If higher education were a season, it would resemble one of converging chaos—a cycle of earthquakes, wildfires, and unrelenting storms. Higher education institutions and their leaders are experiencing a quiet and cumulative unraveling, reshaping the very fabric of academic life.
Across boardrooms, cabinet meetings, late-night inboxes, and strategic retreats, higher education presidents, provosts, deans, and senior administrators are facing a level of complexity that few have encountered. Political interference in U.S. education is intensifying, cultural polarization is deepening, and faculty and staff fatigue is overwhelming institutional capacity. Students arrive with unprecedented mental health needs, and the systems meant to support them remain overstretched.
Leadership strain rarely manifests as outright collapse; instead, it manifests in subtler ways, such as strategic drift, dilution of vision, turnover, and a growing gap between the mission and reality.
Having led through rupture, I know strategy alone cannot carry us. What many institutions treat as executive failure is often systemic fatigue. This is where the T.H.R.E.A.D. System, designed with regenerative leadership practices, is something every higher education leader should begin cultivating now:
1. Think deeply to re-anchor leadership in purpose
The work of regeneration begins within. To Think Deeply is to re-anchor leadership in purpose. In times of volatility, it is easy to chase the next urgency, as dominant cultures often equate quick action with effectiveness. However, meaningful leadership requires a return to depth.
Thinking deeply offers the space to pause and the discipline to clarify what still matters. It invites leaders to examine their values, revisit their vision, and realign with the mission that first called them into higher education leadership. This practice is an act of intentional governance, and leaders who engage in daily reflection strengthen internal coherence, creating a stable foundation for external strategy.
Consider setting aside time each day for quiet inquiry. Ask: What am I here to lead? What legacy do today’s decisions shape? Where do my values consistently manifest in my practice?
2. Harvest wisdom to transform experience into insight
From this grounding, leaders develop the capacity to Harvest Wisdom. In the current climate, institutions move rapidly from one challenge to another without fully integrating the lessons learned from those experiences.
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Wisdom resides in moments of rupture, failure, and return, but only becomes usable when higher education leaders create space for reflection and introspection. Harvesting wisdom allows teams to transform experience into insight and patterns into foresight. Strategic memory emerges when leaders take the time to reflect on what has been learned and embed it into their decision-making.
Facilitate an intentional debrief with your team. Ask: What insights surfaced that we could only learn by living through it? What truths are now clearer? What do you think should be carried forward?
3. Release patterns that inhibit transformation
Often, this reflective work reveals outdated approaches. This opens the door to Release Patterns that once protected but now constrain.
Many leaders were formed in cultures that rewarded overextension, overcontrol, or self-silencing. These responses may have once ensured stability, but now inhibit transformation. Releasing ingrained leadership behaviors is not an abdication of responsibility; it is a mark of growth. It enables more responsive, adaptive, and human-centered approaches to emerge.
Review one personal or institutional practice. Ask: Does this still reflect who we are becoming, or does it reflect who we once were?
4. Enlist allies to expand trust and capacity
Higher education leadership also depends on relational capacity, collective resilience, and connection that diminishes the need for isolation. To Enlist Allies is to create ecosystems of trust, mutual accountability, and the distribution of insight, support, and courageous decision-making.
Trusted colleagues help leaders stay grounded, provide honest feedback, and co-hold institutional burdens.
Initiate regular, real conversations with trusted allies inside and outside your institution. Ask: Who helps you stay grounded, honest, and whole? Who is missing? Shared vision requires shared space.
5. Adopt change to align intention with action
With clarity, insight, release, and relationship established, leaders are ready to Adopt Change. Most institutions have long known what needs to evolve. The gap lies not in knowledge but in embodiment. When espoused values diverge from observed behaviors, culture erodes.
Adopting change requires alignment between intention and impact, and it begins with consistent practices that signal what the institution values, not just on paper, but in daily leadership and decision-making.
Select one institutional priority and trace it through your leadership. Ask: What is one tangible adjustment we can make this week that reflects this commitment? When leaders act with intention, culture responds.
6. Design wholeness to foster institutional integrity
Finally, higher education leaders who commit to sustained transformation must Design Wholeness. This involves shaping systems, structures, and strategies that reflect their institution’s deepest commitments.
Most existing systems were built for control and efficiency. Today’s challenges require frameworks that honor care, creativity, and coherence. Designing wholeness is not a theoretical exercise; it is a practical one. It means aligning hiring, budgeting, evaluation, and engagement practices with institutional purpose and human flourishing.
Choose one structural process. Ask: Does this reflect the culture we claim to build? What would this look like if we designed it with a focus on belonging, trust, and integrity of mission?
Conclusion
When fully operationalized, regenerative leadership functions as a stabilizing force in conditions of volatility, transitioning leaders from states of exhaustion to strategic alignment, and from reactive governance to future-oriented imagination. It fosters the institutional coherence and adaptive capacity necessary to steward colleges and universities toward futures that are ethically grounded, purpose-driven, and resilient in the face of complexity.
