Follow-Through | 006 | Leadership in Practice
You don’t need a title to have influence.
Sometimes one sharp insight is all we need to hold on, reset, or reengage with purpose.
Practical takeaways pulled from the Student Success Podcast, so you don’t have to listen to the whole episode (unless you want to).
Episode with Dr. Michael Baston: Show Notes | Apple | Spotify
What Stuck with Me from Dr. Michael Baston
I interviewed Dr. Michael Baston when he was president at Rockland Community College (NY) a few years ago. He’s currently president at Cuyahoga Community College (OH). His leadership strategies are timeless. He doesn’t sugarcoat leadership. He reminds us that systems don’t transform just because people agree on a statement or sign a pledge. Culture change, student success, equity work, it all lives or dies in how people behave when no one’s looking. These aren’t just themes from the episode; they’re pressure points every college needs to wrestle with.
Equity is Not a Statement. It’s a Daily Practice.
Equity initiatives stall because too many campuses chase performance optics instead of implementing an actual framework. We roll out DEI statements and land acknowledgments with no behavior change. That’s not transformation. That’s branding.
The colleges doing this right, approach equity the same way they approach student journeys: with intentional touch points, real development, and actual accountability. It’s a journey for students and employees.
Stop Calling It Co-Creation If It’s Already Decided
Colleges love the word “buy-in.” But we often confuse that with participation. Dr. Baston made it clear: if your team is reacting to a finished product, they’re not co-creators. They’re consumers. That distinction matters. When you co-create, resistance drops, ownership rises, and your plan doesn’t die on a SharePoint and Google Drive.
If your college has a dozen initiatives hardly anyone touches meaningfully, the institution probably skipped the co-creation step. But be practical in co-creation. Don’t allow the inherent bureaucratic inertia keep you in an endless co-creation phase.
Rename Your Committees or Kill Them Off
Committees make people feel like something is happening. Workgroups make something happen. That’s the difference. We all know the committees that haven’t produced a single outcome in three years, but they still meet. That’s not planning. That’s institutional theater.
Change who’s in the room. Clarify deliverables. Give deadlines. Or shut it down.
Underperformance Isn’t Off Limits
Underperformance, whether from staff or faculty, has to be addressed. Not in a punitive way, but in an effective way. When someone continuously derails projects or tanks student outcomes, and nothing is said? That’s not protection. That’s abandonment of the mission.
Avoiding hard conversations is one of the most destructive habits in higher ed. It’s not kindness. It’s harm avoidance dressed up as professionalism.
Faculty Success Rates Are a Leadership Issue
We don’t have the luxury of pretending everyone is doing great. If the data shows a pattern of low student success and equity gaps in certain classrooms, we have to respond. With support, yes. But with urgency. And honesty.
Colleges that ignore this in the name of “faculty autonomy” end up reinforcing mediocrity. And students pay the price.
The “Four L’s” of Leading Well
Levity. Leverage. Learning. Love. It’s more than a nice mnemonic, it’s a checklist for how we show up. We need people who can bring lightness without losing clarity, who can apply pressure without burning bridges, who stay curious, and who actually give a damn.
You can’t create culture from behind a desk. You create it by walking the campus, knowing your people, and choosing consistency over charisma.
Final Takeaway: Leadership is ROI. Relationships, Outcomes, Improvements
Dr. Baston reframes leadership in a way that matters for practitioners: if you’re not building trust, delivering results, and helping people get better, you’re not leading. You’re just talking.
We don’t need more inspirational speeches. We need more people willing to make the hard calls, to stick with the process, and to model what improvement actually looks like.
Implementation—doing the work—is the real equity work. Execution is the real student success work.
Culture doesn’t change because we wish it would. It changes because someone decided it had to, and followed through.
Implementation is everything.
Onward…
Dr. Al Solano
Founder, Continuous Learning Institute | About
Host, Student Success Podcast
A meaningful test of success is how helpful we are in contributing to our fellow human being’s happiness.