I started wearing a hat like this Oh 12
or 13 years ago I guess but when I
started wearing it I knew the reason I
was wearing it it had a functional
purpose when you have a head like a mine
you need a little protection so my
doctor said but I had no idea when I
started wearing this style cap that it
would become a part of my identity as a
college president I walk across our
college campus at Point University
nearly every day I meet with people in
the community with donors with students
and I’m often identified by my hat in
fact if I failed to show up without this
hat someone will now doubtedly say
where’s your hat we know you buy your
hat well I got to thinking about that
and I realized that leaders are often
known by their hats you’ve heard many
times just as I have about the various
hats that leaders wear so I started
pondering that and realized maybe I
needed to reconsider the hats I wear and
I want to suggest to you as a leader
that it’s probably time that you
consider your selection of leadership
hats as well well in order to go on this
journey I decided I really did need to
understand a little bit more about hats
so I did some research and found that
basically as smart as they are the
historians and archaeologists aren’t
really sure when hats were started being
won for the first time but it seems as
if it goes all the way back to the
beginning of humankind on our earth we
discovered hats and artifacts and people
wore hats it seems for about the same
reason people wear hats now if it’s hot
outside in the
sun is shining you’ll wear a hat to keep
the Sun off your skin or your head if
it’s cold outside you put a hat on to
make your body and your head warmer so
people have been using hats for
functional purposes for a long time but
as I read some of the literature I also
found out that sometimes leaders wore
hats as a statement of power or an
identification of power here’s one of
the early ancient people hats if you
wore this around you would get some
attention but wearing a hat for the
purpose of demonstrating power is
probably not the best style of
leadership I got to thinking about my
first hat what was my first hat
well I remembered that when I was over
three or four years old I found one of
these now this is a costume version mine
was a real version my father served in
World War two in the United States Navy
and I found one of his sailor caps now
in all honesty what I tended to do
because I grew up in the era of
Gilligan’s Island as I would turn it
inside out and wear it like this you
don’t have a whole lot of leadership
game when you wear your hat like that so
people wear hats for different reasons I
quit doing that and I began to wear a
hat more like this baseball cap I wore
that hat because I loved baseball I
played it all the time and so I would
often be found in my baseball cap
baseball caps have become a huge
industry by the way everyone has adopted
this style of hat truckers wear this hat
golfers wear this hat celebrities wear
this hat this hat has all kinds of names
and it’s now over a billion dollar
annual industry that was interesting to
me and then I started realizing you know
when I became the interim president I
really
didn’t understand how many different
hats I would wear as an executive leader
and it wasn’t long as a president that
we had to make some significant changes
because our industry was in great flux
technology had disrupted higher
education much like it’s disrupted every
industry there were demands put on price
what’s the value of education there were
some that argue and still argue that the
reason why you should go to college is
to learn a skill and get a job there’s
others that think that you go to college
to gain knowledge and wisdom and prepare
for life there were all kinds of
expectations in the market about what
our college should be and how much we
should charge and how we would deliver
content and one of the things that we
did very early on is we realize we were
in the wrong physical location and so I
came to the town where our college
resides now West Point Georgia and we
held a press conference at the time the
colleges main campus was in East Point a
suburb of metro Atlanta I came down to
this area there were a hundred people at
a press conference and I stood before
the microphone and the television
cameras and said this today Atlanta
Christian College is changing her name
to Point University we’re also
announcing that we’re moving our main
campus from East Point Georgia near
Atlanta to West Point Georgia seventy
miles south and on the state line and
we’re also starting a college football
team that was a big announcement and I
needed another hat really quickly what I
found out that the next such segment of
my life I was going to be the chief
storyteller not the chief executive
officer captain hat tells a pretty good
story that’s my representation of a
storyteller but I found out that I
needed to tell the point University
story early and often I needed to tell
it to students I needed to tell it to
faculty I needed to tell it to the
community where we were departing to the
community where we were
moving and on and on I had to tell the
story and I found out the more we told
the story the more the story became real
the more people bought in to the vision
but simply renaming a college or
university and relocating a college or
university was not going to be enough to
compete with the demands in our industry
we had to think about a lot of different
things and so I had to make a lot of
changes and introduced a lot of changes
so I had to get the Hat of a change
agent now you say well that’s a
construction hat that’s a hard hat well
let me tell you when you make changes
you better have something hard on your
head because people don’t really like
change in one season of my life I worked
as a marriage and family therapist I
have a background in counseling and
psychology and marriage and family and I
learned working with families that they
would come needing to make a change and
yet they would resist making that change
and the reason that they would resist
and this is the reason most of us have
trouble with change is that we don’t
