truly

mission critical. Mission then becomes a conceptual reference point that can be

internalized throughout the institution and that brings coherence and continuity to the decision-making process. In essence, it provides the organization

with purposefulness, an indispensable component of leadership. In charting

turnarounds at some two dozen institutions, MacTaggart (2007a, 2007b) emphasizes that a revitalized sense of mission defined around new or transformed

academic programs is the culminating stage of the process.

VISION AND LEADERSHIP: CONCEPTUAL

FOUNDATIONS

The development of a vision for the future is part of the very meaning of the

concept of strategy and provides an indissoluble connection to the theme of

leadership. Yet for a variety of reasons, the power of a vision is often not captured

in campus strategic plans. Sometimes the term is regarded as a trendy part of the

jargon of pop management and resisted. Commonly, too, prior experience with

a vision may stir campus resentment because it did not produce the ambitious

changes that it promised (Keller 1997).

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The basic idea of vision is not esoteric or fanciful but is the soul of strategy and

of leadership. If, regarding identity, we inquire, "Who are we?" and concerning

mission we wonder, "Why do we exist?" then in terms of vision, we ask, "To what

do we aspire?" We use a metaphor of sight to refer to an institution's discernment

of its best possibilities for the future. The dependence of strategy itself on vision is

articulated well by Burt Nanus: "A good strategy may be indispensable in coordinating management decisions and preparing for contingencies, but a strategy has

cohesion and legitimacy only in the context of a clearly articulated and widely

shared vision of the future. A strategy is only as good as the vision that guides

it, which is why purpose and intentions tend to be more powerful than plans in

directing organizational behavior" (1992, 30). Without using the words, Nanus is

describing the relationship of strategy to leadership. The presence of an effective

vision in strategy is the condition that grounds and enables the process and discipline of strategic leadership. When all is said and done, one of the most extraordinary human capacities will drive the process, namely, the ability to imagine the

future in order to create it. When the circumstances are right, humans can turn

their images of the future into reality by committing skill, imagination, resolve,

and resources to the task. Many of the central components of strategic leadership

arise out of this extraordinary human ability.

The intellectual synthesis required to create a vision is complex and difficult.

While being rigorous and analytical, strategic decisions must also be innovative

and imaginative. To grasp possibilities that are not yet fully formed, strategic

reflection, again, has to rely on stories as well as concepts, images, and metaphors,

along with facts. Narratives of identity and aspiration both require a penetrating

use of language. We speak of "greatness" or "eminence" or "distinction" and try to

grasp and convey the emerging meaning of education in "cyberspace," of "engaged"

learning, of "diversity," of "global education," and of education as "discovery" and

"empowerment." Each concept conveys a complex set of meanings that strategic

leadership must first explain and then enact through a set of strategies, goals, and

actions. An effective vision is a quintessential form of sense making and sense

giving that often takes a narrative form (cf. Gioia and Thomas 2000).

The Moral Significance of a Vision

To focus strategy in a vision is to learn again in a compelling way that leadership is about the human condition. It touches deep layers of human agency and

motivation, of human limits and possibilities. A vision of the future reaches us

as beings that live and move as temporal beings. Without images and patterns

that make sense of our personal and collective memories, we would not be the

selves we are, nor would we find meaning in our relationships and responsibilities. Because our time is limited, both in the tasks we assume and in the days of

our lives, we experience the intensity of our finitude and seek achievements and

meanings that will endure. Whether as individuals or as members of the smaller

or larger communities in which we participate, we try to grasp the future through 

Mission and Vision 143

stories that provide images of hope and symbols of promise. For these reasons,

we respond to leaders who offer an authentic vision of possibility for the future

(Niebuhr 1963; Ricoeur 1984–1986).

Given this daunting context, what should be the content of a collegiate vision?

The notion that they must be miniature epics, boldly creative, or stunningly

unique is untrue. They are better known for their consequences. Visions provide

authentic and worthy aspirations that affirm, inspire, and energize the community by unfolding the promise of its future. Their message should be vivid and

memorable, and recognizable in everyday decisions. When claims are made about

levels of attainment, it should be clear how the institution will substantiate them.

