I knew a man who was asked to be the new dean (院长) of the College of Business of a large university. When he first arrived, he studied the situation the college faced and felt that what it needed most was money. He recognized that he had a unique capacity to raise money, and he developed a real sense of vision about fund-raising as his primary function.
This created a problem in the college because past deans had focused mainly on meeting day-to-day faculty needs. This new dean was never there. He was running around the country trying to raise money for research. But he was not attending to the day-to-day things as the previous dean had. The faculty, who were used to working with the person at the top, had to work through his administrative assistant.
The faculty became so upset with his absence that they sent a delegation to the president of the university to demand a new dean or a fundamental change in his leadership style. The president, who knew what the dean was doing, said, "Relax. He has a good administrative assistant. Give him some more time."
Within a short time, the money started pouring in and the faculty began to recognize the vision. It wasn"t long until every time they saw the dean, they would say, "Get out of here! We don"t want to see you. Go out and bring in more funds. Your administrative assistant runs this office better than anyone else."
This man admitted to me later that the mistake he made was not doing enough team building, enough explaining, enough educating about what he was trying to accomplish. From him I learned a powerful lesson. We need to constantly be asking ourselves, "What is needed out there, and what is my unique strength" What was the mistake the new dean realized he had made