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Presidential Creeds and Character
By Stephen J. Nelson
In recent years, there
has been an explosion of books about leaders and leadership. These range
from autobiographical, personal accounts of corporate executives to
self-help, applications of leadership skills in everyday life handbooks.
Regardless of the genre, rarely do more than a few pages in any book
about leadership go by before the reader confronts the word
vision. Throughout the history of leaders and leadership, even
before President George H.W. Bush made it famous, or infamous, by
admitting that he was not good at the "vision thing," the concept of
vision has always been important.
For college and
university presidents and those responsible for their selection, the
lure to focus heavily on the "vision thing" is dangerous because it is
not simply or even primarily the most important personal asset of the
president as leader. College presidents certainly cannot lack vision,
but in the context of the academy, their vision is and must be joined in
a seamless and symbiotic way to the basic foundations of the university.
The values, beliefs, and principles of that foundation constitute the
core vision for the academy and for the presidents who lead it. . .
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Excerpted from the fall 2007
issue of The Presidency. To subscribe to the magazine, please
call (301) 632-6757, or order online through ACE's
bookstore.
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