Leadership

Updated November 2024

Leadership evokes powerful images. Often, those images are of history’s great military, political, religious, or industrial leaders. Faced with incredibly difficult challenges or crises, those leaders led people, organizations, and sometimes entire societies toward a vision of the future that only they could see. More often than not, the resulting outcomes significantly benefitted humankind.

On an equally important but less monumental scale, the power and importance of leadership is also demonstrated each and every day. Large and small businesses, clubs, churches, and political groups would not be successful without the leadership of individuals in their organizations. With leadership, these groups can attain outcomes that benefit both the people within the organization and the people served by it. In fact, leadership is so important in the success of any endeavor that it is not difficult to find numerous examples of organizations, no matter how wealthy or progressive, that eventually failed because they lacked people with a vision and the willingness to lead.

Educational institutions, created to improve human self-awareness and ability, are facing a significant period of change in their development and evolution. Serious financial constraints make it difficult for educational facilities to continue using their historic business model to serve an ever-expanding population with wide-ranging needs and requirements. These constraints have challenged all segments of the education delivery system, including the provision and management of facilities.

Leadership in managing land, buildings, and equipment is critical to the future of education for several reasons. First, many senior officers in educational institutions lack the training and knowledge necessary to understand the role that facilities play in the future viability of their institution. Second, those in charge of facilities services find success increasingly difficult to achieve if they follow the same approaches and techniques used by previous facilities managers. This difficulty has created great pressure to devise and test new approaches and techniques. Third, facilities managers must team with others both within and outside educational facilities to deploy new management techniques necessary to support education’s emerging facilities requirements.

Because the need for leadership in educational facilities management is so critical, APPA devotes a separate chapter of the Body of Knowledge to this topic. There are hundreds of theories and treatises on the subject of leading and leadership, so a full discussion of these concepts is not possible here; however, a brief overview of some of the more important ideas applicable to facilities management is necessary. The primary focus is the practical aspects of leadership: its characteristics, traits, and activities. The three fundamental areas in which leadership is important are:

1. Setting direction,
2. Building the management team, and
3. Team leadership.

To help readers understand why being a leader in facilities management is important to the future of educational institutions, a brief history of modern education and the role of facilities in its evolution provides some context.

The Evolution of Facilities Management

Historically, the development of educational institutions in most modern societies evolved through three phases: formation, expansion, and maturity. In many European countries, these phases extended over periods of many decades and may have cycled between periods of expansion and maturity. The three phases in the United States and Canada generally can be grouped into three time periods. Beginning with the establishment of Harvard in 1636 and continuing through the early 1900s, the United States formed much of its present education system. Until World War II, educational institutions grew slowly and generally were stable in their organization, curriculum, and management systems. In the 1940s through the early 1970s, a period of unprecedented expansion occurred. Beginning in the mid-1970s, educational institutions reentered a period of maturity, again marked by slowed growth and little change in administrative approaches or program organization.

Today, many believe education is entering a new transformative phase, and the question being debated is whether it will be evolutionary or revolutionary. Spurred by the development of the Internet beginning in the mid-1980s and accelerating faster than many imagined, ever-increasing computing power and data transfer is affecting every element of society, its social fabric, politics, and economics. For example, today’s iPhone, carried daily in the pockets of millions of people, has 5,000 times the processing power of the 1980s’ supercomputers, which filled entire computer buildings. These changes are yin and yang for educational institutions, offering both threats and opportunities. In the next half-century, how will our young people—or any people—learn and be educated, and will educational institutions as we now know them be part of it, or a relic of the past? In times of disruption, leadership is more critical than ever before.

Looking back, between 1950 and 1975, educational institutions experienced a building boom in the United States, with building areas more than quadrupling, from 570 million to more than 2.3 billion gross square feet.  In this period, new campus planning and construction departments were created, often separated from the buildings and grounds department. Positions such as campus planners and university architects emerged to manage the expansion; these positions were often filled by people who had little, if any, practical experience in the operation of buildings, let alone college campuses. Original campus master plans were discarded, new concepts of site development and building design were enlisted, and campuses, as we know them today, were constructed. Educational institutions emerged from the expansion phase with few resources in reserve; almost everything had been spent to expand programs and campuses. In addition, operating costs were increasingly fixed, with payments for energy bills and debt service consuming a large percentage of the budget.

Despite dire projections of deteriorating facilities and fiscal disaster in the mid-1970’s, the building continued. Today, some estimate the total building area devoted to education (including, for example, privately owned housing, food service, and gyms) at more than five billion square feet. Deteriorating space has been renovated or replaced with more modern space. This continued building was spurred by low interest rates, rising federal funding, and parents able and willing to foot the ever-increasing cost of education. Given the enormous size of the already built footprint of educational institutions and the fact they must be tended to each and every day, those involved in facilities management are likely to remain in high demand, especially those that can adapt to constantly evolving building design, understand adaptive reuse, and stay current in always newer technologies.

The Need for Effective and Adaptive Facilities Management

The design, construction, use, maintenance, and even demolition of facilities should not be left to novices with good intentions. The consequences of poor decisions in facilities construction and operation will seriously affect many people, their lives, careers, and success. Not only do today’s facilities managers have to possess the prerequisite skills and knowledge, but even more importantly, they must be able to create and lead teams and organizations with the necessary skills and knowledge. To be successful, that knowledge lies in three key areas—technology, regulation, and economics.

