When a leadership vacancy opens, the instinct is understandable — find someone who has done this before. But as higher education moves deeper into a decade defined by rapid change, that instinct deserves a second look. The skills that carried institutions through the last twenty years may not be the ones that will carry them through the next ten.
So what will leadership require by 2035? The ability to build and sustain authentic community at a time when student belonging and campus culture have never mattered more. A fluency in partnership — with industry, with donors, with legislators, and with the broader communities institutions serve. An entrepreneurial mindset that can identify new paths forward when traditional models are under pressure. And the kind of adaptive, people-centered leadership that earns trust across an increasingly diverse campus landscape.
Search committees do important work — and the best ones are already asking these questions. But the field as a whole must be willing to look beyond the familiar profile and hire for the future their institutions need.
The leaders of 2035 may not look like the leaders of today — and that is an exciting opportunity.