When, for example, the word "excellence" or its parallel appears, the reader or

listener should be able to say, "That means excellence in terms of these determinable characteristics and achievements."

Just as we found in discussing purpose, so it is as well that a vision contributes

to a powerful sense of community. By definition a vision must be widely shared

if it belongs to the organization and not just an individual. A shared vision stirs

enthusiasm among a group of people and motivates commitment to common

tasks, though it will never capture the imagination of everyone. In the process,

connections are created among members of the community that reinforce the

vision itself, contributing to a sense of direction and momentum. As the group

executes the vision, a sense of pride and affirmation takes hold in the organization

and in the contributions of each person. To fail the vision is to fail each other.

Not surprisingly, a vision creates these mutually reinforcing patterns because

much of its basic content, especially in organizations like colleges and universities,

comes from the ideas and experience of the group itself. To be sure, leaders at all

levels contribute decisively to the vision, especially those at the top, which is

why they are there. They give it systematic expression in various forms. Or they

may enlarge and even transform it at various points in its development. Yet to be

shared, it must originate and take root in the organization. Its lineage, in fact, is

typically traced to authentic elements in the institution's story. As Peter Senge

puts it, "Once people stop asking, 'What do we really want to create?' and begin

proselytizing the 'official vision' the quality of relationships nourished through

that conversation erodes. One of the deepest desires underlying shared visions is

the desire to be connected, to a larger purpose and to one another" (1990, 230).

As a vehicle of strategic leadership, a vision taps the deep human drive to

reach ever-higher levels of quality. A defining commitment to quality is palpable in the work of most academic professionals and, as we have seen, is woven

into the person's sense of identity. Although the professional's drive for quality

can easily become brittle and self-regarding, its presence as a powerful source of

motivation is never absent. The search for personal fulfillment, academic excellence, and professional recognition becomes a reinforcing dynamic of achievement, what psychologists refer to as intrinsic motivation. Once the leadership

process has been able to stir the human need to create something of lasting

significance, then a large part of the leadership task has been accomplished. 

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As the process of strategic leadership gains momentum, people feel a genuine

sense of empowerment and pride, and many new leaders step forward to meet

their responsibilities. They lead themselves and others at the same time (cf. Ganz

2005; Messick 2005; Tyler 2005).

DEVELOPING A STRATEGIC VISION

We have seen something of the content and the deep significance of a vision for

the strategy process as a form of collaborative leadership. As with mission, we must

ask not only what a vision is, but also how it is created intentionally in a strategy

process. Although there are no recipes, there are systematic practices and insights

to be used as circumstances suggest and as the dynamics of a campus indicate.

As we have seen, similar to the development of purpose, the process of

developing a vision is rooted in the institution's story and identity. In many ways,

vision is the story told anew for the future, now as a narrative of aspiration. This

may mean that the story is transformed through change and new ambitions, that

it is reinterpreted and enlarged, and some chapters of it left behind. Yet in the

examples we have seen, aspirations for the future draw forth the commanding

master values and images of the past. They legitimize the vision in the eyes of the

community and make it intelligible. As standards, values and images are open

to new content. They are orientations to choice, not the changing content of

choice. Effective leaders are always circumspect about which buildings, programs,

or policies will have to be replaced to fulfill a vision because they may carry

unexpected meanings in the institution's legacy. But some will have to go, and,

if so, their loss can be regretted as a necessary sacrifice to a larger good and an

authentic vision.

Illustrations

Whereas mission statements may require several paragraphs, visions can usually be stated in several lines, although their accompanying explanations can run

many pages. To bring some concreteness to our discussion, it will be helpful to

examine a handful of statements from a diverse group of institutions as they appear

in mission statements, strategic plans, accreditation self-studies, and official publications. With the statements before us, we can analyze some of their patterns

and parallels to shed light on their development.

