A new provost or director inheriting a division that doesn’t yet trust the change. Two colleges merging into one. A dean asked to lead people who report to three other bosses. Leadership in higher education is hardest at the moments of transition, and shared governance means a leader has to move an institution or team they don’t fully control.
h3 Strategies coaches higher-ed leaders through exactly those moments. Not generic leadership development dressed up for academia — coaching built for leaders navigating real institutional change, where progress comes from influence and trust, not authority.
We’ve sat in the seats
Both principals have served as faculty and senior administrators inside colleges and universities — not consultants describing academic life from the outside, but people who’ve led through shared governance, budget pressure, and institutional change firsthand.
On any given day, we are coaching leaders and leadership teams through significant change in higher education.
That’s the difference between coaching that sounds right in the conference room and coaching that holds up when the politics get real.
What an engagement looks like
- Duration: Individual engagements typically run six months.
- Cadence: Sessions every other week, or on a schedule set around the leader’s needs and the pace of the transition.
- Format: Fully virtual. One-on-one coaching, or team workshops for groups of up to 15 — built for co-leadership pairs and leadership teams that have to align.
- Assessments: EQ-i 2.0 (Workplace or Leadership report) with optional 360-degree feedback. Everything DiSC is available as a facilitation tool where behavioral-style work fits the engagement.
- Credentials: Coaching delivered by PCC-credentialed coaches (ICF) with more than two decades guiding leaders at every level.
- Investment: Higher-education engagements range from $4,800 to $12,000.
Where we go deep: leadership through transition and consolidation
Any competent coach can help a stable leader get incrementally better. The harder work — the work most firms can’t credibly claim — is coaching a leader through change they didn’t choose and can’t fully steer.
- Leadership transitions. New deans, provosts, presidents, and chairs stepping into scope, scrutiny, and relationships they inherited rather than built. We help them establish credibility fast, read the political terrain, and lead before they’ve earned positional trust.
- Mergers and consolidations. When institutions or colleges combine, the org chart is the easy part. We coach the leaders holding it together through competing loyalties, redundant roles, and the very real grief of a lost identity — helping them acknowledge legitimate resistance rather than steamroll it.
- Shared-governance leadership. Leading faculty, staff, and administrators who each hold their own mandate. We build the influence, emotional intelligence, and communication that move an institution when authority alone won’t.
Also available to higher-ed teams
These support the work above and catch broader development needs. Each can stand alone or fold into a coaching engagement.
- Emotional Intelligence (EQ-i 2.0) workshops — help academic leaders and teams strengthen self-awareness, communication, and adaptability, with both individual data and shared team learning. Learn more
- Everything DiSC on Catalyst team sessions — give faculty, staff, and administrators a shared language for work styles, reducing friction across departments and divisions. Learn more
- Student leadership coaching — the same evidence-based approach, tailored to fit within existing student-development and leadership programs.
Why h3 Strategies
For over two decades, we’ve partnered with colleges and universities on leadership capacity, team cohesion, and institutional effectiveness. What sets us apart isn’t a framework — everyone has frameworks. It’s that we’ve led inside these institutions ourselves, and we’ve done the hardest version of this work: coaching leaders through transitions and consolidations, where the stakes are real and the resistance is legitimate.
We pair that firsthand experience with validated tools — the EQ-i 2.0 and Everything DiSC — and translate proven models into strategies that produce measurable, durable change.
What clients say
Working with h3 strategies provided our university leadership team with the invaluable guidance and strategic framework needed to successfully navigate a major consolidation. Their expert coaches helped us build a unified vision, turning a complex transition into a catalyst for long-term growth and collaboration.
FAQs
Do you coach leaders through mergers and consolidations?
Yes — it’s core to our work. We coach the leaders holding institutions together through combinations: competing loyalties, redundant roles, and lost identity. We treat resistance as legitimate information to work with, not an obstacle to overcome, which produces more durable alignment than persuasion-first approaches.
What makes leadership coaching in higher education different?
Shared governance. Academic leaders rarely lead by authority — they lead faculty, staff, and administrators who each hold their own mandate. Progress comes through influence, trust, and emotional intelligence. Our coaching is built for that reality, not adapted from a corporate model.
Are you actually familiar with academia, or applying a corporate playbook?
Both principals have served as faculty and senior administrators at all levels of academia, from K-12 to colleges and universities. We’ve led through shared governance and institutional change firsthand; this is coaching from inside the world, not about it.
How long is an engagement, and how often do you meet?
Individual engagements typically run six months, with sessions every other week. We adjust to the leader’s goals and the pace of the transition they’re navigating.
Can you work with a leadership team, not just an individual?
Yes. Alongside one-on-one coaching, we run team workshops for groups of up to 15, well-suited to co-leadership pairs and leadership teams that need to operate as one.
What’s the investment?
Higher-education engagements range from $4,800 to $12,000. We apply higher-education-specific pricing that reflects institutional budgets.
Are sessions virtual?
Yes, all coaching is conducted virtually over secure video, giving leaders flexibility regardless of location while keeping the space confidential and focused. In-person team workshops are also available.
Further reading
How we approach leadership through change in higher education:
- Leading Change in Higher Education with Clarity, Dignity, and Momentum — closing programs, merging departments, and consolidation as identity work, not just operations.
- Shared Governance Without the Slowdown — how emotional intelligence speeds committee decisions without sacrificing legitimacy.
- Higher Education: Lead Self, Others, and Create a Culture of Leadership — leading through the overlapping inflection points reshaping higher ed.