Not many people are called upon to impress a university president at their graduation. But as the culmination of Cornell's Leading Cornell program, 17 staff members gave presentations May 24 to President David Skorton, the vice presidents, vice provosts, deans, college officers and human resource professionals.

Participants in Leading Cornell, Cornell's capstone leadership course, have been identified as high-potential staff and nominated for the course by their dean or vice president, and have already completed the Harold D. Craft Leadership Program and the Building Teams and Leading Change program.

This year's course, from October 2010 to May 2011 and including in-class lectures, presentations, online assignments and team projects, asked its students to apply leadership theories and methodologies to ensuring the continued success of the Reimagining Cornell effort. Project teams interviewed senior leaders, faculty and staff; reviewed the Reimagining Cornell communications and Cornell's Strategic Plan; and provided recommendations.

Voluntarily leading the class was Samuel Bacharach, co-founder of Bacharach Leadership Group and the J. McKelvey and A. Grant Professor and director of ILR's Institute for Workplace Studies and Smithers Institute. Bacharach believes that leadership is about teaching the skills of execution and that execution implies the capacity to mobilize and sustain momentum. A broad skill set was taught, from political and managerial competencies to negotiations and coaching. Yael Bacharach, co-founder of the Bacharach Leadership Group and director of Coaching Training, volunteered her time, materials and expertise in teaching key coaching skills for leaders.

"Cornell is our community. What could be more important than working with our own high-potentials?" said Sam Bacharach.

Participants learned that several strategies contributed to the successful mobilization of the Reimagining Cornell effort. For instance, in responding to the financial downturn two years ago, Cornell leaders considered the needs of the university as a whole, rather than just those of its units, said Tony Caudill, director of human resources at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. They also successfully used many channels of communication, from Web, town hall meetings and e-mails to small group discussions.

The strategic plan now needs to be translated at the unit level, said Joseph Zappala, assistant dean for communications and marketing in the ILR School, so that "people can see themselves in the plan." He suggested internally focused, unit communication plans, coordinated centrally, much as capital campaign communications are planned and implemented.

Julie Delay, director of human resources in the College of Engineering, suggested that the university adopt a consistent annual planning and reporting process, decision-making model and succession planning approach. Nishi Dhupa, associate director for the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, pointed out that the hiring process, if it results in an internal hire from a pool of external and internal candidates, costs only half as much as a search where an external candidate is selected from the same pool.

In responding to these observations, Skorton noted the careful balance between stability and dynamism that a changing organization must maintain. The strategic plan has to be stable, he said, providing a destination much like a lighthouse in the fog, while the journey to that lighthouse may be extremely dynamic.

"The program helped me understand how to approach the changes that the libraries are experiencing," said Curtis Lyons, library associate in the ILR Catherwood Library.

"I have a better understanding of the big picture and how to better explain that big picture to staff in my unit," said Dhupa.

Key to the program was the knowledge the instructor brought, Caudill said: "[Sam Bacharach's] perspective from the Cornell point of view, combined with his intellectual and research capacity, really provides a practical framework for dealing with change in a university context."