The NATURE of Presidential Leadership and Crisis Management within Institutions at Risk

I am a member of the Edu Alliance Advisory Council. January 23, Edu Alliance posted this blog:

Presidential Leadership and Crisis Management within Institutions at Risk

I incorporate Nature’s wisdom and lessons into my university consulting and service. As it is with Great Blue Heron, I employ an ecosystems approach to assessing universities. Here is an excerpt to that effect from my Edu Alliance blog post:

My Ecosystem Approach — As a forester and doctoral-trained applied ecologist, I view universities the same way I might any organism in a natural ecosystem. My doctoral research evaluated soil-site productivity. That is, the potential for a given set of conditions to produce biomass and forest products and services. Often, the actual forest in place may express past treatments and poor management, and not be truly reflective of the potential. I used independent measures of soil, slope, fertility, topography, and other objective metrics to assess potential. If a great site is supporting a poorly performing stand, then investments in rehabilitation could return dividends. If the site is poor, no investment will return dividends. The same is true for universities.

I am thrilled to apply the fundamental tenets of my doctoral findings to university leadership and crisis management. Living proof that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature!