- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
May 2, 2026
Read Time - 4 minutes
"You can have consensus or you can have speed. Rarely both." ~ Reed Hasting, co-founder of Netflix
Tell me if you've seen this rerun before: A campus announces a budget shortfall so staggering it couldn't possibly have appeared overnight. Behind the scenes: weeks of analysis and modeling. Then the announcement lands: "We need to cut 10%." Or: "Benefits are being reduced."
Faculty and staff are stunned. "How did we not see this coming? Wasn't there a planning process?"
The answer is almost always yes. There were town halls. There was a planning process. But somewhere between when leadership understood the problem and when they announced the solution, the faculty and staff got left behind.
It may not be a multi-million dollar deficit, but if you're recognizing yourself in the communication gap of difficult decisions, I fully sympathize. You likely made one of these reasonable calls: you needed to fully assess the problem before raising alarm bells, who you report to required confidentiality while you modeled options, you worried that incomplete information would trigger panic, or you decided first and planned to communicate second.
All reasonable in the moment. And all of it can create a shock when your decision is announced.
The Real Problem Isn't Communication
Campus leaders are trapped between three incompatible demands: speed (some crises don't wait), shared governance (the culture requires collaboration), and transparency (people deserve to know what's happening).
You cannot have all three. The math doesn't work.
A truly transparent, fully shared decision takes months. Financial constraints sometimes demand decisions in days. Sharing incomplete information while assessing? That creates organized resistance that kills both speed and shared governance.
Most leaders try to have it all and end up compromising on everything. They communicate some things, involve people partially, move somewhat quickly. The result feels like betrayal because it wasn't genuinely collaborative, wasn't fully transparent, and didn't move fast enough to solve the problem.
The damage doesn't come from speed itself or from holding things back. It comes from saying you're doing one thing while actually doing another.
Has higher ed ever made a major decision they were happy with that didn't involve months of deliberation and consensus-building? It's how the culture works. So when a crisis hits and requires decisions in weeks, but the culture requires months of deliberation, you're asking leaders to operate against the grain of how institutions are built. You can't sync those two things through better emails.
The Framework: Two Independent Axes
Here's what matters: you operate on two independent axes. Decide where you are on each, own that choice, and stay consistent.
Axis 1: Speed of Decision
FAST: Leadership decides in days to weeks.
SLOW: Shared governance involved, takes weeks to months
Axis 2: Transparency Level
HIGH: Share what you know as you know it, even if incomplete
LOW: Share constraints and final decision, not the in-process deliberation
What This Looks Like
FAST + HIGH TRANSPARENCY
You're moving quickly and telling people early with full context: "We discovered this constraint last week. We don't have time for deliberation, so I'm deciding with the leadership team. Here's what we know, here's what we're doing, and here's why. I'm also being clear about what won't change — the values and priorities that guide this decision. That gives you the guardrails so you understand what's being touched and what's protected."
Legitimate because: You're being honest about both the speed and the transparency.
Not every situation allows for speed. Here's what it looks like when you slow down but maintain full transparency...
SLOW + HIGH TRANSPARENCY
You're moving slowly and sharing everything openly:
"This is a significant decision, and it belongs in shared governance. We're going to take 6-8 weeks to deliberate. Here are all the constraints, all the options, all the trade-offs. Let's think through this together."
Legitimate because: You're actually deferring, not pretending to deliberate while deciding alone.
Shared governance doesn't always mean sharing everything in real time. Here's the difference when you deliberate privately but announce publicly...
SLOW + LOW TRANSPARENCY
You're deliberating in a smaller group and will announce after deciding:
"We're assessing this problem in our governance structure. We're not ready to share details yet because we're still sorting through implications. Here's when we'll have an answer and we'll explain it fully then."
Legitimate because: You're being honest about what you're doing and when people will know more.
Sometimes speed is unavoidable. Here's what that looks like when you have no choice but to move fast and announce after deciding...
FAST + LOW TRANSPARENCY
You decide quickly and announce after.:
"We discovered a shortfall that requires immediate action. We've decided to cut 15% of discretionary spending, effective [date]. Here's the full reasoning and here's how we got here."
The risk: This is where votes of no confidence live. If you're here, you absolutely must explain the reasoning and constraint clearly. People can usually accept fast decisions if they understand why they were necessary.
The Bottom Line
When decision-making feels foggy — when people can't tell if you're moving fast or slow, transparent or strategic — they prepare for the worst-case scenario. That uncertainty is what creates many of the problems. Not the decision itself.
The ethical move here? It's not trying to have it all. It's choosing clearly and owning that choice.
Notice I say this is the ethical move, not the conflict-free move. These are tough decisions about change that disrupt people's lives. There will be pushback. This framework helps you make those decisions with clarity and integrity, not pretend they don't carry costs.
There's no solution that makes everyone happy. Sometimes the right decision upsets people. Sometimes smart communication and transparency don't stop votes of no confidence or campus anger. I don't consider that a failure of leadership.
The real leadership move: Be transparent and ethical about your intentions and your process. Accept that you might still get criticized for the decision. And be prepared for the possibility that good leadership in hard times might still result in campus conflict.
That's not a communication failure. That's the cost of making hard decisions in a time when
resources are scarce, stakes are high, and individual leaders often bear the brunt of these hard choices alone.
Try This Before Friday
Think about a significant decision made above you — by your dean, provost, president, or board. Where did they land on the axes? Did they move fast or slow? Did they share everything as they learned it, or reveal the constraint and reasoning only when announcing?
Were they consistent throughout?
What was the cost of their choice? If they shifted position mid-course, how did people react?
That clarity — understanding the bind and the trade-offs — is what changes how you'll lead when it's your turn to make the hard call.
That's all for today.
See you next week!
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