Get your evenings back.
In 8 weeks.
The Designed Leader is an 8-week cohort that helps academic leaders build the systems to lead with intention: more time for the work that matters, a team that owns its work, and the clarity to move the initiatives that count.
Every session produces something concrete you implement that week. Time architecture, delegation frameworks, decision clarity, communication rhythms, all built for your specific context. You leave with tools you'll use for the rest of your career and a peer community that understands academic leadership from the inside.
The February cohort is closed
The next session starts June 2026
Sessions meet Fridays, 12–1pm CST: June 12, 19, 26 · July 10, 24, 31 · August 7
Program capped at 10 members.
APPLICATIONS ARE REVIEWED — COHORTS ARE BUILT INTENTIONALLY.
Stop reacting to your job. Start designing it.
Academic leadership roles are rarely designed from scratch. They're inherited. The shape of your week, your inbox, your calendar: most of it reflects decisions made before you arrived or accumulated gradually without intention. The Designed Leader gives you eight weeks to step back and build the role around what you actually need to lead well.
When leaders join this cohort, they often arrive carrying some version of this:
"I have a great team. So why does everything still come back to me?"
"It's faster to do it myself. I know that's exactly the problem."
"I keep telling myself I'll get to the strategic work. I've been saying that for six months."
"I do my real work before 7am, after 9pm, or on weekends. The rest of the day belongs to everyone else."
"I took this job to build something. Most days I feel like I'm just keeping the lights on."
"There's nobody above me to ask and nobody below me I can be honest with."
Every one of these is a systems problem.
And systems problems have systems solutions.
That's exactly what we build.
75+
21+
1,600+
Academic leaders across 30+ countries who read The Academic Leader's Playbook every week
Leaders coached to get their time and purpose back across every type of institution
Institutions engaged, from community colleges and liberal arts colleges to regional universities and R1s
This is the hidden curriculum of higher ed leadership — the part that never shows up in your training, your onboarding, or your faculty development program.
How to architect your week when managing others. How to build decision-making frameworks that keep decisions with the people closest to the work. How to develop a team that leads without you in every room.
That's what The Designed Leader is built to provide.
Here's what I hear most:
Is this actually fixable, or is this just how the job works?
The demands of academic leadership are real. But most of what makes the role feel unmanageable is structural, not personal. Structural problems have structural solutions, and the leaders who've been through this program leave with both.
I'm already stretched thin. Can I add one more thing?
Not everything that takes your time returns equal value. The 60 minutes per week you invest here pays back quickly — through the systems you build, you reclaim time that was previously lost to decisions that should belong to others, meetings you don't need to own, and work that could be handled without you. You leave each session with something you implement that week, which means the program starts returning time before it ends.
Will this translate to my specific institution?
Every system we build is designed around your actual context. The underlying dynamics of academic leadership — faculty governance, competing priorities, the relational weight of the work — are consistent across institutions. The application is always yours.
Could I figure this out on my own?
Many leaders do, over time. This program compresses that process into eight weeks, with structure, accountability, and a cohort of peers working through the same challenges alongside you.
"Before working with Dr. Sanders, I didn't realize how many meetings I was attending out of protocol rather than where I could actually add value. Learning to protect my time was a stretch for me, but for the first time since becoming a dean, my work feels manageable."
Summer 2025 Cohort
Associate Dean
University of Arkansas
"I was working 60+ hour weeks and still felt like I was failing. Kevin helped me put systems in place that freed me up for the work only I can do. Simple changes, massive difference in how I use my time."
Summer 2025 Cohort
Department Chair
University of Texas-Tyler
"I didn't realize how many decisions I was making that my staff could handle. After we built clear decision criteria and roles, I was able to get out of the way. Now my team owns their work, and I'm doing the strategic work that I love."