The University of Connecticut will be perceived and acknowledged as the outstanding public university in the nation—a world class university (2000).

Duke University aspire[s] to become fully as good, over the next twenty years, as

any of the leading private research universities in the country, with comparable

breadth and depth, and deserved reputation for excellence in teaching, research,

and wide-ranging contributions to society (2001).

Princeton University strives to be both one of the leading research universities and

the most outstanding undergraduate college in the world (2000).

Mission and Vision 145

Carnegie Mellon will be a leader among educational institutions by building on its

traditions of innovation, problem solving and interdisciplinary collaboration to

meet the changing needs of society (1998).

Sweet Briar College has determined that to claim its pre-eminence as a woman's

college for the 21st century, the College's faculty and staff will demonstrate that

intellectual and professional endeavors will permeate our students' lives (2004).

Centre College aspires to be a national model of consequence for institutions of its

size and type—the very small coeducational liberal arts college (Morrill 1988).

Williams College take[s] it as our commitment to be the exemplary liberal arts college, nothing less (1997).

Pfeiffer University will be recognized as the model church-related institution preparing servant leaders for lifelong learning (2001).

Rhodes College aspires to graduate students with a life-long passion for learning, a

compassion for others, and the ability to translate academic study and personal

concern into effective leadership and action in their communities and the world

(2003).

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a leading student-centered

university, linking the Piedmont Triad to the world through learning, discovery,

and service (1998).

The University of Richmond is embarking on a mission to create an institution

that is second to none, better than any and different from all . . . by transforming

bright minds into great achievers (2003b).

Juniata College [is] a learning community dedicated to provide the highest quality

education in the liberal arts and sciences and to empower our graduates to lead

fulfilling and useful lives in a global setting (2001).

Roanoke College intends to [be] one of this nation's premier liberal arts colleges

(1993).

Virginia Commonwealth University (building on its position of leadership among

urban research universities) aspires to be an innovative leader among the nation's

major research universities (1997).

Baylor University, within the course of a decade, intends to enter the top tier of

American universities while reaffirming and deepening its distinctive Christian

mission (2002).

The Vision to Be the Best

As one analyzes these statements, a number of common patterns become evident.

One of these is the effort to seize on the language of superlatives, particularly the

phrase "the best." The language may vary and include words and phrases such as

"the preeminent" or "the outstanding," but the meaning is the same and refers to the

highest level of achievement. In a slight variation on the theme, vision statements

sometimes use the logic of equivalence by stating positively that the institution will be

"as good as any," or negatively, by claiming that none will be any better. The necessary

implication, of course, is that there are other institutions that are just as good.

146 Strategic Leadership

As ambitious and inflated as they often sound, the claims about being the best

and its variants show signs of realism because they are almost always differentiated

by institutional mission and type. The references are about becoming the best

liberal arts college, or the model of quality for the very small coeducational liberal

arts college or the private research university. Many smaller and midsize private

universities explicitly refer to their dual aspirations as undergraduate colleges and

graduate research universities.

Although vision statements are brief, they typically differentiate themselves by

recounting aspects of their narrative in the texts that surround them. So, Rhodes

College (2003) describes its path toward excellence and its place among the top

tier of liberal arts colleges by describing the influence of President Charles Diehl,

who boldly moved the campus to Memphis in 1925 and suggested that "The good

is ever the enemy of the best." To be the best and in the top tier may be mutually

exclusive logically, but they show the way narrative and metaphor shape statements of vision.

For years the University of Connecticut has had a mission and vision to be

"a great state university" and, since 1994, to be the nation's "outstanding public

university." During the past ten years, the vision has served as a rallying cry to

turn the dilapidated campus, once called "a neglected embarrassment" by the local

newspaper, into a showplace worthy of its high aspirations (MacTaggart, 2007b).

A staggering $2.8 billion has been invested in remaking the campus and creating

fifty-three new buildings, as well as making dramatic improvements in applications, selectivity, funded research, and other strategic indicators. The ambitious

vision has taken on local significance by triggering the will of the university and

the government to take the lead in meeting the educational and economic needs

of the people of Connecticut (MacTaggart 2007b).

