What Are Your Early Signals Telling You?
"It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it— a costly myth." – W. Edwards Deming
The semester is moving quickly. New initiatives have launched, priorities are in motion, and leadership teams are working hard to turn plans into results. Many results we care about take time. Enrollment goals may not be realized for months. Faculty development can take years. Culture change takes even longer. If we wait for the final outcome to decide whether something is working, we may have waited too long.
The best question may be: What should we be seeing now if we are moving in the right direction?
Key Idea: Leaders shouldn’t have to wait for final results to know whether an important priority is gaining traction. A few meaningful early signals can help us recognize movement, spot emerging concerns, and respond while there is still time to influence the outcome.
Here are three ways to use early signals to strengthen leadership judgment:
1. Expect: What Should We Be Seeing?
Key Idea: Before looking for evidence, get clear about what meaningful movement should look like. Did enrollment increase? Did retention improve? Those outcomes matter but they are often lagging indicators. By the time they arrive, much of the work and many of the decisions have already happened.
Early signals give us another way to look at progress. They might be quantitative such as application starts or participation rates. They might be behavioral like faculty beginning to use a new process without prompting. They can also be qualitative like a change in the questions people are asking, recurring themes in feedback, or less resistance to an initiative.
Try This: Choose 1 important priority and ask…
What outcome are we ultimately trying to influence?
If we are moving in the right direction, what should we expect to see by now?
What two or three signals would help us recognize that movement?
Example:
A college wants to increase enrollment. Final enrollment is months away, but leaders don’t have to wait until census day to learn whether their strategy is gaining traction. Inquiry volume, campus visits, application starts, completed applications, and admitted-student engagement can provide earlier evidence of where movement is or isn’t occurring.
2. Notice: What is Actually Happening?
Key Idea: Signals only help when leaders are willing to notice what the evidence is telling them. This is where leadership judgment becomes important. Early signals are rarely perfect. One measure may improve while another stalls. Faculty feedback may suggest something different from the dashboard.
Leaders have to make sense of that ambiguity. That means looking for patterns, considering alternative explanations, and resisting the temptation to search only for evidence that confirms what we already believe.
Sometimes the earliest signals aren’t numbers at all. Repeated workarounds, growing frustration, delayed decisions, or people quietly abandoning a new process can tell us something important about whether a change is taking hold.
Try This: Look at the signs around one priority and ask…
What are we seeing that we expected?
What are we seeing that we didn’t expect?
What might explain the difference?
What information are we still missing?
What story are we telling ourselves?
Example:
Applications to a program are increasing, which looks encouraging. But admitted students aren’t attending recruitment events or responding to follow-up communication. Rather than declaring the strategy successful because applications are up, leaders look more closely. The signals suggest the problem may have shifted from generating interest to converting that interest into enrollment.
3. Decide: When Do We Know Enough to Act?
Key Idea: Leadership rarely comes with complete information. The challenge is knowing when the evidence you have is enough to make a responsible next move. Waiting for certainty can feel prudent. Sometimes it is. Waiting also has consequences. An emerging problem may become harder to correct. An opportunity may pass. Resources may continue flowing toward something that isn’t gaining traction.
Good judgment lives somewhere between waiting too long and reacting to every new data point. A signal doesn’t make the decision. It tells the leader where to look. The leader still has to interpret what is happening, consider what remains uncertain, and decide whether the evidence warrants action.
Try This: Conduct an Early Signal Check
EXPECT: What should we be seeing if we are moving in the right direction?
NOTICE: What are we actually seeing?
INTERPRET: What might these signals mean? What assumptions or uncertainties should we consider?
DECIDE: What is the most responsible next move given what we know now?
Continue when the evidence supports the current direction. Learn when uncertainty is important enough to gather more information. Adjust when the evidence supports changing the approach. Act when the consequences of waiting make action necessary even if the picture isn’t complete.
Final Thoughts:
Leadership isn’t about creating a dashboard for everything that matters. It is about noticing the evidence that helps us understand whether our choices are producing the movement we intended. That requires more than measurement. It requires curiosity, interpretation, and judgment. The challenge is knowing when the evidence you have is enough to act.
Next Steps to Strengthen Your Decisions:
Are you trying to determine whether an important initiative is gaining traction or whether it may be time to adjust? EduLead-Rx works with academic pharmacy leaders to strengthen strategic judgment, recognize meaningful signals, and turn evidence into informed, next-level action and results.
For more information contact me info@eduleadrx.com or schedule time to talk at edulead.as.me
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