Spring 2026 Cohort
Student Services
University of Northern Illinois
About Kevin Sanders
As a dean, director, and department chair in higher education, I spent over twenty years building the people-centered systems that let institutions execute. Along the way, our team opened a $44 million Performing Arts Center, achieved record enrollment at two institutions, launched new academic programs, and built a student success center from scratch. The work I'm most proud of is the teams I developed: faculty and staff who led the school forward without needing me in every room.
I hold ICF coaching certification, completed leadership training at Harvard and Cornell, and am a Fellow of the ASU-Georgetown Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership. Every week I write The Academic Leader's Playbook for 1,300+ campus leaders across 30 countries.
I built The Designed Leader because the systems that transformed how I led are teachable, and every leader who learns them sooner leads sustainably, and with more time for the work they came to higher education to do.
What's Different About This Program
01
Practitioner Knowledge.
I've held many different leadership roles in higher education — research coordinator, department chair, associate dean, dean. Twenty years of managing teams, navigating faculty governance, and making decisions inside the same institutional constraints you're facing. This isn't built from research about academic leadership. It's built from doing it.
02
Operational Systems
Every session produces something concrete — a decision matrix, a meeting structure, a communication rhythm — that you implement before the next call. The goal is tools you use on Monday, not insight that lives in a notebook.
03
Structural Solutions for Structural Problems.
Most of what makes academic leadership unsustainable is a design problem. The role was handed to you without a blueprint, and much of what's wearing you down is structural. Structural problems have structural solutions. That's exactly what we build in this program.
Imagine this...
It's 8 weeks from now. You walk into Monday morning and your calendar has white space. Actual thinking time. Because you redesigned how your week works.
A crisis lands in your inbox. Instead of dropping everything, your team handles it using the decision criteria you built together. You don't hear about it until the debrief.
Your boss asks about your unit's strategic progress. You have an answer because you've been doing the work, not just managing the noise
You leave campus on Friday and don't open your laptop all weekend. The systems are holding
You feel like the leader you imagined you'd be when you took this role.
In just 8 weeks:
A fully designed weekly time architecture you'll use every Monday morning for the rest of your career.
A delegation decision matrix that tells your team exactly what they can decide, what they should escalate, and what only you should own.
A communication rhythm that keeps your unit informed and aligned without your inbox becoming a second job.
A meeting audit that eliminates the meetings you're attending out of habit rather than impact.
A set of boundary scripts — real language for real situations — so saying no doesn't feel like failing the people you lead.
A team development plan that builds capacity in your unit over the next 12 months.
Deep relationships with other academic leaders who understand your world and will keep showing up for you after the cohort ends.
The next session starts June 2026.
Group coaching calls held weekly, LIVE on Zoom
Small groups by design.
The cohort is capped at 10 — because the depth of this work requires it.
Because of the high-touch and personalized nature of this program, I only offer two cohorts per year.
Applications reviewed — cohorts are built intentionally.
"If you're a leader who's tired of the job running you instead of the other way around, reach out to Kevin. I wish I'd done it sooner.
He's been in the role, he understands the complexity of leadership from the inside, and he coaches from that experience. He's helped me change how I actually show up every week.
I can't say enough about the combination of credibility and genuine care he brings. One of the best investments I've made in my own leadership."
Dr. Richard White
Professor, University of New Mexico
Author, I'm Possible
Here's What We Build Together
This isn't a lecture series. It's a working cohort where you build real systems you'll use the week you learn them.
Weekly Time Design
You didn't take this role to manage a calendar. We build a weekly structure that protects your deep work and keeps the urgent from swallowing the important.
Communication Rhythms
Email is not a communication strategy. It's a symptom of not having one. We design the meeting cadences and update structures that keep your unit aligned without your inbox running the show.
Smart Delegation
Your team is more capable than they're being asked to be. We build the capacity and clarity that let them own their work, so you can own yours.
Developing Your People
A strong unit doesn't happen by accident. We map who's ready to grow, what they need from you to get there, and how to create the conditions for them to lead.
Decision Clarity
When decision rights are unclear, everything escalates back to you. We establish exactly what your team can decide, what needs your input, and what only you should own.