Many of the sample statements that we have listed represent another common

way to frame a vision statement, which is the goal to be "among the best," a claim

that involves a large number of variant phrases such as "in the top tier," "among

the top ten," or simply "to be a leader." In setting such a goal, the aim is to draw a

circle of shared reputation around a group of top performers that includes or will

eventually include the institution. The vision may acknowledge tacitly that the

purpose of its strategy is to reach a level of quality that it does not now have or it

may affirm its ambition to maintain its current position within a leadership group

of peers (cf. Gioia and Thomas 2000). Again, the aspiration is differentiated by

mission and by the taxonomy of institutional types that consists of such variables

as national and regional, public and private, undergraduate and graduate, and

liberal arts and professional.

The Vision to Do the Best

A quite different approach to constructing a vision involves the aspiration to

reach a high level of achievement in designated educational programs, methods,

and outcomes. The emphasis shifts from seeking to be the best to doing the best. 

Mission and Vision 147

From a strategic point of view, the question becomes, "At what do we or could

we excel?" Or we ask, "In what distinctive ways do we create educational value?"

Put more pointedly, "For what do we want to be known?" Thus we find references

on our list to creating a "passion for learning," educating "servant leaders," or

"empowering students." The language of aspiration is still in evidence: terms like

"highest quality" are typically used to describe the desired level of performance.

Characteristics of Vision Statements

When understood in the context of strategic leadership, how effective is

the language of "the best" and its surrogates? Does it succeed in providing an

academic community with a worthy and inspiring shared vision of its future?

Although its ultimate effectiveness as an instrument of leadership will always

be highly contextual—the aim is to reach and motivate engaged participants,

not the general public—there are some clear characteristics and criteria about

visions that use superlatives.

It appears that at least one of the goals of a vision is to stimulate the instincts

of people to create a reputation and results that are superior to those of others, namely the competition (Gioia and Thomas 2000). The normally polite but

very real rivalry to attract the most talented faculty and students, and the most

resources, is driven in part by an ambition that will make an institution equal to

or better than competitors and be perceived that way. Even a cursory reading of

strategic plans shows clearly the presence of this competitive impulse. As much

as one might want to do so, one cannot ignore the reality that competitiveness is

an integral part of strategic thinking and a source of motivation.

But competitiveness sinks into a negative spiral of distortion if the ambitions

to be the best are not redeemed by the aspiration to reach levels of quality that

are substantive and worthwhile in themselves. If the vision is to motivate people

to seek ever-higher levels of quality as a matter of fulfillment, it has to meet a

variety of criteria. It must articulate the values and authentic aspirations of a

given institution with its own history, profile, and possibilities. For these reasons,

the effort to define that niche or space within which an organization can excel or

exercise leadership is a fruitful endeavor. Differentiation is a way to capture the

specific promise and possibility of an institution. The goal is to find and to state

the precise structure of the highest form of quality and value creation that a particular institution is able to attain. A differentiated vision reveals the distinctive

forms of quality that are possible, thus opening the way to levels of commitment

that otherwise might remain untouched.

If a vision is to contribute to the tasks of leadership, it must be not only ambitious but plausible. In being inspirational, it will define attractive possibilities,

and in being realistic, it will be seen as attainable over a period of time. The

key to striking the right balance is to ensure that the vision is determinable and

is therefore subject to various forms of measurement. An effective vision has to

come with a set of indicators that are spelled out within a strategic plan or other 

148 Strategic Leadership

widely available documents. When an institution intends to become the best, it

must be clear about how it intends to fulfill its ambition, or it will quickly lose

credibility. As often happens, if the terms lack definition or local meaning, they

will become empty phrases that will be benignly ignored or, worse, will echo in

cynical asides around the campus.

