Thirty years ago, as a school social worker, I observed how difficult change was for clients even when not changing meant devastating losses. Today at YU Global, Yeshiva University’s digital content arm, where we consult with struggling institutions about how to develop online content, I once again see how difficult change is even in the face of closure. When colleges face declining enrollment, many call it a “sign of the times.” But just as I once asked mothers whose children had been removed, “What are you willing to do to get your children back?” I now ask struggling institutions, “What are you willing to change to stay afloat?” The answer predicts their fate.
Leadership Patterns That Predict Institutional Fate
Social workers are trained to recognize behavioral patterns that suggest outcomes. In our consultations I’ve observed clear patterns that reliably forecast whether an institution will successfully adapt or continue its decline.
Pattern 1: Status Quo Preservation vs. Crisis Response
The Pattern: This is like a fire chief leaving a burning building to attend a previously scheduled equipment inventory, assuring everyone they understand the urgency of the fire while walking away from it. Institutions that prioritize maintaining traditional processes and routines over responding to existential threats inevitably fail to adapt in time. When institutional machinery—committee schedules, faculty governance processes, academic calendars—dictates the pace of change rather than market urgency, transformation suffocates. Leaders might intellectually acknowledge the crisis but behaviorally reinforce systems that ensure any response will be too little, too late.
The Leadership Failure: Crisis recognition without corresponding action prioritization is merely performative. True leadership in crisis requires disrupting comfortable routines and creating space for transformation to occur at the necessary pace.
Pattern 2: Territorial Mindsets vs. Collaborative Innovation
The Pattern: Think of a puzzle where each person guards their pieces, ensuring the complete picture will never emerge. Institutions where internal boundaries are fiercely protected cannot effectively respond to market challenges that require cross-functional solutions. When “my program,” “my department,” “my lane,” “my expertise,” or “my job” becomes the primary frame of reference, institutions lose the ability to reimagine themselves. Problems that require integrated solutions remain fragmented with piecemeal responses that fail to address systemic challenges.
The Leadership Failure: Executive leadership that allows or enables territorial behavior fundamentally misunderstands today’s challenges. Modern higher education requires breaking down silos, creating new organizational structures, and modeling collaborative problem-solving from the top.
Pattern 3: Identity Preservation vs. Adaptive Evolution
The Pattern: Sadly, this is like a blacksmith refusing to use modern tools because “we’ve always used hammers and anvils”—only to find horseshoes are no longer in demand. Institutions that treat core identity elements as immutable rather than adaptable eventually face irrelevance. When identity becomes an excuse rather than a foundation for growth, institutions lock themselves into declining markets and outdated delivery models. The irony is that by refusing to evolve certain aspects of identity, they often ensure the extinction of the entire institution—identity included.
The Leadership Failure: Visionary leadership requires distinguishing between core values (which should be preserved) and operational expressions of those values (which must evolve). Leaders who cannot articulate this distinction often lead their institutions to preserve the means at the expense of the ends.
Pattern 4: Gradual Improvement vs. Transformative Change
The Pattern: Think about trying to outrun a tsunami by walking slightly faster—the incremental approach is fundamentally mismatched to the scale of the challenge. Institutions attempting to solve discontinuous challenges through continuous improvement methodologies consistently fall short. Gradual approaches to revolutionary challenges ensure you’ll always be several steps behind market evolution. The mathematics are simple: when the rate of external change exceeds your rate of internal adaptation, the gap will continue to widen until it becomes insurmountable.
The Leadership Failure: Transformative leaders must recognize when incremental improvement is insufficient and when fundamental reinvention is required. The inability to distinguish between these scenarios—and to communicate that distinction to stakeholders—dooms institutions to fighting yesterday’s battles rather than preparing for tomorrow’s opportunities.
A Crisis of Vision, Not Economics
What these patterns reveal is that higher education’s current predicament isn’t fundamentally an economic crisis—it’s a crisis of vision and leadership. The institutions that will survive aren’t necessarily the wealthiest or most prestigious. They’re the ones whose leaders can:
- Break from Tradition – Question longstanding assumptions about how education “should” work.
- Embrace Partnership – Recognize that no institution can transform alone.
- Lead Cultural Change – Inspire faculty and staff to see change as opportunity rather than threat.
- Act with Urgency – Understand that gradual, committee-driven change won’t outpace market forces.
Leadership That Works: The YU Global Example
In stark contrast to the failures described above, Yeshiva University’s leadership has demonstrated exactly the kind of visionary thinking that institutions need to thrive in today’s challenging landscape. When many universities were still debating whether to expand their digital footprint, YU’s leadership made the bold decision to establish YU Global as a dedicated digital content arm that would both serve the university and extend its expertise to partner institutions.
This wasn’t merely adding online versions of existing programs, though this is a large part of what we do, it also represented a fundamental rethinking of how a traditional university could leverage its academic strengths in entirely new ways. YU’s leadership recognized early that digital transformation requires more than technology; it demands institutional commitment, resource allocation, and a willingness to reimagine traditional academic structures.
What makes this especially remarkable is that YU accomplished this while preserving its core identity and values—proving that adaptation doesn’t require abandoning mission. Rather than seeing digital expansion as a threat to its traditional strengths, YU’s leadership embraced it as an opportunity to extend its reach and impact. The results speak for themselves: rapidly growing online programs, new certificate offerings reaching previously underserved populations, and a model that demonstrates how academic excellence and digital innovation can reinforce rather than compete. This is precisely the kind of forward-thinking leadership that distinguishes institutions that thrive from those that may not survive.
Moving Beyond “Business as Usual”
The parallels to my social work experience are striking. Just as families in crisis often clung to familiar patterns even as those patterns destroyed them, colleges often double down on traditional approaches even as enrollment and revenue plummet. But there’s hope. Some institutions are making the difficult transition. They’re reimagining their educational models, developing new offerings for non-traditional students, creating innovative partnerships, and leveraging technology to enhance rather than replace their core mission. The choice isn’t between preserving academic values and surviving economically. The real challenge is developing leadership capable of translating enduring educational values into new forms that meet contemporary needs.
daniellewozniak 