really want to change unless we’re
convinced that the thing we’re changing
to is better than the thing we’re
changing from and since none of us can
see the future we resist the change
because we’re not exactly sure how it’s
gonna work out that’s the nature of
change and yet in our industry we needed
to keep up we needed to keep up with
this new phenomenon of online education
and so one of the big changes we’ve made
in recent years is that we’ve gone fully
online with 45 different degree programs
that we have built and created just in
the last two to three years we had to
make a change in terms of the kinds of
degrees or level of degrees that we were
offering we were offering associate
degrees in bachelor degrees and we had
to change and add graduate degrees we
had to think about changes in our
price structure we introduced changed by
been our main campus by introducing a
number of sports teams to drive
enrollment it was changed after change
after change our enrollment changed when
we were in East Point Georgia we were a
little under 400 in student body this
fall were over 2200 that’s a lot of
change and then I realized I needed
another hat now this doesn’t really look
like a hat but it’s it’s my coaches hat
you know I thought about this hat as a
coaches hat there was a famous coach
that wore a hat like that but I went to
the other school the better school so I
didn’t want to use that hat so but I was
struck by by this piece of equipment if
you go to a sporting event you’ll see
the coach with one of these and there’ll
be a coach up above the field with one
of these and I realized that if we were
going to be successful in all of the
changes if we were going to be
successful in our storytelling and by
the way storytelling switched telling
stories about change I would need to
become a coach well coaches are an
interesting breed you see coaches can
set strategy coaches can design plays
coaches can recruit talent but the one
thing the coach can’t do is play on the
field and win the game you need a team
and so to keep up with our changing
story and to make the changes necessary
in our industry I had to learn how to
coach and allow my team to execute on
the field well there are a lot of
different hats that we could talk about
a lot of different leadership hats that
are out there but I want to tell you
about an experience that happened to me
about 22 years ago when I was in a
different industry I was working as a
consultant and I had a moment that I
think has defined my leadership to this
day as a consultant I was working with a
software company
in the electronic commerce space and
that company had recently learned that
they were going to be acquired by
another company who had recently done an
IPO these two companies were in
different states in the same industry
had been competitors now we’re going to
be one and I was asked by the company
that was being acquired if I would serve
as a consultant representing them and
helping the acquiring company integrate
this merger now when I was asked that I
literally said I really don’t know how
to do that I’ve never done anything like
that before
but the CEO said but you know us and you
know our business and you know our team
and this is their first acquisition they
could use your help and so off I went to
the parent company in Ohio and I did my
work I spent three months or so building
an integration plan figuring out how we
were gonna do stock options and manage
compensation and benefits and how many
days off the combined company would have
and all of the little details that’s
involved behind the scenes in a merger I
finished my work and I was now to meet
for the first time with the CEO of the
acquiring company I went into his new
office and I had my work plan I walked
him through what we were gonna do he
said sounds good I have some questions
for you he asked me some questions about
his management team because I’d work
with them he asked me questions about
the new management team that he was
acquired acquiring because he didn’t
know them and we shook hands and I
turned to leave I was almost to the door
when the CEO said Dean now remind me
you’re a consultant right I said yes sir
what are you gonna do next I said I
guess I’m gonna do consulting he said
how would you like to be my new
executive and work for me and run Human
Resources HR for the combined companies
well I was shocked and I had a moment
and I wondered what am I gonna say
and what I decided to say was just the
truth and here’s what I said well sir my
backgrounds in counseling and psychology
and therapy I’m pretty good at the age I
don’t have any idea even what the are is
and he said you’re hired
I need someone who understands people I
can pay someone to teach you what you
don’t know about human resources
wow that was a hats-off moment there I
was exposed I’d been honest I told the
truth
I shared from my heart what I knew and
what I didn’t know I indicated that I’m
willing to help but I have my
limitations and what I discovered was in
in that moment that CEO and I had a
connection at two levels we connected at
the head but where we really connected
was at the heart and I realized the
power of authentic leadership
hats off leadership leadership that’s
willing to be honest to be humble to
admit when they don’t know it leadership
that’s willing to be vulnerable I’ve
tried to practice that style of
leadership really every day since it’s
not uncommon that I walk across our
college campus and a student or a
faculty member a donor a friend will ask
me some particular question about some
detail in our catalog or financial aid
and I will gently in jokingly say you do
understand I’m the president right and
presidents really don’t know very much
about those kinds of details I’ll help
you find someone that can but what that
does it doesn’t turn people off it draws
people in you see when you’re willing to
practice hats off leadership you do
connect at the
had you then connect at the heart and
your leadership creates a very loyal and
interested followership I think you need
to consider your next leadership hat maybe it’s like mine hats off
