September 6, 2025

Read Time - 4 minutes

“A bad system will beat a good person every time.”

— W. Edwards Deming

Picture this: You're reviewing faculty travel requests.

One faculty member turns in a request with receipts, itemized estimates, and a color-coded spreadsheet. Another emails you “I’ll need about $500.” A third waits until the day before the trip.

You shake your head and think: “Why can’t people just follow directions?”

Rest assured, this is a common thought for anyone who has had to manage others.

But it's good to stop and think: did we ever define the process?

That inconsistency isn't always laziness or carelessness. It’s often the absence of a shared template, a consistent process, or a clear plan for handling submissions.

What looks like a “people problem” is almost always a systems or expectation problem in disguise.

The Misdiagnosis Leaders Make

We’re quick to pin issues on individuals:

• “He’s confrontational.” → But conflict norms haven’t been discussed, so disagreement feels like personal attack instead of healthy dialogue.

• ”Our meetings always go off track because people talk too much.” → But there’s no agenda, facilitator, or agreed-upon norms for discussion.

• “Nobody on this committee is engaged.” → But the committee charge is vague and decision rights aren’t clear.

These are patterns where poor systems can create performance issues. And when leaders miss that distinction, they waste energy “fixing” individuals instead of addressing the real issue.

Gallup reports that only 32% of U.S. employees are engaged, with unclear expectations as the #1 driver of disengagement (Gallup, 2023).

Why Unspoken Expectations Derail Teams

Every one of us carries an internal definition of what “good communication,” “collaboration,” or “accountability” looks like. The problem? Those definitions aren’t the same.

• One person thinks “good communication” means daily updates. Another assumes “no news is good news.”

• One faculty member defines “collaboration” as co-authoring. Another sees it as simply not blocking others’ work.

• One chair defines “mission alignment” as recruiting majors; another thinks it’s publications.
  

When those expectations stay unspoken, the results are predictable: a variety of interpretations that can create missed deadlines, uneven workloads, side conversations, disengaged meetings. What looks like resistance or laziness is often just two people working from different playbooks.

That’s why many of the “personnel problems” leaders face aren’t really about people at all. They’re about the absence of shared expectations.

The Five Cultural Expectations Every Academic Leader Should Define

When higher ed leaders talk about expectations, we usually mean workloads or deliverables: teaching loads, research output, committee service.

But the expectations that matter most aren’t about what gets done. They’re about how we work together while doing it.

These cultural expectations usually stay unspoken—yet they’re the glue that holds teams together. Without them, even talented people stumble. With them, you replace frustration with alignment and momentum. Here are five cultural expectations every leader should name out loud:

1.) Collaboration

• When named: Colleagues share credit, support each other, and contribute to decisions.

• When unspoken: Turf wars, silos, “not my job.”

• How to create it: Define how shared work gets done—set norms for joint projects, clarify roles on committees, and celebrate collective wins.

2.) Communication

• When named: Concerns are raised early, updates flow, transparency is the norm.

• When unspoken: Side conversations, passive-aggressive emails, silence until a crisis erupts.

• How to create it: Agree on communication channels and rhythms—what belongs in email, meetings, or 1:1s—and use deadlines to make expectations explicit for response times.

3.) Conflict Engagement

• When named: Disagreements are voiced respectfully in the room.

• When unspoken: Avoidance, resentment, and hallway whispering.

• How to create it: Establish ground rules for meetings—invite dissent, model curiosity, and agree to keep hard conversations inside the room.

4.) Mission Alignment

• When named: Daily decisions connect to the unit’s purpose.

• When unspoken: Everyone optimizes for personal goals while collective progress can stall.

• How to create it: Regularly connect individual work back to department or school goals—use retreats, annual reviews, and even casual check-ins to reinforce shared purpose.

5.) Accountability

• When named: Commitments are honored, and misses are owned.

• When unspoken: Deadlines slip, work piles on the same few shoulders, and frustration builds.

• How to create it: Set clear timelines, document decisions, and normalize follow-up—so accountability feels like structure, not surprise.

When was the last time you sat down with your team and talked openly about any of these five expectations—not just what work gets done, but how you’ll do it together?

Try This Before Friday

Take one recurring “personnel issue.”

Write down the complaint: “They don’t communicate.”

Ask: What expectation hasn’t been defined?

Then Reframe: “We’ve never agreed on how to keep each other informed when things go off track.”

This reframing moves the problem from fixing people to fixing culture and systems.

The Bottom Line

Most programs never take the time to talk about how they want to show up together.

If you haven’t done this before, don’t go it alone. Co-author expectations with your team. Start small—with your leadership group or a single committee—then expand. Let people define together what collaboration, communication, and accountability really mean in your context.

When expectations are named and owned, the dynamic shifts. Friction drops. Trust grows. Decisions move faster. And instead of pouring energy into fixing “personnel issues,” you create the clarity and alignment that unlocks real progress.

That’s the gift of leadership: not fixing people, but designing systems where people can thrive—and where the work that matters most finally has room to flourish.

That's all for today.

I'll see you next Saturday.

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