Sustainable Boundaries
Knowing you need boundaries and knowing how to hold them are two different things. I give you the real language for the real moments when saying no feels impossible.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
INSIDE THE 8-WEEK DESIGNED LEADER COHORT
Group Coaching Sessions
Live working sessions held weekly where we solve real problems in real time. You'll leave each call with something you can implement that week.
Value: $2500
Templates & Resources
Purpose-built tools for higher ed administrators: Time Architecture template, Delegation Decision Matrix, Communication Rhythm Planner, and more. Ready to use the week you learn them.
Value: $600
Private Coaching Sessions
One 60-minute session that's entirely yours. Bring the challenge that's too specific for a group setting — your situation, your team, your version of the problem. We build the solution around you.
Value: $400
Recorded Sessions Access
Every session is recorded and shared within 24 hours. Revisit the frameworks on your schedule, or go back to a breakthrough you couldn't write down fast enough.
Value: $650
Private WhatsApp Chat
A real-time channel connecting every participant between sessions: for the Tuesday crisis, the quick sanity check, and the win you want to share with people who actually get what it took.
Value: $500
A Community of Higher Ed Leaders
A group of leaders navigating the same political complexity, budget constraints, and impossible tradeoffs. You'll learn as much from them as from me. These relationships don't end when the cohort does.
Value: Priceless
The next session starts June 2026.
Group coaching calls held live on Zoom, Fridays 12–1pm CST: June 12, 19, 26 · July 10, 24, 31 · August 7
Applications reviewed — cohorts are built intentionally.
What Participants Say After The Designed Leader:
“There's nothing better than seeing my team make decisions I used to make.”
“The delegation matrix alone was worth the entire cohort.”
“I finally see white space on my calendar. That felt impossible 8 weeks ago.”
“I know what I’m doing this Monday morning. That clarity is new for me.”
"I came for the frameworks. I stayed for the people in the room."
“I came in skeptical. I’m leaving with systems I’ll use for the rest of my career.”
“I left campus on Friday and didn’t open my laptop all weekend. First time in two semesters.”
“For the first time since becoming a chair, I feel like I’m leading instead of surviving.”
“The cohort community was unexpected. Peers who actually get it and we're still texting 6 months later.”
Leaders who see the best results are typically...
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Campus leaders who are great at their jobs and exhausted by how much of it still lands on their plate.
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Those who've tried managing their time better and sense the problem runs deeper than that.
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Leaders who want systems that hold up under real institutional pressure, built for the long term rather than the next two weeks.
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Leaders who value learning alongside peers who actually understand the political complexity and relational weight of this work.
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People who are ready to build. Every session produces something you'll use that week.
MY COMMITMENT TO YOU
These systems work. I've used them myself and coached 75+ leaders through them. If you show up and do the work, this will change how you lead. If after the first two sessions it isn't the right fit, send me an email and I'll refund your full investment, no questions asked.
Many participants use institutional professional development funds. I'm happy to provide documentation to support your PD funding request.
Ready to Become The Designed Leader?
Applications reviewed — cohorts are built intentionally.
10 seats. Next cohort starts June 2026.
Common Questions
One last thing...
If you've read this far, you're probably asking yourself: is this actually worth it?
And you could keep doing what you've been doing — carving out time where you can, telling yourself things will slow down next semester, managing your way through another year the same way you managed through the last one.
Or you're here because you've already tried that.
So here we are, and a new academic year is right in front of you.
Imagine looking back at December and pointing to this exact moment as the thing that changed how you lead. A year where you finally moved the initiatives that matter. Where your team owned their work and you owned yours. Where you made progress on the goals that move programs forward, and still had your evenings.
That's not a distant vision. It's eight weeks of work away.
The cohort starts June 2026. It fills at 10.
The next step is yours.
Investment: $975.
Ask me about institutional PD funding.
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Every Saturday, I send The Academic Leader's Playbook to campus leaders in over 30 countries to help them lead people, fix broken systems, and stay human.