or 13 years ago I guess but when I
started wearing it I knew the reason I
was wearing it it had a functional
purpose when you have a head like a mine
you need a little protection so my
doctor said but I had no idea when I
started wearing this style cap that it
would become a part of my identity as a
college president I walk across our
college campus at Point University
nearly every day I meet with people in
the community with donors with students
and I’m often identified by my hat in
fact if I failed to show up without this
hat someone will now doubtedly say
where’s your hat we know you buy your
hat well I got to thinking about that
and I realized that leaders are often
known by their hats you’ve heard many
times just as I have about the various
hats that leaders wear so I started
pondering that and realized maybe I
needed to reconsider the hats I wear and
I want to suggest to you as a leader
that it’s probably time that you
consider your selection of leadership
hats as well well in order to go on this
journey I decided I really did need to
understand a little bit more about hats
so I did some research and found that
basically as smart as they are the
historians and archaeologists aren’t
really sure when hats were started being
won for the first time but it seems as
if it goes all the way back to the
beginning of humankind on our earth we
discovered hats and artifacts and people
wore hats it seems for about the same
reason people wear hats now if it’s hot
outside in the
sun is shining you’ll wear a hat to keep
the Sun off your skin or your head if
it’s cold outside you put a hat on to
make your body and your head warmer so
people have been using hats for
functional purposes for a long time but
as I read some of the literature I also
found out that sometimes leaders wore
hats as a statement of power or an
identification of power here’s one of
the early ancient people hats if you
wore this around you would get some
attention but wearing a hat for the
purpose of demonstrating power is
probably not the best style of
leadership I got to thinking about my
first hat what was my first hat
well I remembered that when I was over
three or four years old I found one of
these now this is a costume version mine
was a real version my father served in
World War two in the United States Navy
and I found one of his sailor caps now
in all honesty what I tended to do
because I grew up in the era of
Gilligan’s Island as I would turn it
inside out and wear it like this you
don’t have a whole lot of leadership
game when you wear your hat like that so
people wear hats for different reasons I
quit doing that and I began to wear a
hat more like this baseball cap I wore
that hat because I loved baseball I
played it all the time and so I would
often be found in my baseball cap
baseball caps have become a huge
industry by the way everyone has adopted
this style of hat truckers wear this hat
golfers wear this hat celebrities wear
this hat this hat has all kinds of names
and it’s now over a billion dollar
annual industry that was interesting to
me and then I started realizing you know
when I became the interim president I
really
didn’t understand how many different
hats I would wear as an executive leader
and it wasn’t long as a president that
we had to make some significant changes
because our industry was in great flux
technology had disrupted higher
education much like it’s disrupted every
industry there were demands put on price
what’s the value of education there were
some that argue and still argue that the
reason why you should go to college is
to learn a skill and get a job there’s
others that think that you go to college
to gain knowledge and wisdom and prepare
for life there were all kinds of
expectations in the market about what
our college should be and how much we
should charge and how we would deliver
content and one of the things that we
did very early on is we realize we were
in the wrong physical location and so I
came to the town where our college
resides now West Point Georgia and we
held a press conference at the time the
colleges main campus was in East Point a
suburb of metro Atlanta I came down to
this area there were a hundred people at
a press conference and I stood before
the microphone and the television
cameras and said this today Atlanta
Christian College is changing her name
to Point University we’re also
announcing that we’re moving our main
campus from East Point Georgia near
Atlanta to West Point Georgia seventy
miles south and on the state line and
we’re also starting a college football
team that was a big announcement and I
needed another hat really quickly what I
found out that the next such segment of
my life I was going to be the chief
storyteller not the chief executive
officer captain hat tells a pretty good
story that’s my representation of a
storyteller but I found out that I
needed to tell the point University
story early and often I needed to tell
it to students I needed to tell it to
faculty I needed to tell it to the
community where we were departing to the
community where we were
moving and on and on I had to tell the
story and I found out the more we told
the story the more the story became real
the more people bought in to the vision
but simply renaming a college or
university and relocating a college or
university was not going to be enough to
compete with the demands in our industry
we had to think about a lot of different
things and so I had to make a lot of
changes and introduced a lot of changes
so I had to get the Hat of a change
agent now you say well that’s a
construction hat that’s a hard hat well
let me tell you when you make changes
you better have something hard on your
head because people don’t really like
change in one season of my life I worked
as a marriage and family therapist I
have a background in counseling and
psychology and marriage and family and I
learned working with families that they
would come needing to make a change and
yet they would resist making that change
and the reason that they would resist
and this is the reason most of us have
trouble with change is that we don’t
really want to change unless we’re