Combining Being and Doing the Best in a Strategic Vision

One of the most effective ways to ensure that superlatives have strategic force

is to combine reflections about being the best with disciplined explorations of

"doing the best." A critical weakness of ambitions that are not specifiable is

that they block the processes of precise knowledge, focused reflection, linguistic

richness, and integrative judgment that are required to create a sustained and

powerful vision. Strategic creativity often has humble beginnings as people with

detailed contextual knowledge interact with peers daily to explore organizational

problems and opportunities. They start with a sense of what they do best, not

of how they can be the best. These issues lead to specific and determinable

areas of competence and achievement, the latter into a whole series of complex

assumptions that, as we have seen, may be hard to define and measure. Finally,

of course, the two forms of "best" should merge, but the order in which the issues

are pursued is a critical part of a vision and of leadership.

We touched earlier on the discussion of this issue in Collins's Good to Great

(2001), and it will be helpful to consider it in greater depth. As we have noted,

this study of corporate success has broad implications for other types of organizations, including, unexpectedly perhaps, colleges and universities. Collins discovered that great companies are often built around stunningly simple ideas on which

they stayed tightly focused. But it is not just any idea. It "is not a goal to be the

best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best. It is an understanding

of what you can be the best at" (Collins 2001, 93). In all the cases of moving from

good to great, the company made a passionate commitment to being the best

in the world in a particular activity or competency. Further, "The good to great

companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here

is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate" (Collins

2001, 96).

The concentrated effort to find the areas in which academic organizations have

an intense level of commitment and capacity to excel is typically a different

process than in business, although there are analogies. A college's greatest claim

to talent and distinctive quality may well reside in the values, methods, relationships, resources, and characteristics exhibited in the total educational program

and in the campus ethos. These factors cross disciplinary lines and may define

the underlying dimensions of a distinctive and powerful approach to learning. To

locate its sources, one asks: Where do the people in the organization show substantial and enduring passion for greatness? Where have they built greatness into

the middle of the organization without being directed to do so? (Collins 2001). 

Mission and Vision 149

To disclose these characteristics in the work of strategy is to contribute to a vision

as an emergent process of collaborative leadership.

With those distinctive competencies and characteristics as their foundation,

the institution can seek to enlarge its level of quality in steps and stages, moving

from strength to strength. If the vision is authentic, it will be of decisive importance in helping to drive the momentum of achievement. A vision is fueled by the

way these distinctive and generative core competencies are translated strategically

from what a place does best into being the best in a carefully defined class of

institutions or programs.

Envisioning: An Imaginary Campus Tour

Some strategic plans display an interesting method of developing and testing a

strategic vision that uses the narrative form in a distinctive way. Though usually

not done systematically or comprehensively, they use a process of envisioning the

actual programs, practices, resources, and achievements that would be in place

were the vision to be realized or progress made toward attaining it in a given

number of years. It involves the effort to imagine coherently what is not yet real

in order to bring the future into the present. The strategic imagination works

through a disciplined and integrative method of reflection based on various patterns of evidence, for it is not an exercise in creating fantasies and wish lists. It

draws on the best quantitative data available, uses collaborative methods, and

connects its projections to the institutional narrative and to its current and future

strategic position. So, it represents an act of intellectual synthesis.

In an analysis that parallels many of the ideas proposed here, Ramsden suggests:

"A vision is a picture of the future that you want to produce . . . an ideal image . . .

of excellence, a distinctive pattern that makes your department, your course or

your research . . . different" (1998, 139). In a similar vein at a recent seminar on

strategy, the leader proposed that we think of strategy as similar to the work of

assembling the pieces of a puzzle, and of a vision as the picture on the box that

guides the process (Stettinius 2005).

To illustrate one way that envisioning occurs, consider a procedure in which

a group of participants is asked to take an imaginary tour through the campus

when it has fulfilled the vision established for it (cf. Baylor University 2002,

University of Richmond 2003a). The tour will give concreteness and clarity

to the meaning of the vision as well as test its plausibility. What will people

see as they make their rounds, and how might it be different from what is here

today? What are the most significant discrepancies between the way things might

be and the way they are now? (Gioia and Thomas 2000). Where are improvement and change most needed and most obvious? What are the most distinctive,

compelling, and attractive features of the vision? How is the future described in

narra tive form?

