Where vision holds, execution evolves

Guest article by Marcelo M. Reda, Ross School

Credits: GE International Brazil Roadshow Fall 2024

One of the most common leadership failures in admissions is confusing adaptability with lack of direction. Effective admissions leadership holds vision steady while allowing execution to evolve. The two get treated as if they're the same thing, and they're not. Mixing them up is where a lot of enrollment offices quietly lose their footing.

Vision defines who a school is truly for: the kinds of students who thrive in its environment, the trade-offs an institution is willing and unwilling to make in pursuit of its mission. It also clarifies how success is defined beyond raw enrollment numbers, so growth strengthens purpose rather than quietly undermining it. Vision shouldn't move, even under pressure.

Execution is different. It's how the work shows up day to day: recruitment tactics, communication methods, travel patterns, marketing channels, process refinements. These should change. They often need to. A recruitment strategy that worked five years ago may not work today, and a good admissions team is constantly adjusting how it operates.

The trouble starts when the two get inverted. When vision becomes flexible, execution becomes frantic. Each cycle introduces a new "fix." A short class gets solved with a loosened standard. A tough market gets solved with an off-message pitch. None of these individual decisions looks reckless in the moment, and that's what makes the pattern so easy to fall into. But over time, standards drift, the institution slowly loses coherence, and families sense that inconsistency even when they can't quite name it. Retention suffers. Staff loses confidence in what they're actually building toward.

Vision must be stubborn. Execution must be adaptable.

This isn't an argument against change. It's the opposite. When vision is clear, flexibility becomes a strength rather than a risk. Teams can adjust tactics without losing their bearings, because they know what they're adjusting toward. Leaders can respond to a shifting market without chasing it, because they're not improvising the destination along with the route.

In practice, this means being willing to say no to a tactic that would technically boost enrollment numbers this cycle but doesn't fit who the school actually serves. It means treating execution changes as experiments to be evaluated, not permanent commitments made under duress. And it means being honest, especially with a Head of School or board asking "what can we do right now," about the difference between adjusting how you pursue the mission and quietly abandoning it.

Holding this balance is not easy, especially when the pressure to show quick results is real. But it's the difference between an admissions office that's reactive and one that's steady, between chasing change and actually leading through it.

Marcelo M. Reda

Director of Financial Aid and Senior Associate Director of Admissions 

Ross School

mreda@ross.org