Technology

Technological change has affected every aspect of modern life and education. First, technology drives changes in what and how things are taught. This drive is manifested in an escalating demand to modernize every type of facility on ever-decreasing time cycles. Second, technology changes how facilities are designed, built, and maintained. Third, technology is intensifying the problem of obsolescence when constructing fixed assets during a period of rapid technological change.

Regulation 

Laws and regulations abound to protect workers, the public, the environment, businesses, students, parents, historical artifacts, faculty, administrators, animals, and just about everything else. They affect every facet of facilities design, construction, and operation. If codes and laws are not followed, any resulting damage, injury, or death can be catastrophic. However, overly cautious adherence to regulations can also unnecessarily burden an institution’s operation or waste its scarce resources.

Economics

The cost of ownership of educational facilities is very real, and continual. There are ongoing costs to maintain a building, even if it is unused, if only to protect it from the effects of aging and the elements, plus pay its debt service and energy costs. Combined with faculty, administrative bloat, and support service costs, educational institutions’ prices have continued to outstrip inflation. There is now open discussion questioning the value of a college degree given its ever-increasing cost. The pressure to control and even decrease cost is growing and will likely continue well into the future.

Taken alone, forces in these areas are more than enough to demand better decision-making and management of educational facilities. But besides the complexity of modern educational facilities, there is also a wide diversity of facility ages, types, and utilization. This requires a facilities organization with people who possess the skills to work as a team to handle this complexity and diversity. At the apex of this organization are its leaders.

Doing the right things in almost any field of human endeavor, including facilities management, is not easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and we would not need to discuss the problems facing educational institutions. However, the problems facing facilities managers are very real and complex and will require some fundamental changes in how they approach and manage their jobs.

This is what David Noer, in his book Healing the Wounds, calls “culture busting.”² It is the process of abandoning old paradigms and creating new ones. It requires that managers abandon their existing beliefs and venture into new and uncharted solutions. This process is extremely unsettling and would be impossible if it were not for a single great attribute of humankind: leadership! Therefore, we will briefly visit some concepts of leading, leaders, and the wonderful art of leadership.

Words and phrases commonly used to define leadership include the following:

• To go before
• To show the way
• To induce or influence
• To guide
• To command or direct
• To cause

Such words convey the fundamental principle but not the essence. Two other descriptions of what it means to lead may be more illustrative:

• Leadership is seeking answers to questions that have not yet been asked.
• The sign of a truly great leader is when everyone thinks they thought of the idea first.

Of course, the modern business press is flooded with books on leadership. Some of the more respected sources are listed at the end of this chapter. Although theoretical constructs describing the dynamics, characteristics, and processes of leadership are interesting, we do not have the space, and it is not essential to develop a true understanding of this phenomenon. For the purposes of this manual, we will assume a certain acquaintance with some of the literature. As Warren Bennis points out in his book, Why Leaders Can’t Lead, “the sum total of my experiences convinced me that most of the academic theory on leadership was useless.”³ Therefore, we will leave theory to the academics and concentrate instead on how some of the common elements of these theories might be applied to the problem of leadership in facilities management.

Bennis, Drucker, and many other theoreticians who have pondered and studied the elements of leadership have routinely identified a few critical skills or philosophies characteristic of leaders. These skills are generally common to all leaders or leadership situations, and therefore, understanding them is critical to leadership in educational facilities management. These critical elements are vision, values, empowerment, communication, and self-understanding.

Vision

Everything begins with vision. Vision is the most elementary component and sometimes the most difficult to comprehend, yet its importance cannot be understated or underestimated. Vision is simple enough to understand if we liken it to a picture in someone’s mind not of what is, but of what might be. The great leaders of history held such pictures—ultimate victory in war, a conquered disease, social justice, a new product, a resurrected company. The mental pictures were real to the visionary and were a visualization of the final product of the road yet to be taken as well as the struggles and difficulties to be endured. These pictures sustained, excited, and encouraged those who held them. Most important, they could be—and were—shared with others.

Are we born with a vision, or does it just pop into our heads? Most who have studied leadership and human behavior believe that a vision results from enthusiasm, desire, and hope. We create a picture of what we want to be or what we want our organizations to be. One technique to help create these images is to imagine yourself on a date, such as your birthday, five years in the future. Describe your life, job, or institution as you hope they will be on that date. That description forms your vision for either personal or organizational goals. This technique has proven to be powerful in creating images of what might be achieved with some practice.

What vision do managers have for their facilities? Is it a vision that supports and furthers the mission of the university? Does it reflect on the institution’s current situation and its hopes for the future? Does it respond to maintaining the proper balance of facilities and the other two critical education components—faculty and students? What is your vision for your institution with respect to its facilities?

Values

Leaders represent and model one of an organization’s greatest strengths: its values. Stephen R. Covey, in his book Principle-Centered Leadership, discusses the fundamental requirement that leaders must be trustworthy.⁴  People will believe and follow those whom they fundamentally trust.

How is trust built? The basic ingredient is honesty, closely followed by sincerity, loyalty, commitment, and a host of other beliefs and behaviors called values. Without the establishment and overt expression of the values that govern actions and relationships within and without the organization, leaders cannot lead, and followers will not follow.

