|
In the latter part of the 19th century, higher education in the United States changed dramatically. Instead of the traditional prescribed classical curriculum — each student moving through the same courses in the same order — Harvard shifted to a system that allowed students to choose. The shift was profound, controversial, and far-reaching. The system we have today, with majors, minors, and general education requirements, is the consequence.
Now, more than 150 years later, the pressures are familiar: faster knowledge production, greater demand for individual choice, louder calls for practical education. AI has added urgency to what was already a crowded agenda. The leaders with a coaching mindset will have an advantage in this moment.
But institutions of 2026 face a challenge that Harvard president Charles Eliot didn't. He could impose his vision by presidential authority; today's leaders must do something harder — they must inspire faculty to want to change. That is a fundamentally different problem.
Those who teach in higher education are successful, in part, because of the ability to develop, assess, and dissect arguments. Unfortunately, this strength does nothing to make embracing change easier. Faculty resistance isn't irrational obstinance — it is a predictable consequence of the very skills that make faculty good at their jobs. The ability to identify weaknesses in an argument, stress-test proposals, remain skeptical until evidence compels otherwise: these are professional virtues. Applied to change, they become obstacles.
Good reasons for change are necessary but not sufficient. Research by Richard Boyatzis on intentional change suggests why: when people operate from anxiety or threat — what Boyatzis calls the Negative Emotional Attractor — they become defensive and closed to new possibilities. The "we're doomed if we don't change" argument, however accurate, reliably closes people down at the moment leaders most need them open.
What opens people up is a compelling vision — one that makes them want to do the hard work of change because they can see something genuinely worth working toward — and the assurance that their specific contribution will matter.
Sustaining change requires internal motivation: not the pressure of consequence, but the pull of something worth working toward. People sustain hard work when they have connected what they are being asked to do to something they genuinely care about.
This is where coaching becomes essential. Coaching doesn't manufacture motivation — it helps people discover and strengthen the motivation already there, connecting the work of change to what individuals actually value, what kind of institution they want to be part of, what they want their contribution to have meant. That internal motivation, once activated, sustains change through the inevitable difficulty of getting there.
Leaders who develop coaching capacity don't just make better arguments for change. They become the kind of people who can open others up to the possibility of it.
At LifeBound, coach trainers who have spent their careers in higher ed provide the training and mentorship leaders need to develop exactly this capacity. If you are ready to lead change rather than just argue for it, we invite you to join our next coaching cohort.
To learn more or explore which option is right for you, visit www.lifebound.com.
| 
