Executive positioning
How to Position Yourself for Executive Leadership
Executive roles go to leaders whose readiness is visible and credible. The five components of positioning, and the timeline for building them.
Insights
Insights on Career Strategy and Executive Leadership
Practical writing on how advancement actually works — executive search processes, leadership positioning, interview and finalist preparation, career transitions, and the pathways through higher education leadership.
All articles
Written by Dr. James W. Satterfield Jr., career strategist and executive career advisor, drawing on more than 25 years of leadership as a teacher, professor, department head, dean, and vice provost.
Higher education leadership
How to Move From Department Chair to Dean
The most common step in academic leadership, and one of the most misunderstood. What decanal searches require and what to build while you are still a chair.
Interview preparation
How to Prepare for a Dean Interview
The campus visit is a multi-day, multi-audience evaluation. What the open forum, committee interviews, and constituency meetings actually test.
Leadership narrative
How to Build a Leadership Narrative for an Executive Search
Committees select a story about what you lead and how you decide. How to construct one from evidence and keep it consistent across every channel.
Comparison
Executive Coach vs. Career Strategist: Which Do You Need?
Developing how you lead and deciding where you are going are different problems. A clear comparison of what each professional provides.
Comparison
Career Coach vs. Career Strategist: What Is the Difference?
One works on the mechanics of a job search. The other works on direction, positioning, and how advancement decisions actually get made.
Executive readiness
How to Know When You Are Ready for Executive Leadership
Readiness is not a feeling. Seven markers you can assess against evidence, the signals that get misread, and how long the real gaps take to close.
Career transition
How Senior Leaders Should Prepare for a Career Transition
Senior transitions take longer and carry more risk. A structured sequence from eighteen months out through the first ninety days in the role.
Executive presence
How to Demonstrate Executive Presence in an Interview
Presence is not charisma. It is observable evidence that you can be trusted with authority — and it can be prepared for deliberately.
Executive search
What Search Committees Look For in Executive Candidates
The stages, the criteria, the committee dynamics, and the reasons strong candidates get eliminated late in the process.
Start with your situation
If you are not sure where to begin, these entry points map to the most common questions.
I want to move into executive leadership
Begin with readiness, then positioning. The advisory work is described on the Career Strategist page.
I am in or entering a search
Start with what committees look for and leadership narrative, then see Executive Career Advising.
I am an academic leader
See chair to dean and dean interview preparation, plus Higher Education Career Strategy.
I am deciding what kind of help I need
Compare executive coaching and career strategy, or career coaching and career strategy.
Apply this to your own situation.
Articles are general. A consultation is specific to the role you are pursuing, the timeline you are working with, and the record you actually have.