What values do facilities managers practice? What values govern their relationships and business conduct with senior management, deans, faculty, staff, students, consultants, suppliers, contractors, legislators, and others? What values do they expect to be exhibited in their dealings with members of their organizations? The consistent reinforcement of values, as evidenced by the leader’s behavior, is as important to the cause of leadership as any noble vision.

Empowerment

Every organization has both leaders and followers. What is commonly overlooked is that there are as many leaders as there are followers in every successful organization. That is because, throughout every day and moment, the leadership role is assumed by some who—a moment earlier—were themselves following. Therefore, just as the chief facilities officer may lead, so must employees at each level of the organization—all the way to the frontline employee who may be interacting directly with the customer. Each individual must lead or follow depending on the circumstance and the task to be accomplished; each individual must have a vision, all congruent with the organization’s overarching vision; and each individual must hold to and act consistently with the organization’s values. This is the essence of empowerment. It is the promotion and expectation that each member of the organization will do his or her best to fulfill the mission and vision of the organization and will lead others in that pursuit as the occasion may present itself. Many of the greatest victories in war were often determined not by generals, but by the heroic leadership of captains, sergeants, and soldiers. These individuals were prepared, believed, and were empowered to “assume command” when the need arose.

Empowerment in facilities management is no different. Do managers prepare, encourage, and expect the members of their organizations to take initiative, participate in teamwork, teach coworkers, and represent the values and vision of the organization to others? Do they reward their people for what Herb Kelleher⁵ of Southwest Airlines calls “positively outrageous service?”

Communication

Ronald Reagan was dubbed “the great communicator” because he was seen as extremely effective at selling his ideas and marshaling support for the direction he wished to lead the United States. Not only did he sincerely believe in his vision for the country, but he was willing to speak out—not once, but repeatedly.

Communication is an important element of leadership for a number of reasons. First, it is essential in the transfer of the organization’s vision from one individual to another. Although a leader might have a vision, others will not work to achieve it until they, too, have the same vision. Three basic mechanisms of communication transfer this vision: watching how the leader acts, reading what the leader writes, and hearing what the leader says. If there is any inconsistency among the three forms, the picture will become jumbled or distorted. Therefore, a leader must effectively and consistently communicate the organization’s vision in actions, speech, and writing.

Second, communication is important to reinforce actions or behaviors that further the organization’s goals and vision. Communicating to an individual that what he or she has done is important and valued significantly increases the odds that the beneficial activities will be repeated in the future. It also allows communicating to others, if they witness the leader catching people doing things right, they will also be rewarded and recognized if they perform similar beneficial acts. Consistent and continual communication through both actions and words is how vision and values are built within the organization. How do we communicate in leading the facilities management function of an institution? Do we walk the talk? Do we even talk? Do we reinforce what we write by how we act and what we say, or do our actions and words contradict what we write? Communication is one of the essential elements of leadership.

Self-Understanding

Simply put, self-understanding is an awareness and appreciation by leaders that they are not infallible. Leaders generally must know that they can lead for good or bad. Therefore, to lead, they must continually ask questions about where they are going and how they are getting there. This constant introspection should not be confused with a lack of self-confidence. It is a constructive search for validation of the worthiness of the organization’s mission and vision. It also is a continuing review of all activities to ensure that the organization’s values have not been corrupted or compromised. Examples abound of how leadership has been used for destructive ends because a leader began to believe he or she was godlike or because others were allowed to corrupt the organization’s values.

In facilities management, self-understanding can best be tested by continually asking both the institution’s leadership and facilities users how their needs are being met. General support for the direction and products of the organization is clear evidence that the vision and values continue to be concurrent with the institution’s mission. Leaders must also continually test themselves. How do their personalities, behavioral tendencies, and predispositions affect others or the interpretation of information? Such introspection is extremely useful.

For example, personal prejudices can subtly affect who is believed and what information is accepted or rejected. An awareness of these prejudices can help counter that initial, sometimes subconscious, filtering of data on which decisions are ultimately made. An understanding of such tendencies allows managers the opportunity to revisit initial reactions or choices and to reconsider information or decisions from another perspective.

How do these elements combine to help managers lead the facilities management function of a college or university? Although each element is essential, the combination of values, communication, empowerment, and self-understanding nurture, give life to, and “transport” the leader’s vision. A simple visualization of this might be a four-wheeled vehicle, with “vision” as the occupant, carried along on the four wheels of “values,” “empowerment,” “communication,” and “self-understanding.”

Regardless of how leadership is established, it is still anything but straightforward in the setting of an educational institution. That is because facilities are but one, albeit critical, component of the total education process. As part of a whole and to be truly effective, the facilities manager must lead in three dimensions, not just one. The leadership role must extend first to the facilities organization itself, second to the institution it serves, and third to all educational professional facilities management. This is a formidable challenge–not only to lead an organization but to lead in both the institution and the profession. This may seem like a tall order. However, if we examine in some detail what is involved in truly leading the facilities function, this challenge may actually appear less mystical and quite manageable.

