‘What’s the right thing to do?’—Staben makes his first visit to Moscow High School

Jordan Finfrock | Argonaut UI President Chuck Staben speaks to Moscow High School students Friday at MHS.

University of Idaho President Chuck Staben’s wife, Mary Beth Staben, likes to do needlepoint.

She creates belts themed for the university her husband works at.

Chuck visited Moscow High School (MHS) for the first time Friday sporting his UI belt, complete with an illustration of the Kibbie Dome and a UI shirt.

He spoke to MHS teacher Sam Hoogsteen’s leadership class about being a leader in a university.

The class was mostly made up of seniors and juniors, with a smattering of underclassmen.

“Once they get older they realize, ‘Hey, I wanna do something. I want to do more in the community,’”  Hoogsteen said.

Hoogsteen said he wanted to give his students the tools to lead and the opportunities to apply their knowledge. In the leadership class, the students complete projects at MHS and in the community.

City Councilwoman Gina Taruscio, Gritman Medical Center event planner Adina Bielenberg and Idaho men’s basketball coach Don Verlin have visited the class this semester. The speakers choose a topic related to leadership in their field and visit with the class for about an hour.

Staben briefed the class on his background as a biochemist and academic at universities across the country.

To Chuck, a good leader knows when to manage, delegate and use authority.

“Authority and management … they are aspects of leadership,” he said. “A good leader knows when to use authority and when to use management skills. By management, I mean the nuts and bolts of running budgets and following policies.”

He said good leaders are good managers and can delegate staff.

“(Good leaders) also know when to use authority and when not to use authority,” Chuck said. “They expect you to make a decision. You use that fairly sparingly.”

Chuck said ultimately, leadership is about a common goal.

“Leadership is when you can develop a vision, or embrace a vision, and you can get other people to embrace that vision and execute it,” Chuck said. “That’s why you can lead from below and you can lead from above.”

Chuck shared four ways to think through problems as a leader — structurally, personally, politically and symbolically. His strongest point of view is a rational, structural point of view, where he examines all the consequences of a decision, he said.

“You can often make the right choice and people aren’t going to buy into it,” he said. “Being right is only a part of leadership.”

Next, Chuck said he approaches the problem from a human resources perspective, by considering reactions and effects on the involved parties.

After considering the right choice and its effects, he said he needs to think politically and rally support for the idea, through authority or coalitions or suggestions.

Chuck’s last consideration is symbolism, he said. On a university campus with thousands of alumni, this is a big consideration for him.

“Sometimes we look and we go, ‘Look at that building. It’s terrible. A maintenance headache, going to take $2 million to renovate it, we don’t use it a lot, let’s just knock it down. That’s the right decision,’” he said. “Well it turns out, if that’s the building that all of the graduates from 1960 to 1990 had their lunch in, you can’t just go knock that building down. You at least need to get them behind you on that.”

Chuck said the four frames can be used by natural leaders or those learning to lead. His frames helped him to make the decision to drop the football program from Football Bowl Subdivision to Football Championship Subdivision in 2018.

The decision was not well-received by some members of the UI community. One student asked how Chuck deals with negative reactions to his decisions.

“When you read negative stuff about yourself in the newspaper, it’s really hard,” he said. “You can’t take these positions if you’re going to worry all the time about what people are going to think about you. It’s just too damn hard.”

He said focusing on why the decision was made helps him let the comments go.

“One of the things you always want to try to do, and it’s not always easy, is take the high road,” Chuck said. “If you’re sitting, thinking about, ‘What is it that I should do or say?’ Think about what’s the right thing, not the expedient thing, the right thing.”

A student in a University of Oregon sweatshirt raised his hand.

“Oh no, Oregon, why are you wearing that?” Chuck asked. The class giggled. “I like his shirt better,” Chuck said, pointing to a student with a Vandal shirt.

Hoogsteen said they had four years to change the Oregon student’s mind.  Hoogsteen presented Chuck and Executive Communications Manager Brian Keenan with MHS lanyards for their time. The class clapped loudly, almost drowning out the ringing of the bell that signaled the end of class.

Tess Fox can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @tesstakesphotos

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