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A new president of a multicampus public university system faced an important decision: whether to renew the contract of a chancellor whose leadership had generated concerns among campus stakeholders.
AGB Consulting provided an impartial 360-degree assessment that gave the president a stronger evidence base for the decision—and created an approach the system could use with other chancellors.
The Challenge
The chancellor was approaching the end of a five-year contract. Early in the chancellor’s tenure, faculty had voted no confidence following the removal of a well-liked, long-serving dean. Trust remained an issue, and concerns had emerged about the chancellor’s engagement and communication with campus constituencies, consultation before major decisions, travel, and administrative effectiveness.
As a new system president, the client needed more than anecdotes or individual opinions. They wanted an impartial assessment of the chancellor’s performance before contract renewal discussions began.
Our Approach
AGB worked with the system president and their team to develop a customized quantitative and qualitative assessment based on AGB leading practices and the system’s unique context.
AGB conducted more than 25 interviews with campus and system colleagues, faculty, students, and key state stakeholders. Participants assessed the chancellor across seven leadership dimensions.
Those findings were considered alongside campus performance metrics, previous performance documents, and the chancellor’s self-evaluation, giving the system president multiple sources of evidence rather than any single constituency’s perspective.
AGB also involved the chancellor throughout the process, seeking feedback on the evaluation tool, guiding the self-evaluation, and providing an opportunity to review the draft report for factual accuracy. Because the institution was public, the final report was prepared with public-records requirements in mind.
The Outcome
Following the assessment, the system president decided not to renew the chancellor’s contract and began the process of identifying a successor. The decision was supported by evidence provided from an external review, in which the chancellor was heavily involved.
The system president subsequently asked AGB to conduct performance reviews of two additional chancellors within the system—extending the customized assessment approach to other institutional contexts and using it to support professional growth.
What began as a review to inform one consequential decision became a broader tool for strengthening leadership across the system.
The Lesson: Strong Leadership Decisions Require More Than Opinions
Senior leadership evaluations can be complicated by competing perspectives and long-standing perceptions. A structured assessment can help system leaders move beyond individual anecdotes by combining stakeholder input, performance measures, and the leader’s own perspective.
A credible process should also be fair to the leader being evaluated. Clear expectations, meaningful participation, and attention to factual accuracy strengthen the assessment and its usefulness.
For this system, that approach informed an immediate contract decision and provided a model for assessing and developing other leaders.
Do You Have the Evidence You Need to Evaluate Senior Leaders?
AGB Consulting helps boards, presidents, chancellors, and system leaders design independent assessments that provide a clearer picture of leadership performance and a stronger foundation for important decisions.