convinced that the thing we’re changing
to is better than the thing we’re
changing from and since none of us can
see the future we resist the change
because we’re not exactly sure how it’s
gonna work out that’s the nature of
change and yet in our industry we needed
to keep up we needed to keep up with
this new phenomenon of online education
and so one of the big changes we’ve made
in recent years is that we’ve gone fully
online with 45 different degree programs
that we have built and created just in
the last two to three years we had to
make a change in terms of the kinds of
degrees or level of degrees that we were
offering we were offering associate
degrees in bachelor degrees and we had
to change and add graduate degrees we
had to think about changes in our
price structure we introduced changed by
been our main campus by introducing a
number of sports teams to drive
enrollment it was changed after change
after change our enrollment changed when
we were in East Point Georgia we were a
little under 400 in student body this
fall were over 2200 that’s a lot of
change and then I realized I needed
another hat now this doesn’t really look
like a hat but it’s it’s my coaches hat
you know I thought about this hat as a
coaches hat there was a famous coach
that wore a hat like that but I went to
the other school the better school so I
didn’t want to use that hat so but I was
struck by by this piece of equipment if
you go to a sporting event you’ll see
the coach with one of these and there’ll
be a coach up above the field with one
of these and I realized that if we were
going to be successful in all of the
changes if we were going to be
successful in our storytelling and by
the way storytelling switched telling
stories about change I would need to
become a coach well coaches are an
interesting breed you see coaches can
set strategy coaches can design plays
coaches can recruit talent but the one
thing the coach can’t do is play on the
field and win the game you need a team
and so to keep up with our changing
story and to make the changes necessary
in our industry I had to learn how to
coach and allow my team to execute on
the field well there are a lot of
different hats that we could talk about
a lot of different leadership hats that
are out there but I want to tell you
about an experience that happened to me
about 22 years ago when I was in a
different industry I was working as a
consultant and I had a moment that I
think has defined my leadership to this
day as a consultant I was working with a
software company
in the electronic commerce space and
that company had recently learned that
they were going to be acquired by
another company who had recently done an
IPO these two companies were in
different states in the same industry
had been competitors now we’re going to
be one and I was asked by the company
that was being acquired if I would serve
as a consultant representing them and
helping the acquiring company integrate
this merger now when I was asked that I
literally said I really don’t know how
to do that I’ve never done anything like
that before
but the CEO said but you know us and you
know our business and you know our team
and this is their first acquisition they
could use your help and so off I went to
the parent company in Ohio and I did my
work I spent three months or so building
an integration plan figuring out how we
were gonna do stock options and manage
compensation and benefits and how many
days off the combined company would have
and all of the little details that’s
involved behind the scenes in a merger I
finished my work and I was now to meet
for the first time with the CEO of the
acquiring company I went into his new
office and I had my work plan I walked
him through what we were gonna do he
said sounds good I have some questions
for you he asked me some questions about
his management team because I’d work
with them he asked me questions about
the new management team that he was
acquired acquiring because he didn’t
know them and we shook hands and I
turned to leave I was almost to the door
when the CEO said Dean now remind me
you’re a consultant right I said yes sir
what are you gonna do next I said I
guess I’m gonna do consulting he said
how would you like to be my new
executive and work for me and run Human
Resources HR for the combined companies
well I was shocked and I had a moment
and I wondered what am I gonna say
and what I decided to say was just the
truth and here’s what I said well sir my
backgrounds in counseling and psychology
and therapy I’m pretty good at the age I
don’t have any idea even what the are is
and he said you’re hired
I need someone who understands people I
can pay someone to teach you what you
don’t know about human resources
wow that was a hats-off moment there I
was exposed I’d been honest I told the
truth
I shared from my heart what I knew and
what I didn’t know I indicated that I’m
willing to help but I have my
limitations and what I discovered was in
in that moment that CEO and I had a
connection at two levels we connected at
the head but where we really connected
was at the heart and I realized the
power of authentic leadership
hats off leadership leadership that’s
willing to be honest to be humble to
admit when they don’t know it leadership
that’s willing to be vulnerable I’ve
tried to practice that style of
leadership really every day since it’s
not uncommon that I walk across our
college campus and a student or a
faculty member a donor a friend will ask
me some particular question about some
detail in our catalog or financial aid
and I will gently in jokingly say you do
understand I’m the president right and
presidents really don’t know very much
about those kinds of details I’ll help
you find someone that can but what that
does it doesn’t turn people off it draws
people in you see when you’re willing to
practice hats off leadership you do
connect at the
had you then connect at the heart and
your leadership creates a very loyal and
interested followership I think you need
to consider your next leadership hat maybe it’s like mine hats off
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