To understand the practical dimensions of leadership in each of the three areas, answering a series of questions covering the essential elements is most helpful. Although it is tempting to answer the questions with a simple “yes” or “no,” the questions will benefit more if they are answered with brief sentences describing what was done or what you wish to do. For example, in answering the question, “How do you inform others of your mission?” you might describe how employees are currently informed. Alternatively, you might describe ways you would like to do this better in the future. The questions are intended to help you devise methods for establishing leadership by provoking consideration of real-world actions you can implement, not just theorize about. Later, we will use these answers to develop a personal leadership plan.

Leadership is most commonly seen as something that the head of an organization should provide. However, leadership must be demonstrated at all levels of an organization, and it must be demonstrated every day and in many different ways. How is this accomplished? The organization must have a unifying vision and an understanding of its overarching mission. This vision must be reinterpreted into a series of linked, interrelated mission statements for each subunit of the organization. The result is that each organization member understands his or her responsibility in the overall effort. Stephen Covey, in his book Principle-Centered Leadership, argues that this feature is the single-most-important determinant of an organization’s success.⁶ Leadership in the facilities department is the fundamental process of creating and achieving an understanding of these linked missions, which are tied together by a unifying vision.
 

Mission

The first step is to define the entire organization’s mission. In other words, what is the stated reason the organization exists? What is its role and purpose? In preparing a mission statement, clarity and understanding are critical. The statement must be unique, differentiating itself from the role and purpose of other organizations in the institution. The following is an example of an unclear mission statement:

“The Mission of Facilities Management is to effectively and efficiently provide services that support the faculty, staff, and students in their search for excellence.”

What’s wrong with this mission statement? Couldn’t the same be said of the institution’s library, finance department, or a dozen other organizations?

The following is an example of a simple and clear mission statement:

“The Facilities Management organization is dedicated to providing an attractive, clean, safe, and reliable educational environment necessary to support the mission and goals of the university.”

How do you know whether you have a clear statement of your mission? Evaluate the statement and its use against the following criteria:

• Do you have a simple, easily understood statement of your department’s mission?
• Does it state specifically what your department intends to achieve?
• Does it communicate why your department’s mission is important to the institution’s success?
• How does your department enhance your institution’s outcomes or “products”?
• What would happen if your mission were no longer pursued?
• Does each subunit of the department have a mission statement?
• Do these mission statements explain how the subunits enhance the outcomes and products of the department?
• What would happen if a subunit’s mission were eliminated?
• Do all employees understand the department’s mission, their unit’s mission, and their personal responsibility to achieve those missions?
• If you asked any employee in the department, could he or she explain this mission?
• Do you periodically review your mission statement for consistency with the mission and objectives of your institution?
   

Vision

Aspiring leaders commonly confuse mission and vision. A mission speaks only to why an organization exists. A vision speaks to the future and addresses what an organization aspires to achieve to fulfill its mission. While a mission must be unique, a vision may not be, as many organizations may aspire to the same vision. One common element to both mission and vision is that the results must be identifiable and measurable. For example, if you said that five years from now you wanted to attain a certain amount of wealth, how would you know if you did? In other words, how would you know you were “wealthy?” Would you need to have $1, $10, or $100 million in the bank? Or would being wealthy mean having a happy and healthy family, living together in a comfortable house, and going on a nice vacation each year? Or would wealthy mean something else?

The following is an example of an unmeasurable vision statement:

“Facilities Management will be the premier facilities department in the state.”

What does premier mean? Does it mean having the best customer service, the best-organized department, or the best-looking staff?

The following is an example of a measurable vision statement:

“We strive to provide the best value to our customers in terms of responsiveness, customer service, and quality.”

Is it measurable? You bet! Once each year, you could ask your customers if they feel your services have the best value in those three dimensions. If you score even 50 percent in your first year, any improvement from year to year will prove that you are successfully striving to offer the best value. To evaluate your own vision statement, answer the following questions:

• If you were fantastically successful in achieving your mission, how would you know? What tangible indicators would show the success of your mission?
• What could be done that is not now possible in your mission area to make your institution the leader among its peers or competitors?
• What would you, as a leader in the facilities department, like to say your organization had achieved five years from now?
• What would you like for others to be saying five years from now in recognition of your unit’s success?
• What accomplishments would you like to write on your resume that you would be most proud of?
• If you left the institution five years from now, what would the president say at your farewell party?
• Does the vision inspire, encourage, and require the organization to grow in order to fulfill its mission?

If you can fully answer these questions, you have gone a long way toward developing a vital cornerstone of leadership for your department.

But what if your vision of the future differs from others within your department? And what if your interpretation of the department’s mission is viewed from an entirely different perspective among your rank and file or even the rest of the university? In such cases, you may find yourself trying to lead your department from one paradigm to a new one. In the case of David Noer’s “culture busting,” many of us must be prepared to lead our organizations through a paradigm change. This will not be easy, and it definitely will not be painless. Again, as Noer observes, we may find ourselves in a difficult position in which we “must destroy that which [we] created in the past, in order to make meaning for the future.”⁷ In such situations, the leadership of one individual will not be sufficient. It will take a team of individuals, all sharing the same picture of the mission and vision, to steer the organization along its path to a new paradigm. This is where the quality and commitment of your management team become important.

It is not unusual to refer to an organization’s “leadership” in the plural as “the leadership of XYZ organization undertook a new direction.” This term is often used interchangeably with “the management team” or the “leadership team.” But exactly what do these terms mean? And who are the members of an organization’s “leadership” or management team?