As we shall show below, the set of concepts and images that emerges from

a visioning process can be complex and comprehensive. They will have relevance 

150 Strategic Leadership

for virtually every sector of the organization. As a result, the process becomes

a useful way for various offices and programs throughout a campus to discern the

meaning and possibilities of the vision for its own work. Each area of responsibility

will discover special ways that its performance will be altered and enhanced to fit

the images cast by the vision. As the analysis goes forward, the central question

becomes: Do the concepts and goals of the vision convey authentic meaning and

offer criteria that will mobilize commitment to it across the organization?

So, on their imaginary campus tour, people will want, for example, to explore

various facets of the academic experience of students. They will ask to see how

students and faculty interact in the classroom. What are the forms of teaching

and learning inside and outside the classroom that fulfill the vision? What will

be the shape of the curriculum in general education and in the majors? What

expectations will professors set and students satisfy, as illustrated in course syllabi?

What types of assignments and learning experiences will there be? How much

writing will be required? What other kinds of individual and group projects will

be expected? If we examine tests and papers, what level of rigor and quality of

work do we see? How does the total education program fit together, and to what

does it lead? What plans do students have after graduation? What contributions

do they intend to make to the wider society? When they leave, where do they go,

and what are they able to do when they get there?

Imagine that as the tour continues, the visitors follow a similar pattern of

questioning as they interact with faculty and staff in a variety of offices and

programs. They will be inquiring about and envisioning the professional characteristics and achievements of those whom they encounter, especially the

contributions that faculty make to knowledge. The tour will also include an

evaluation of the facilities of the campus and its other tangible resources. The

group will spend a large amount of time as well collecting and analyzing data

concerning the strategic indicators that will tell them the conditions that must

be met for the vision to be fulfilled. They will give special attention to the

institution's financial position and the assessment of student, faculty, and staff

performance.

When all this is done, the group will be able to choose or revise the terms

that best express what they have pictured and tested in their minds during your

imaginary walk. In a reversal of the usual phrase, here the "talk" gives meaning to

the "walk" that is going be required (Weick 1995, 182). Metaphors and symbols

will flow from the envisioning process that give color and vibrancy to the vision

and capture the institution's identity for the future. If words like "the best," "highest quality," "national leader," "world class," or "superior" can legitimately be used,

they will have been tied to specific forms of attainable achievement. They must

be able to be imagined and justified with regard to the potential of the institution

to dominate the environment that it is likely to encounter. If they are only words,

however, they will do more harm than good and produce cynicism, not inspiration. If, on the other hand, the envisioning process demonstrates that the vision 

Mission and Vision 151

resonates with the authentic best possibilities of a place to create educational

value, it has created a powerful source of motivation.

The envisioning process is also a way to locate the most important disparities

between what we want to become and our current situation. The limitations

may come in many forms, but strategically they have to do with the underlying

capacities of the organization. Most visions cannot be realized in the span of

a normal strategic plan, for they may require several decades, but they are able to

focus our attention on the structural issues and causal characteristics that are the

primary barriers to the fulfillment of our best possibilities (LeVan 2005). What

are the most important gaps that have to be closed? As we consider organizational

strengths and weaknesses, this deeper orientation will change the character of our

strategic self-assessment.

Whose Vision?

One of the perennial questions about a vision revealed in our earlier analysis

of leadership in higher education is whether it is created by leaders and imposed

on the organization, or whether the leader serves primarily as the storyteller

for the vision that the organization creates for itself. These two ends of the

spectrum are better understood as polarities that need each other to be complete, rather than as opposites (Cope 1989; H. Gardner 1995; Ramsden 1998;

Sevier 2000).

Since leadership is actively reciprocal, vision is a relational concept. Without

opportunities for open exchange and dialogue, absent active and continuing collaboration to learn his or her constituents' needs and aspirations, it seems impossible

to imagine how a leader's vision could inspire an organization, especially a professional one like a college or university. The conclusion that as to leader and organization, a collegiate vision is always both/and, never either/or, seems inescapable.

