Well more leaders (Presidents) are leaving once they get their years in to get that salary and can retire. The average years of service for a President today is around 2-3 years. Are consultants to blame for that? Ehh, maybe.
What I’m finding is those who insist on using consulting firms for critical, executive positions do so because either the BoT or the President has no educational background/experience. Where I’m at now, our sister college needs a college President. So our Chancellor (that’s another story in itself) and BoT decided to use a search firm and pay them $150,000, all while we are in a “budget crunch.” What happened? It was declared a failed search. So they are going back out again this summer, using the same firm, paying the same 150k, and will come up with something that’s probably shit.
A friend of mine and I have a theory—we believe those who are hired because of the search firm are told to enter into an agreement that when they get to a certain level and they need to do a nationwide search, they must use the search firm that found them their job. That keeps the firms going.
But yes, there are some of my colleagues who really, really, really suck at their jobs—VPs, other Deans, etc. I’ve been told more than once that people like me because I’m a genuine leader who cares about higher ed and making the college run more efficiently while having student success compared to other leaders here who just want the paycheck. I appreciate that, sure, but it’s doing so much damage that we don’t need right now.