Every organization is composed of individuals or groups that perform various functions necessary for its successful operation. The people who direct and manage the performance of these functions make up an organization’s management team. In the case of Facilities Management (FM), the core functions (or products) central to its mission would include, for example, design and construction, building maintenance, and housekeeping. In addition, the FM organization must be good at various support functions, such as accounting/budgeting, training, and information technology. The FM organization must excel in its core products and support functions. It stands to reason that the people who lead both the core products and support functions, i.e., the management team, must likewise be excellent if the organization is to excel in its mission.

But that alone is not the full story. Numerous organizations have failed not because of a lack of qualified managers but because of their managers’ inability to work together as a team. Patrick Lencioni describes this phenomenon in his book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” His five dysfunctions include: Inattention to Results, Avoidance of Accountability, Fear of Conflict, Lack of Commitment, and Absence of Trust⁸. The bottom line is that no matter how good your managers might look on their resumes, if they don’t share a belief in your mission, vision, and values, and are unwilling to expend the effort or to take some risks to achieve them, your organization is doomed.

So how do we build a management team that works together and is committed to the mission, vision, and values? The answer is so deceptively simple, yet so rarely applied, that it is almost unbelievable. So in order to avoid disbelief, let’s explain it by way of a story.

A woman comes upon the bank of a raging river. At the bank are a doctor and his boat loaded with vaccines and medical supplies he is trying to get to the town on the other side of the river. The doctor has recruited some of the best rowers in the country to row his boat across the river, but none will get into his boat for fear the rushing water will swamp them. The doctor begs the woman to help him. She talks to each of the assembled rowers, and soon, a half dozen join her and the doctor in the boat to row across the river. What did the woman say to each of the rowers?

ANSWER:

1. I want to get the doctor and the medical supplies to the town to help them fight the plague and treat the sick. (Mission)
2. We need to do this quickly without losing the doctor and/or supplies, or people will die. (Vision)
3. If we work together, give our best effort, and are honest with one another, we can do it. (Values)
4. I’ve inspected the boat and oars, and they are strong and sound. (Attention to details)
5. Will you row with me? (Commitment)
6. You must do exactly as I say if I see danger ahead, for the safety of everyone. If it looks like we cannot make it, we will return and modify the boat. If we get half way, we will go on. (Trust)
7. Is there anything you would recommend? If so, now is the time to discuss it. (Accountability, Conflict)

What would you have said?

Given the “river” you are trying to cross, what do you say to your team? When you select the “rowers” for your management team, do you talk to them about the mission, vision, values, and commitment? Do their actions indicate they trust you? Do your actions indicate you trust them? Can you imagine hiring someone based only on their resume without ever interviewing them? Yet so many interviews are held without ever discussing the mission, vision, and values of the organization, and testing the applicant for his or her commitment to them! And how can you expect them to lead their departments in a way consistent with the values or vision of the organization if they do not share your understanding or belief in them? Pretty impossible isn’t it?

While it is easy tolerated (and often times productive) to disagree on means and methods, there can be no disagreement on mission, vision, and values. If there is, then the leader must help the person get off the bus (or boat). On a management team, it only takes one malcontent or sideline-sitter to sink the ship.

The strength of a management team is never more important than during a change in its external environment (crisis) or when trying to shift the organization to a new vision (paradigm change). Mahatma Gandhi once said, “We must become the change we wish to see in the world.”⁹ If so, then the management team must exhibit and communicate the behaviors expected within the organization. The continuing adoption of new information technology (IT) is an example. If the organization believes deftness in the application of IT is necessary to function effectively in the future, then the management team must be the first to embrace this idea.

How is this accomplished? How does a leader develop organizational commitment, accountability, and trust? How do you get any group of people to sign up for the journey? This is the essence of Team Leadership.

Leading a team of people (whether it be a production-level unit or a management team) toward a well-defined mission and vision calls on four other elements of leadership: values, communication, empowerment, and self-understanding. These elements concern the “how” of leadership, that is, how we interact with one another as a team and our common expectations for how each team member will behave. This is the foundation of team leadership because it generates the trust and trustworthiness necessary to work together in a productive relationship.
 

Values

Values are best defined as our beliefs regarding how we should treat people and how we expect to be treated. The evidence of these values is demonstrated in the way we behave in day-to-day interactions. Values are as important to organizations as they are to individuals. They establish for us the motives behind any communication or action. For example, if an organization values honesty, then every communication in the organization is assumed to be truthful. In such an environment, the consequences of being dishonest are severe, and the offending party immediately will be ostracized from the group.

It is a human tendency to assume that everyone else subscribes to our personal values. Yet we know from experience that this is not true. In a team of people, it is extremely important to state the team’s values. Thus, team members will be able to decide whether those values are congruent with their personal values and whether they wish to continue to support the mission and vision of the group given the environment in which they will participate.

An extremely negative example is Nazi Germany. While most nationalistic Germans supported the idea of a robust economy and a leading role in Europe, many could not accept the values of the Nazi Party. Their choice was to remain silent and suffer, or to speak out and be carted off to a concentration camp. Such is the power of values. On the positive side, humanistic values can have the same powerful effect. They can mobilize people to work together constructively for a beneficial purpose.

