Editor’s note: This commentary is by Karen Gross, the former president of Southern Vermont College, who is now an author and educational consultant in Washington, D.C.
[W]hile I consider Vermont my home state, I currently live in Washington, D.C., where I am seeing lots of people losing their jobs at all levels within our government. Some of these departures involve holdovers from the prior administration; some are the result of departmental and agency reorganizations or downsizing; some are the result of workers’ bad decision-making and in some cases, illegal behavior. Some are the result of in-fighting or “politics.”
Bottom line: It isn’t so easy to keep one’s job in D.C. – at least in the present climate.
As an educator, I have also been struck by the number of college and university presidents losing their positions, particularly some relatively recently appointed individuals. Many of these departures appear to be the result of misconduct, poor judgment or extremely lax oversight. Some of the presidents have failed to handle crises of their campuses effectively (if at all). There are examples of irrefutable illegal behavior. One former president had his honorary degree removed because he knew about sexual scandals. Some terminations/resignations are the result of academic “politics,” a variant of Washington, D.C., politics.
Yipes. What is wrong here?
It is in this context that I read Dr. David Shulkin’s op-ed in the New York Times describing his tenure as secretary of the VA – written shortly after his firing. The last line has stayed with me since I first read it: “… it should not be this hard to serve your country.” He was expressing his differences with the current president and the hurdles to implementing improvements within the agency he ran.
Expanded to apply to academia and reworded slightly, the sentence could read: It is hard to serve one’s government or a college or university. If this statement is true to the core, then we will lose many qualified candidates for government positions.
Start with this premise: Leadership is hard. The problems being addressed are hard. The degree of difficulty has increased exponentially in a world with vast social media. Very little can be kept secret and information (whether or not true) is shared widely and quickly.
Take this example: Providing quality health care for our veterans is no small task, and running health care systems in the current environment with high costs and thin profit margins is tough sledding. Providing quality education for all of our students is no small task either; finances are always an issue as is insuring the mental health of the many young people on or commuting to a campus.
But, and this is key, many of us who have served in government and/or higher education knew the challenges they faced before they started their positions. Leaders, even amazing leaders, will not please all of the people all the time. And people who disagree with appointed or elected officials or a board or major donors can make the life of the leader difficult, truly difficult. Leaders need to have thick skin. It takes real effort to treat the disagreements and assaults as non-personal attacks.
In the first year I was a college president, the then chair of the board would say two things to me every time we chatted (which was frequent): “Remember, this isn’t a popularity contest; and, are you having fun yet?”
I understood the first comment; working in government or academic leadership positions calls on a leader to make hard choices that will not please everyone. That is for sure; what the leader has to know, deep in his or her heart, is whether the right decision is being made, regardless of its popularity. After all, it is one’s job to do the right thing, not the popular thing.
It is only recently that I came to understand the “having fun” part. A position does not have to be fun every minute of every day. But no job is worth having if one is not enjoying it a good deal of the time. For me, that “fun” comes from the positive feelings I get doing good things for people. We feel the privilege of public service.
Yes, serving well is not easy. It never was and never will be. But it is well worth it at least for some of us because of the aim of service: improving the lives of others. Bottom line: It is hard to serve but we do so knowingly and with deployment of our very best efforts.
