Trusteeship - November/December 2020 - 3

ON MY AGENDA

Trust as a Strategic Asset
WITH THE FALL SEMESTER WELL UNDERWAY, I'm aware of the unprecedented

challenges confronting your board, leadership team, faculty, and staff as you collaboratively
address immediate short-term challenges. While I understand how significant these
challenges are, I encourage you also to devote time and energy to those strategic matters
that are essential to creating long-term, sustainable, and vibrant learning communities. In
particular, I urge you to conduct your work through the lens of trust as a strategic asset,
and as part of establishing trust, you make serious commitments to the issues of justice,
diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I am sure you agree with me that
trust is a critical component of all boards
and executive teams seeking to govern
and lead effectively. Trust is best earned
through collaboration and communication,
especially by striving to seek common
understanding and agreement. Trust can,
for example, influence a board's ability
to recruit new board members, augment
an institution's ability to enroll and retain
students, hire and motivate experienced
faculty and staff, and inspire current and
potential donors and partners. Additionally,
trust is necessary for boards to engage in
very difficult conversations that are at the
heart of building the future institution.
During times like these, your board may
also need to rethink and even alter your
strategic direction and priorities in order
to create a financially sound future. In such
instances, trust can mean the difference
between an institution undertaking necessary adjustments and succeeding due to
campus and community support, or seeing
such efforts fail because of confusion or
suspicion. A lack of trust can become an
acute risk factor that affects how well an
enterprise functions.
Boards and senior executives need to
actively work at building trust as an essential
component of leadership. Trust is an integral
component of developing and executing
long-term strategies and institutional transformation. My hope is that you will always
AGB.ORG

consider cultivating relationships that yield
the trust required to successfully implement
board and executive team decisions.
There are a multitude of ways to grow
trust between leadership and stakeholders.
For example, I encourage you to work with
the faculty and others in your community to develop policies and practices that
exemplify your institution's commitment
to enhancing campus health and safety.
By leveraging shared governance and
fostering an inclusive culture and a sense
of belonging, clear and comprehensive
communication can be achieved. Regular
and transparent communications will help
ensure that the board's policies reflect the
best thinking of your campus community.
In short, intentional efforts to strengthen
trust now will pay dividends over time.
A critical aspect of building trust is to
ensure that everyone on campus feels a
sense of inclusion and belonging. Over
the last several months, I have shared how
important AGB believes justice, diversity,
equity, and inclusion (JDE&I) are to higher
education and our society. AGB also believes
that if we are to encourage boards and presidents to leverage JDE&I to strengthen their
teams, operations, and students' success,
we must practice what we recommend to
others. At AGB, we are working to promote
JDE&I in every facet of our work, and I'm
pleased to announce the launch of AGB's
Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Ini-

tiative. You can find out more about the initiative at www.AGB.org/JDEI. This initiative
will showcase AGB's promise to pursue and
uphold JDE&I within our own AGB culture
and embrace these values across our practices, programs, services, and research as we
engage in our own transformation to better
serve higher education.
Trust, JDE&I, and other issues will
be strategic focus areas in our upcoming
resources and programs, including the
three flagship events in 2021: the Foundation Leadership Forum (January 25-27),
the Board Professionals Conference (April
6-8), and the National Conference on
Trusteeship (April 12-14). Registration for
these virtual events is now open at www.
AGB.org/Events, and I look forward to seeing you there (virtually).
Please share with me how AGB can
enhance its JDE&I Initiative to empower
your boards and teams to build trust,
confidence, and belonging within your
communities.
As always, I am immensely grateful for
your partnership, and I thank you for your
collaboration and commitment to strategic
board leadership.

HENRY STOEVER
AGB PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

NOV. DEC. 2020 TRUSTEESHIP 3

http://www.AGB.org/JDEI http://www.AGB.org/Events http://www.AGB.org/Events http://www.AGB.ORG

Trusteeship - November/December 2020

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