Team Leadership in Community Colleges

"Team Leadership in Community Colleges is a practical, well-researched, and engaging work for practitioners, scholars, and policymakers interested in the future of higher education and the role of collaborative and inclusive leadership. Employing case studies and empirical examples throughout, successful community college leaders from multiple perspectives and disparate campus environments offer thoughtful reviews and evidence-based approaches to team leadership in the community college setting. I strongly recommend this important and timely book."

Larry Galizio, Ph.D., President/CEO - Community College League of California

"This book serves as a guide to all potential and current leaders in community colleges who recognize that their vision and goals will not be realized unless they build a team to assist in their achievement. Whether the team is inherited or developed, it is imperative that certain insights must be considered for it to coalesce. I highly recommend this book be included as part of the toolbox of all community college leaders."

Belle S. Wheelan, Ph.D., President, Commission on Colleges - Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

"George Boggs and Christine McPhail make an immeasurable contribution to the future of community colleges by focusing on the critical importance of leadership and teams. Positions at the top of community colleges are turning over rapidly due to retirements and the growing challenges to those in charge, from the board to the CEO and other team members. This book is a valuable blueprint for preparing current and future leaders. Every new president should receive this book on taking office—as should trustees and vice-presidents, deans, and department chairs. It not only serves as an excellent textbook for higher education doctoral programs, but it can be the 'survival manual' for effective governance, leadership, and vision."

Barbara Gellman-Danley, Ph.D., President - Higher Learning Commission

"Flagship community colleges are run by effective leadership teams, and no one knows more about such teams than George Boggs and Christine McPhail. In their new book, Boggs and McPhail have assembled the most experienced and knowledgeable authors of this generation to address the key issues regarding how to select, engage, challenge, coach, collaborate with, and reward members of effective leadership teams."

Terry O’Banion, Ph.D., President & CEO Emeritus - League for Innovation in the Community College

"Another terrific book on community college leadership by George Boggs and Christine McPhail—two former community college presidents who really know their stuff. Team Leadership in Community Colleges focuses on the all-important role of team-building in leadership: how to put together a great team, how to interact with various team members, and—best of all—how to get that team across the goal line, when it comes to carrying out an agenda for positive change. Since all college presidents have to work within a team structure—whether they like it or not—this book is a must-read for anyone who is currently a president or who aspires to be. Because, in the end, leaders are only as good as the teams they lead."

Rob Jenkins - author, Building a Career in America’s Community Colleges; co-author, The 9 Virtues of Exceptional Leaders: Unlocking Your Leadership Potential

"Team Leadership in Community Colleges is a 'must read' for community college trustees, presidents, senior administrators, faculty, students and member of the community. We know that leadership is the key variable in identifying or predicting the success of any organization. However, in a collegiate institution, the term “team leadership” takes on a new and most important meaning. Colleges are in fact collegial, collaborative and cooperative. It takes agreement with the values and mission of the college as well as commitment to these goals and the provision of quality service to the college’s community. This new book provides living examples of teamship and team commitment in current community college settings. The authors are experienced and valued community colleges and bring successful leadership experience to their chapters."

John E. Roueche, Ph.D., President - Roueche Graduate Center, National American University, Sid W. Richardson Regents Chair Emeritus, The University of Texas at Austin

"Boggs and McPhail have assembled an all-star troupe of experts from within and outside our community college sector. The chapters present a thorough and exhaustive examination of the power and purpose of leadership at all levels. Leadership is a team sport - Boggs and McPhail have been both practitioners and champions in the field.  They know firsthand the power of leadership and its role in advancing a culture of success necessary for our students to achieve their hopes and dreams. This book should serve a guiding narrative for anyone privileged to play a leadership role in community colleges."

J. Noah Brown, President and CEO - Association of Community College Trustees

"The timeliness of this publication cannot be overstated. Developing strong, competent leaders — at every level — is one of the most pressing challenges facing community colleges today. Equally important is the book’s emphasis on building high-functioning leadership teams, which can reduce divisiveness, unify mission, and advance institutional success. The chapter authors go well beyond theory to offer strategic, experience-based guidance, from board rooms to classrooms."

Dr. Walter G. Bumphus, President and CEO - American Association of Community Colleges

"Team Leadership in Community Colleges is a practical, thought-provoking book for practitioners, policy makers, leaders and aspiring leaders. Edited by highly respected community college practitioner-scholars, George Boggs and Christine McPhail, this book includes chapters that collectively offer seasoned advice, counsel and ideas about diverse topics such as: coaching and leading, gender differences, working with an existing team, effective midlevel leadership teams, workforce development and teams, teaming and the Learning College, succession planning, cultural shifts and urban colleges, multi-college leadership teams, governing board and COE issues, and transformational leadership. This unique book should be on the bookshelf of all community college leaders, aspiring leaders, and policy makers."