The team leader must take the steps necessary to define the group’s values. This is best accomplished through discussion among the team. It is as simple as asking the question, “How do we believe we should act in both good and bad circumstances toward one another and within our institution?” Examples of values often identified include integrity or honesty, creativity, caring or empathy, loyalty, and initiative.

How well do you score in the values arena as a team leader? The following questions can help establish your leadership quotient on this important element:

1. What values does your department subscribe to and observe in everyday dealings with one another and others?
2. Are these values formally stated in the department’s mission and vision?
3. Are they used in evaluating the conduct or performance of every department member?
4. Is honesty chief among the stated values? Does the pursuit of honesty, even in delicate and sensitive situations, promote trust and trustworthiness?
    

Communication

Every team leader must consistently and routinely communicate the organization’s mission, vision, and values. Studies show that every member of high-performing organizations not only can recite the mission, vision, and values, but also, and perhaps more importantly, understand how his or her job duties contribute to that mission and vision. Too often, we leave it to others to communicate for us and do not see this responsibility as a vital part of our leadership role. Leaders communicate well and often, in both words (verbal and written) and deeds.

1. What’s your leadership quotient on the element of communication?
2. How do you keep people informed?
3. Do all department members understand their responsibility to communicate widely, constantly, and accurately?
4. Does communication utilize multiple paths, including written, oral (in face-to-face and group settings), and by example?
5. Is two-way communication encouraged?
6. How do you publicize your mission, educate staff, orient new employees, and inform others of your mission?
    

Empowerment

The whole idea of teams of people working together is based on one simple fact: a team’s combined knowledge, skills, and energy can always outproduce that of any individual. To accomplish this feat, however, requires that the team leader promote conditions that allow each team member to excel at what they know or do best. The idea of granting this flexibility is the essence of empowerment. It is the idea behind Toyota’s redesign of the automobile assembly line, and it is the simple advice of a basketball coach to his team: if you are open, take the shot!

Things never go as planned. Dealing with the unexpected or making midstream adjustments cannot always be foreseen by the leader. Thus, any team member must be empowered to act in the best interests of the organization, and if, in fact, they are open, they should take the shot.

Some people confuse empowerment with acceptance of poor performance. Empowered employees can act outside their normal job responsibilities in a way that is consistent with the values of the organization and can act in circumstances in which if they did not act the very mission and vision of the organization would be threatened, or a highly valued opportunity might be lost, even if they may not be successful. A poor performer acts in a manner that is inconsistent with the values of the organization and will cause harm to the mission and vision of the organization.

As a team leader, how do you empower? Answer these questions to get some idea:

1. Do you encourage and promote employee and supervisory decision-making?
2. Are employees urged to take initiative and recognized if they do?
3. Do you hold employees accountable yet make their mistakes an opportunity to discover a better way or to enhance their knowledge?
4. Do you encourage experimentation by actually implementing the ideas of others, even if they come from critics, “troublemakers,” or other nontraditional organizational sources?
5. Do you actively promote discussion and implementation of changes that are directed toward accomplishing your organization’s mission and vision in all of your dealings with employees, customers, and employers?
    

Self-Understanding

Problems with leaders arise when they become corrupted in their thinking about their own importance. To lead is truly important. To be a leader is just a job. The question is whether you, as a leader, will do your job well or poorly. That is where understanding of your own prejudices, traits, and frailties comes in. Understanding oneself helps us avoid doing things that will interfere with the true purpose of leading, which is to encourage and motivate others to excel in the achievement of our organization’s mission and vision. If we are human, we all have these traits: a quick temper, perhaps, or a dislike of people with blue eyes, or our own low self-esteem, which tends to make us want to be the center of attention. It’s okay to have these feelings, but it is not okay to act on them. Knowing and recognizing how our tendencies can interfere with our success and our team’s success is vital to self-understanding and leadership.

Do you know “thyself”? Consider your leadership quotient in the arena of self-understanding:

1. Do you believe in the department’s mission and vision?
2. Would you willingly follow someone else’s leadership toward fulfilling the department’s mission?
3. Do you understand and accept your own personality traits and tendencies?
4. How might these traits and tendencies interfere with the success of the department, its vision, or the empowerment of others?
5. How are your listening and observation skills?
6. Do you use them not only to effectively monitor the progress of others, but also to alert yourself to your own blind spots?
7. Do you view your leadership role as that of a savior or a facilitator?
    

Leadership in the Institution, the Community and the Profession

Leadership by an entire management team helps develop the foundations for change in an organization. Team leaders help people overcome the fear of the unknown and the risks of deviating from tried-and-true methods. They create conditions by which a group of people will pursue a new vision even though they may have doubts and fears individually. Without values, communication, empowerment, and self-understanding, the successful transition from one paradigm to the next will not be possible, regardless of the importance of the mission or the inspiration of the vision. One thing is certain, the road that facilities leaders must take to advance the mission of education will not be lined with cheering crowds and ticker-tape parades. Significant challenges are ahead, and change is not easy in the tradition-bound conservative educational institutions.

So, for the educational facilities manager, team leadership is important within the facilities organization and the educational institution. Although the mission of most educational institutions may have changed little since World War II, the environment in which these institutions operate has changed dramatically. As discussed earlier, facility management is now technologically, economically, and legally complex. The consequences of missteps or incompetency are increasingly expensive, and it is difficult to recover from mistakes.

