Partners in Progress: Academic and Business Leadership

So then, again, kind of along those lines, every leadership team at an institution have faced or they will face moments when resources are limited and priorities are in competition.

Again, to kind of go back to this, how have you built enough trust? I want to talk about the trust behind this.

How have you built the trust to have those honest conversations without competition? damaging the relationship? And then maybe we'll talk about perhaps maybe some advice you might give to leaders.

But how do you build the trust to have the honest conversations?

I would say that it begins with building the relationship before you have to make hard decisions.

So the moment that you have a crisis or something really challenging, that's really difficult to be building the trust then.

So I think it's really important.

And so that's a part of our relationship is we've spent a lot of time.

We meet every week, every single week.

And so that's a part of it is that we've invested in communicating about what's happening at the institution, the resource constraints and all the things that we need to be doing.

So I think it begins from that.

So when you're in a crisis, you have built the deposits of trust.

I think there's a lot that's also dependent on transparency and being able to provide, you know, sometimes financial matters can feel like that, you know, somewhat not as hidden.

So to be transparent, I think, is a really important part of the relationship and to share that.

I like it.

Julia?

I agree.

I think, you know, we are different in many ways, which is why I described this as complementary.

But I would say one value that we really share is transparency.

And I know, I mean, I have an experimental psychology background.

So I know that when I see the data, that it's appropriate, that Lillian has thought it through.

She will sometimes talk to me about, well, this is this much this year, but this is how much it's going to be in three years, right? If we commit to this now...

We have to take care of it moving forward.

So I think the transparency and the interest in appropriately measuring things really, really helps in this relationship.