- Kevin Sanders
- Jan 3
- 6 min read
January 3, 2026
Read Time - 4 minutes
"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions. They're too neat. Too tidy. Like you're supposed to identify the right goals on January 1, and somehow they'll stay relevant through personal upheavals, shifting priorities, and whatever curveballs the year throws at you. But here's what really bothers me: the idea that meaningful change requires waiting for some arbitrary date to grant you permission. As if you can't change your life on a random Tuesday in October. So instead of resolutions, I think about commitments—big-picture mindsets that guide how you lead. Less about what you'll do, more about who you're becoming. Here are four worth considering—whether it's January 1 or July 15—that keep coming up in my conversations with campus leaders.
1. Ask More Questions Than You Answer
Most academic leaders default to problem-solving mode. Someone brings you an issue, and you tell them what to do. They're stuck, and you unstick them. They ask for advice, and you give it. Immediately. Confidently. It makes sense—you spent your entire career becoming the expert.
The person with answers. That's how you earned credibility.
But constant problem-solving has a cost: your people don't have to think strategically for themselves. Here's a different approach:
What if your job wasn't to have all the answers, but to help people find their own? Instead of "Here's what I'd do," you ask:
"What do you think is really driving this?
What would success actually look like?
What's your instinct telling you?"
It's slower. It requires more patience. It means sitting with someone's uncertainty instead of immediately resolving it.
But here's what happens when you shift from solving to questioning: People develop judgment. They build confidence. They stop showing up at your door for every minor decision because they've learned to think through problems themselves.
You're not just helping them today.
You're building their capacity for next year.
2. Protect Time for Strategic Thinking
Academic leaders are almost universally excellent at being responsive. You answer emails within hours. You show up to every committee meeting. You keep your door open. You pride yourself on being accessible, helpful, present.
Here's the problem: responsiveness isn't the same thing as strategic leadership. In fact, they're often opposites.
Strategy requires uninterrupted time to think about next year, not just next week. It means asking "What does this unit need to look like in three years?" instead of only asking "How do I solve today's crisis?"
But many leaders I know feel guilty about blocking time to think. Because thinking doesn't look productive. It doesn't generate immediate results. It doesn't make anyone feel helped in the moment.
And there's always someone who needs something right now.
Here's what I want you to hear: protecting time to think about the health of your unit, the development of your people, the direction of your programs isn't selfishness.
It's your job. The inbox refills every morning.
The meetings multiply every semester.
The urgent requests never stop.
Strategy only happens when you decide that your most important work won't be dictated by other people's urgency.
3. Get Comfortable with Disappointing People
This one comes up constantly in coaching: the exhaustion of trying to make everyone happy.
You make a curriculum decision—half the faculty think you're moving too fast, the other half think you're dragging your feet.
You shift a budget line—someone's convinced you don't understand their needs.
You support one hire over another—and suddently you're playing favorites.
Academic leaders exist in an impossible position.
You're accountable to faculty, students, upper administration, donors, boards, accreditors. And these groups want different things. Sometimes contradictory things.
The truth nobody tells you when you take the job: you will disappoint people.
Regularly.
No matter how thoughtful you are.
No matter how hard you work to be fair.
Getting comfortable with this doesn't mean being reckless or dismissive.
It means anchoring yourself in your own values—what matters to you, what kind of leader you want to be—so you're not constantly swayed by whoever's unhappy this week.
When you're clear on what you stand for, you can choose whose opinions actually matter: the people you trust, the colleagues who understand the full complexity of the decisions at hand.
Everyone else's disappointment?
You acknowledge it. You don't dismiss it. But you don't let it paralyze you.
The cost of trying to please everyone isn't just exhaustion—it's mediocrity.
Worth reading: If this commitment hit home, I highly recommend The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. It's a challenging read that completely reframes how you think about whose opinions actually matter in your life.
4. Protect What Makes You Human
This is the commitment that shows up in almost every coaching conversation I have.
"I haven't touched my research in two years."
"I haven't written anything in eighteen months."
"I used to love teaching. Now I resent it because it takes time away from administration."
Here's what makes this commitment so challenging: Leadership work is bottomless.
There's always another email to answer. Another meeting you could attend. Another way to be more accessible, more responsive, more helpful. And all of it would be useful. All of it would matter to someone.
The pull toward doing more in your role is constant. And it doesn't feel selfish to say yes to it—it feels responsible. Until one day you realize you've sacrificed everything that isn't the job.
Here's the mythology that wrecks academic leaders: that taking on a leadership role means sacrificing everything else. That the title requires total surrender.
That you can't be a good leader and still be a whole person.
It's a lie.
The parts of your identity beyond the title—your research, your teaching, your creative work, your relationships, your rest—those aren't luxuries. They're not selfish indulgences you'll get back to "someday." They're what make you functional.
Protecting what makes you human isn't about work-life balance. It's about protecting the things that connect you to yourself before you had the title.
Maybe it's teaching one course every year.
Maybe it's protecting Tuesday mornings for writing.
Maybe it's leaving by 5:00 on Thursdays to coach your kid's soccer team.
Maybe it's a hard stop on email after 8:00 PM.
Whatever it is, it's not negotiable.
The leaders I've seen sustain themselves over decades?
They all have something they refuse to give up. It's not selfish. It's how they stay effective.
Bottom Line
These commitments aren't performance goals.
They're shifts in how you think about yourself as a leader.
They won't all come naturally. Some will take months to internalize.
Some will feel right for a few weeks and then you'll lose them for a month.
That's normal.
The question isn't whether you'll live into these commitments perfectly.
The question is whether you'll orient toward them consistently—whether they'll become part of how you think about your leadership, how you make decisions, how you show up.
And here's the thing: you don't have to wait until January 1 to start.
You can choose one right now.
This week.
Today.
Try This Before Friday
Choose the commitment that resonates most with where you are right now.
Write it on something physical—a sticky note, an index card, whatever.
Put it somewhere you'll actually see it:
next to your keyboard, on your desk calendar, taped to your office door.
Then just pay attention.
Notice when you're living into this commitment.
Notice when you're not.
No judgment. Just awareness.
You'd be surprised how much shifts when you simply start paying attention.
That's it for today. Wishing you a 2026 full of clear commitments, not endless resolutions.
See you next week.
P.S. If you want to work on these commitments with other academic leaders, I'm opening a new group coaching cohort in late January. Sustainable Campus Leadership: Eight leaders, biweekly sessions, focused on protecting strategic time, developing your people, and sustaining yourself in the role.
Space is limited. Learn more →
When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
💡 1:1 Coaching
When you need a thinking partner who gets higher ed leadership. We'll tackle your specific challenges—navigating politics, building systems that stick, protecting time for strategic work, or managing that difficult personality. Limited spots each quarter. → Reply and tell me what you're working on.
🗣️ Workshops & Speaking
Help your team stop spinning their wheels. Interactive sessions that teach practical skills: making better decisions faster, handling conflict productively, and creating systems that free up time instead of consuming it. Your campus. Your challenges. Tailored solutions. → Reply and tell me what you're looking for.
📥 Free Resource
Your First 14 Days: The essential playbook for new academic leaders [Download]