Unfortunately, administrative naiveté about these issues is alive and well on many college campuses. Far too many senior managers and college executives still view facilities as a “cost” and not an investment. If costs are truly excessive (likely caused by bureaucracy, overregulation, monument-building architects, crooked contractors, or incompetent and lazy managers), few of these administrators understand or even acknowledge their role in creating this situation. Even when costs are not excessive, most executives fail to grasp the factors that make college buildings expensive to build and maintain.

Who will educate and inform senior leadership of the educational institution on the realities of being a large property owner? Who will interpret the college or university’s mission in facilities terms and requirements? Who will define and analyze the facilities issues that the institution must face to achieve its goals? Who will develop and recommend facilities strategies? The dean of the medical school? The business officer? The student affairs officer?

Leadership in facilities management cannot stop within the facilities organization. The officers and governing board members must learn how to effectively manage and utilize their institution’s facilities. The chief facilities officer and those responsible for facilities management can only help them satisfy this need.

In the facilities context, however, institutional team leadership is more than just advocating for facilities or the “facilities specialist.” In a broader sense, it is helping the institution attain its mission and vision through the most effective deployment of facilities resources. To accomplish this, the facilities leader must be perceived as pursuing the institution’s mission and vision as his or her first priority and not solely as an advocate for facilities. This is a much different role than just pursuing the interest of facilities, independent of other considerations or factors critical to the institution’s success. Again, the following questions can help isolate the critical elements of this leadership responsibility:

1. Given your institution’s mission, what facilities are required to accomplish this mission now? Five years from now? Ten years from now?
2. To maximize scarce resources, what is the minimum level of the facilities’ quality required to accomplish the institution’s mission and vision?
3. How can the facilities’ needs be met through better scheduling, minor adaptations, or simple changes in use?
4. How can your institution comply with regulations with minimum capital investment?
5. Can other institutional needs be met through better use of facilities assets?
6. What is the full range of options available to meet the institutional mission or vision, including no new facilities investment solutions?
7. What are the long-term financial implications of each facilities’ decision? Master plan implications? Land-use implications? Impact on other programs or facilities? Other opportunity costs?
8. How can you tailor facilities and support services to best respond to unique institutional and programmatic requirements or priorities?
9. What is the best way economically to provide for these facilities and service requirements?
10. Do you routinely talk to groups of students, faculty, and administrators and educate others about how facilities can be best used to further the institution’s mission?
11. Is the institutional leadership aware of your organization’s major facilities management capabilities? Do they receive periodic reports on the state of operations, progress on projects, management initiatives, or information on major issues facing the institution?
12. Do they understand the full costs of owning and operating the institution’s facilities? Are facilities costs benchmarked to other external sources by which both efficiencies and deficiencies can be gauged? Do they receive realistic cost information and budgetary proposals so they can make meaningful decisions?

Most educational facilities managers do not understand the effective utilization of facilities assets. Facilities decisions in the future must be based on maximizing asset contribution to the institutional mission. The facilities leader must be patient and persistent in getting newer concepts and views introduced into management practice. Initially, that leadership role will be one of education, example, and experimentation. As knowledge of more modern asset management practices emerges in educational institutions, the leadership role eventually will evolve into membership in the strategy-setting and decision-making processes of the institution. To accomplish this, facilities managers will need executive-level communication, planning, and decision-making skills.

Improvement in educational facilities management practices will be difficult to achieve without broadly researching, testing, and communicating the results of such efforts. Improvement will require the efforts of many people who are themselves dedicated to the important mission of knowledge and education. Thus, we come to the final dimension of team leadership in facilities management: leadership within the profession of facilities management.

Leadership within one’s profession is made up of three components. The first and most fundamental component resides in one’s personal values, which lead to the pursuit of ethical conduct. Ethics and integrity are the cornerstones of professional life and are essential to establishing credibility and trust. Without these, a leader’s influence over people is short-lived, if it is even possible. The second component is contributing to one’s own community. Whether this is involvement in service organizations, one’s church, or public office, the outcome of such activity should be directed toward promoting the good of the community and improving the quality of individual lives. Can anyone lead others without having a deeply held desire to improve the lives of people, as evidenced by actions, not just words? The third and final component is making a contribution to one’s own profession. This means making a continual effort to improve facilities management practices and to disseminate knowledge of these practices. Such contributions may take many forms, but one important way to contribute is through participation in a professional organization such as APPA: Leadership in Educational Facilities.

All professions continually attempt to expand and teach knowledge that is specific to their occupation. Such activities are vital to facilities management because of the enormous need to develop improved and, in some cases, radically new methods and management concepts. To do this, professional team leadership can be exercised at any type of institution and at any level in the facilities organization. Even small improvements eventually attain significance. All profession members can participate and provide valuable information in testing improvements and communicating their results to others.

In this chapter, we discussed the evolution of facilities management in educational facilities and the dramatic changes that may occur in the twenty-first century. These changes are driven by a number of factors, including the quickening pace of technological advances, the increasing complexity of regulatory compliance, the ever-increasing costs of operations, and the diminished capital resources available to colleges and universities for reinvestment in facilities and equipment. At the same time, the importance of facilities to the future success of educational institutions has never been greater. The quality of facilities not only directly affects the quality of education and research, but also influences the decision by students to attend an institution and by benefactors to bestow their appropriations, gifts, and grants.

