At the annual NAICU meeting in early February I had the opportunity to ask a number of college presidents this question: What are the ingredients to institutional success?

I had lots of responses, but during the course of the day the following common themes occurred repeatedly.

First, leadership. Someone needs to take charge, frame the issues, and make the tough decisions.

Second, a strong senior team. The job of the president is to build the team; the job of the team is to run the school.

Third, a compelling vision. Visions are tough, but visions that captivate, differentiate, and draw resources are really tough. That’s why there are so few and when they occur, so valued.

Next, board support. Good leaders sometimes need to make unpopular decisions and they need to be able to count on board support when things get rough.

Fifth, the ability to raise money. There is an old axiom in higher education finance: tuition dollars keep the doors open, but if you want to do something truly great you need donated dollars.

And last, the willingness to stay the course.  As soon as you choose a course, someone or something will try to nudge you in a different direction. Jim Collins reminds us that doom loops are dangerous. Our goal, of course, is fly-wheels.

If you think about all the successful Elons and USCs and NYUs over the past couple of decades, chances are you will see some variation on these six themes. We can make it more complicated than this, but I don’t think we need to.

Photo by chotda