Deborah L. Floyd, Professor of Higher Education, Educational Leadership & Research Methodology - Florida Atlantic University

"The stakes for community colleges have never been higher. The public trust in our colleges is substantial but being threatened. The critics are gaining traction, often without adequate knowledge. Funding sources are uneven and subject to political forces. The expectations of students and employers are becoming more precise, more diverse, less patient. All of these demands flow across a leader’s desk, prompting in me a deep admiration for those courageous enough to shoulder the task. This volume is a gift to them – the CEOs, the trustees, the key administrators of the great American innovation known as the community college."

Richard Winn, Ed.D., President - Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges

"In today’s community college, we are reminded on a daily basis that student success is enhanced when each member of the team contributes in an open and candid manner to the conversations at hand. The authors of a new book, Team Leadership in Community Colleges share their experiences and proffer that individual and collective success are fostered by understanding the rules of organizational decision-making including a respect for the process, the team and the development of leadership models that effectively guide us through complex choices."

Rufus Glasper, Ph. D., President and CEO - League for Innovation, Chancellor Emeritus, Maricopa Community Colleges

"Successful institutions understand the importance of teamwork. Astute leaders that foster high performing organizations do not guide, direct, and/or lead independent of others but rise as a result of aligned, complementary leadership teams. Drs. Boggs and McPhail have edited a rich volume that has thoughtfully examined the complexity of community college organizations and how critical team leadership is in advancing the institutional mission. The text provides chapters from leading scholar-practitioners that span the nuances of informal and formal team building, the diversity of teams, to mid-level and executive leadership opportunities and challenges across settings. Team Leadership in Community Colleges offers readers the advantages and navigating teams toward transformative change."

Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher, Professor/Associate Head, Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership, College of Education, Associate Dean, Graduate College, Director, Office of Community College Research and Leadership - University of Illinois

“The need to build strong leadership teams is a recurring theme in articles and books about leadership, yet there is plenty of evidence of dysfunctional teams due to authoritarian leaders, lack of trust, power asymmetries, and marginalization of individuals who are not perceived as ‘team players.’ This book will help community college leaders build teams that reflect the diverse racial, ethnic, and experiential backgrounds of community college students. Community colleges face political, financial, and social environments that require complex and creative thinking. The contributors to Team Leadership in Community Colleges share research and experiential knowledge to help leaders build teams based on differences rather than sameness.”

Estela Mara Bensimon; Dean’s Professor in Educational Equity; and Director, Center for Urban Education, Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California

"Unreservedly recommended as a core addition to college and university library collections."

- Midwest Book Review

Foreword—Eloy Ortiz Oakley
Preface—George R. Boggs and Christine Johnson McPhail
Acknowledgments

1) Leader and Team Expectations—George R. Boggs
2) Gender Differences in Team Leadership—Pamela L. Eddy, Catherine Hartman, and Eric Liu
3) How a New Leader Can Assess an Existing Leadership Team—Eugene Giovannini
4) Developing Midlevel Leadership Teams—Kimberly Beatty
5) Team Leadership in Workforce Development Practice—Jim Jacobs
6) Team Building Through Collaborative Leadership and Strategic Planning—Irving Pressley McPhail
7) Leadership Team Development and Succession Planning in Times of Crisis—Russell Lowery-Hart
8) Team Leadership in the Urban Community College—Curtis L. Ivery and Gunder A. Myron
9) Multicollege Leadership Teams—Shouan Pan
10) Creating and Maintaining the Chief Executive Officer and Governing Board Team—Bill McGinnis, Samia Yaqub, and George R. Boggs
11) Leadership Teams and Institutional Transformation—Christine Johnson McPhail
12) In Conclusion: The Why and How of Team Leadership—Christine Johnson McPhail and George R. Boggs

Editors and Contributors
Index

George R. Boggs

Dr. Boggs is Superintendent/President of Palomar College in California and President & CEO Emeritus of the American Association of Community Colleges.

Christine Johnson McPhail

Dr. McPhail is President of Saint Augustine's University, Emerita Professor of Higher Education and founder of the Community College Leadership Program at Morgan State University, and former president of Cypress College in California.  

Community Colleges; Leadership; reform in higher education; higher education administration

Author article- Coaching a Leadership Team