In this setting, the meaning of leadership was explained along with its six essential elements of mission, vision, values, communication, empowerment, and self-understanding. All leaders of organizations must have a defined mission and a vision of success. The vision must be worthy, attainable, and shareable with others. How a vision is accepted and acted on is determined by the values commonly shared within the organization, the most important being those of trust and trustworthiness. The vision, values, and team member roles should be communicated well and descriptively to all sectors of the organization so that they can be widely understood. Individuals and groups of people should be empowered to act independently but in a coordinated fashion. Finally, leaders must have a good understanding of their attitudes, prejudices, or predispositions that could inadvertently corrupt the pursuit of the organization’s mission and vision.

A series of questions were presented that can be used to define the level of practice of leadership within each of the six essential elements. The answers to these questions can help managers determine the areas in which they are presently providing the necessary leadership and those in which they might further develop their leadership in the future. If they answer each question thoughtfully, managers should have a comprehensive list of:

1. Areas they have developed,
2. Areas they need to develop, and
3. Areas that have been addressed but that need additional improvement.

This inventory of leadership activities can now be developed into a personal leadership plan. Using the questions, readers can identify the areas they must develop to lead effectively in facilities management.

The profession of educational facilities management includes many fine examples of leadership. Over the years, facilities managers such as George Weber, who published the first manual on educational facilities management, and Harvey Kaiser, who alerted facilities managers to the emerging deferred maintenance problem, have provided important leadership in developing educational facilities practices. They are joined by countless others who have made equally important, albeit less visible, contributions to improving their institutions and communities. All of these leaders in the field had a vision and values, communicated well and often, empowered others, and understood their own strengths and limitations. These facilities managers are living proof that leadership is not mystical but rather is a decision—a decision that what one is doing is important and worthy of the required effort.

This chapter has identified critical elements in the leadership of educational institutional facilities. However, the decision to lead is a personal decision, which cannot be provided in this text.

Leadership in facilities has never been so vital. It is vital to the facilities organization if it is to meet the challenges that lie ahead; it is vital to the college or university if it is to continue to provide quality and affordable education; and it is vital to all of us if we are to continue to improve the human condition. This is no small undertaking, but addressing these needs begins with one simple decision to lead: yours.

Notes

1. Rosovsky, Henry. The University. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990, p. 255.
2. Noer, David M. Healing the Wounds. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993, p. 190.
3. Bennis, Warren. Why Leaders Can’t Lead. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994, p. 18.
4. Covey, Stephen R. Principle-Centered Leadership. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
5. Southwest Airlines. The Book On Service, 1993.
6. Covey, Stephen R. Principle-Centered Leadership. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
7. Noer, David M. Healing the Wounds. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993, p. 195.
8. Lencioni, Patrick, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.
9. B’Hahn, Carmella, “Be the change you wish to see: An interview with Arun Gandhi”, Reclaiming Children and Youth [Bloomington] Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring 2001) p. 6.
    

Additional Resources

• Anderson, R. J. and Adams, W. A. Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015
• Badaracco, Joseph L., Jr. Questions of Character: Illuminating the Heart of Leadership Through Literature. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2006.
• Bennis, W. On Becoming A Leader. Reading, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 1989
• Daigneau, William A. Product-Process-People: The Principles of High Performance Management. Alexandria, VA: APPA, 2016
• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. How Do Students Choose a College? Survey Report. New York: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1984.
• Cartwright, T. J. “Planning And Chaos Theory.” APA Journal 57 (Winter 1991): 44-56.
• Clark, Cole, Cluver, Megan, Fishman, Tiffany, and Kunkel, Danylle. 2024 Higher Education Trends. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/public-sector/latest-trends-in-higher-education.html. 2024
• Essame, H. Patton: A Study in Command. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.
• HBR Reading List: Leadership. https://hbsp.harvard.edu/catalog/collections/hbr-reading-list-leadership, 2024
• HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership 2-Volume Collection. Harvard Business Review Press, 2020
• Horn, Michael B. Colleges and Retailers Share a Bloated Past And A Slimmed Down Future. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2019/10/03/colleges-and-retailers-share-a-bloated-past-and-a-slimmed-down-future/. 2019
• Howard, Robert. “Values Make the Company: An Interview with Robert Haas.” Harvard Business Review 69 (September-October 1990): 133-144.
• Peters, Tom, and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. In Search of Excellence. New York: Warner Books, 1984.
• Reed, Richard. If I Could Tell you just One Thing… San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC, 2018
• Rezvani, Selena. The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger, 2010.
• Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean In: Women Work and the Will to Lead. Knopf, 2013
• Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday/Currency, 1990.
• Thaler, R. and Sunstein, C. Nudge. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008
• Wheatley, Margaret J. Leadership and the New Science. San Francisco: Berrett Koehler Publishers, 1992

Author

William A. Daigneau is retired from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he served as vice president for operations and Facilities Management. He has written and lectured widely on a number of facilities management topics and has authored chapters for six books on facilities management, as well as numerous articles for professional journals.

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