The Career Leadership Ecosystem™
Leading a post-secondary co-op, experiential learning, or career development unit is far more complex than most realize. It comprises internal commitment and support, student awareness, employer engagement, campus partnerships, and many more components.
The Career Leadership Ecosystem™ is a model designed to help career, co-op, and WIL leaders gain a holistic view of their current strengths and challenges and set priorities as part of a comprehensive leadership strategy.
The Ecosystem is described below as well as a free tool you can use – the Concise Career Leaders Scorecard™ – to evaluate your current situation and methodically identify the areas that need the most attention.
Planning
The internal work required to establish goals, gain internal buy-in and develop relationships with campus champions.
Programs & Services
The activities in place to engage students and employers and facilitate collaboration with campus partners.
Performance
The ongoing effort to improve and optimize capabilities, processes, tools, and technology to enhance outcomes.
Strategic Plan, Goals, Objectives & Actions
Does your strategic plan align with institutional objectives and clearly define your mission, goals and criteria for success?
Leadership Support & Internal Engagement
Do you have enough support from within – including institutional leaders, faculty and student services partners?
Awareness & Engagement
Do your programs and services attract enough students’ and address their unique needs?
Outreach & Events
Are your campus recruitment events attracting the right employers and creating positive outcomes?
Perception & Participation
Are campus partners clear about what you do and interested in partnering with you?
Team Knowledge & Development
Do you have a high performing, knowledgeable team that reflects the diversity of your stakeholders?
Technology, Systems & Processes
Is there anything getting in the way of you or your teams’ efficiency and productivity?
Benchmarks, Outcomes & Evaluation
Do your programs, events and services measure up and improve over time?
The Career Leadership Ecosystem™ comprises eight key success drivers that are organized in three stages: Planning, Programs & Services, and Performance.
The three stages and eight success drivers are described below.
Planning
The internal work required to establish goals, gain internal buy-in and develop relationships with campus champions.
Strategic Plan, Goals, Objectives & Actions
Does your strategic plan align with institutional objectives and clearly define your mission, goals and criteria for success?
Leadership Support & Internal Engagement
Do you have enough support from within – including institutional leaders, faculty and student services partners?
Programs & Services
The activities in place to engage students and employers and facilitate collaboration with campus partners.
Awareness & Engagement
Do your programs and services attract enough students’ and address their unique needs?
Outreach & Events
Are your campus recruitment events attracting the right employers and creating positive outcomes?
Perception & Participation
Are campus partners clear about what you do and interested in partnering with you?
Performance
The ongoing effort to improve and optimize capabilities, processes, tools, and technology to enhance outcomes.
Team Knowledge & Development
Do you have a high performing, knowledgeable team that reflects the diversity of your stakeholders?
Technology, Systems & Processes
Is there anything getting in the way of you or your teams’ efficiency and productivity?
Benchmarks, Outcomes & Evaluation
Do your programs, events and services measure up and improve over time?
What’s Your Score?
Now that you have seen an overview of the Career Leadership Ecosystem™, use the free Career Leaders Concise Scorecard™ to evaluate your current position and reveal key areas for improvement.
Note that this is a condensed version of the much more robust full edition of the Career Leaders Scorecard™ used in our micro-credential training program, the Career Leadership Academy and strategic advisory services.
In this Career Leaders Concise Scorecard™, you will conduct a self-evaluation across 16 criteria (the full edition comprises 42 criteria).
(It’s free and takes less than 10 minutes!)