Part of the responsibility of managers in the enrollment field is to prepare developing professionals for the future. While there are certainly opportunities for formal professional development through national and regional conferences, these opportunities are not sufficient for forming well-rounded leaders. Although budget constraints often limit our ability to send junior staff members to a sufficient number of conferences, the events themselves are often more focused on content and knowledge transfer than on specific skill building. This is particularly true when it comes to helping staff develop their emotional intelligence, which is a critical tool for success in enrollment and all of higher education.
There are probably few tools we can use in academic leadership that seem less interesting than a checklist. But as Atul Gawande argued in The Checklist Manifesto (2010), checklists aren’t an excuse for mindlessness; they’re a recognition of how complex our lives have become. It’s the humble checklist that keeps us safe when a pilot makes a pre-safety inspection, and when a building inspector decides that a house is ready for a family to move in. Checklists don’t mean that our work as academic leaders can be reduced to guidelines in a policy manual. It means that our work is multifaceted and has an impact on the lives of others.