Yet it is also clear that listening is an active process in which the leader is

contributing ideas, synthesizing information, integrating recommendations,

testing boundaries, and drawing on privileged knowledge and experience from

outside the campus. Finally, it falls to the designated leaders of organizations to

articulate a clear and compelling sense of direction. To communicate the story

and the vision is, then, always far more than neutral discourse that repeats an

inchoate set of wants and needs. It is a central act of leadership as both sense

making and sense giving.

Narratives of aspiration are not only integrated and changed in the telling;

they also have to be sustained and enacted by the leader's commitment. Depending on circumstances, the articulation and implementation of a vision may rise

to the level of transforming leadership that involves systematic and pervasive

change or decisive moral leadership. The assertion of a bold vision could mean

that the president or other high officials have to take a stand in the name of the

defining values of the organization itself. At such times, the balance shifts to the 

152 Strategic Leadership

side of initiative by the leader in the assertive formulation, communication, and

enactment of a vision.

Summary: The Criteria for a Vision

The project of transforming strategy into a process and discipline of leadership clearly turns on its capacity to develop, articulate, and implement a vision.

If leadership is to accomplish this task, a variety of criteria have to be satisfied.

Since many of them relate to the development of an effective mission as well, it

will be helpful to pull these together here in an explicit summary form. To serve

the purposes of leadership, a vision statement should be (cf. Kotter 1996; Sevier

2000; Tierney 2002):

 • Clear

 • Concise

 • Focused

 • Differentiated

 • Aspirational

 • Plausible

 • Motivational

 • Shared

 • Authentic

 • Worthwhile

 • Measurable

MISSION, VISION, AND STRUCTURAL CONFLICT

We have argued that strategic leadership is able to address the structural value

conflicts in collegiate governance systems in ways that make a practical difference.

Similar to the integrative power of narratives of identity, penetrating statements

of mission and vision also provide a framework for transcending the deepest conflicts and worst complications of shared governance.

A vision is not a romantic ideal that a leader has plucked from some hidden

world, but an authentic contextual articulation of purpose that has arisen through

open debate and dialogue. As to process, it expresses and builds trust. As to substance, it provides values that differentiate, mediate, and reconcile the structural

conflict between autonomy and authority, and the intrinsic and instrumental

worth and measurement that typify academic decision making. The values of the

mission and vision have to become embodied in a specific organization and enacted

in its identity. They provide an academic community with professional and moral

purposefulness that reconfigures the meaning of both autonomy and authority. It

renders authority more conscious of the academic and moral responsibilities that 

Mission and Vision 153

it carries, and autonomy more aware of the organizational requirements it must

satisfy. As we shall see in other places, the exercise of strategic leadership is about

the resolution of structural conflict at a variety of levels and in different forms

throughout the organization.

We can also see that the development of strategic consciousness provides new

resources for some of the other perplexing dynamics of organizational decision

making, including the decoupled choice system. As we have seen, in such a world

of decision making, participants carry around personal and ideological preoccupations that they would like to unload on a decision, whether it is relevant or

not. Yet the meaning of the context changes where strategic leadership has been

able to define a sense of institutional legacy, mission, and vision. Now there are

strategic criteria that assert both subtle and overt rules of relevance to establish

the framework for decision making. Instead of carrying lots of excess idiosyncratic

baggage, participants can more easily devise strategies and construct agendas to

make decisions and solve problems.

In some ways, we have moved ahead of ourselves, for the ways to think about

the challenges and the possibilities of the future have been assumed, but not yet

defined. We have knowingly explored the questions of mission and vision in

isolation in order to penetrate more fully into their meaning for leadership. In a

sequential sense they are always considered with reference to the broader social,

economic, and cultural contexts in which academic institutions find themselves.

We now turn to the task of considering methods to analyze the wider field of

strategic forces with which colleges and universities must contend.