Leadership Lesson Behind High Point University’s 99% Job Placement Rate

The leadership lesson behind High Point University’s 99% job placement rate starts with one statistic: ninety nine percent of High Point University graduates have a job, are enrolled in graduate school, or have started a business within 180 days of graduation.

The national average is 65 percent.

That gap isn’t an accident. It’s the result of two decades of intentional leadership decisions made by a man I am proud to call a friend, Dr. Nido Qubein, the longest serving university president in North Carolina.

This week US News and World Report published an in depth interview with Dr. Qubein about how High Point University built what he calls a “life skills ecosystem” that prepares graduates for the workforce in an age of artificial intelligence and rapid technological change. The interview is worth reading in full, and I have linked it at the bottom of this article.

But the real story behind High Point University’s transformation is a leadership lesson that applies far beyond higher education. It applies to every CEO, executive, manager, and entrepreneur who has ever asked the question, “How do we grow?”

Dr. Qubein answered a different question. And that is why High Point University is now the institution every other university is trying to study.

The Numbers Tell One Story

When Dr. Qubein became president of High Point University in 2005, the school had approximately 1,500 students. Today it serves more than 6,550. Enrollment has grown 322 percent. Faculty has grown from 108 to 502. The endowment has grown from 42 million dollars to 240 million. Capital investment in campus facilities exceeds 3 billion dollars. The university now generates 850 million dollars in annual economic impact for its region.

These are the numbers that show up in press releases and rankings. They are extraordinary. But they are not the lesson.

The lesson is in the question Dr. Qubein asked before any of those numbers existed.

The Question Most Leaders Never Ask

When most university presidents take office, they ask, “How do we grow enrollment, increase rankings, and raise more money?” These are reasonable questions. They are also the questions every other university is asking, which is why most universities look essentially the same.

Dr. Qubein asked a different question. He asked, “What do our graduates actually need to succeed in the world they will walk into?”

That question changed everything.

It led him to build what no other university had built. A required Life Skills 101 course that he teaches himself, focused on confidence, communication, and personal branding. A mock airplane cabin where students practice intelligent conversation with strangers, because his graduates would inevitably sit next to executives on flights and need to hold their own. Required dining etiquette training with rotating country themes each month, no cell phones permitted at the table, and periodic mock interviews with potential employers throughout the four year experience.

Other universities have luxury dorms. High Point has an ecosystem designed to produce graduates who can walk into any room, any boardroom, any opportunity, and perform with competence and confidence.

That is the difference between asking how to grow and asking what you are growing for.

The Leadership Lesson That Built High Point University

I wrote about Dr. Qubein in my book The Solutions Oriented Leader because his approach to leadership represents something rare in modern business and education. He had the courage to define success on his own terms rather than chase someone else’s definition.

When he started building the life skills ecosystem, critics said the airplane cabin and dining etiquette training were gimmicks. They are not gimmicks. They are the precise tools required to produce the outcome he was committed to. Other universities measure themselves by selectivity and prestige. Dr. Qubein measures High Point by what graduates can do six months after they leave campus.

This is the principle that separates transformational leaders from caretaker leaders.

Caretaker leaders inherit a definition of success and try to hit it more efficiently than the person before them.

Transformational leaders ask whether the definition itself is correct, and if it is not, they build a different one.

The leadership lesson from High Point University is simple: transformational leaders redefine the scoreboard.

In my work coaching executives and speaking to organizations around the world, the leaders who produce extraordinary results almost always share this trait. They redefine the question their industry is asking. Theses measure something different than their competitors measure. They build their organization around an outcome that nobody else thought to pursue.

High Point University Leadership The Personal Connection

Dr. Qubein and I have known each other for many years. He occasionally sends me High Point University jackets and hoodies, and he sometimes jokes that I helped double enrollment at the university.

I did not. He did. Every single bit of that growth is the result of his vision, his discipline, and his refusal to settle for an ordinary university.

But the fact that a leader of his stature would say something so generous about a friend tells you everything about the kind of person he is and the kind of culture he has built. Generous leaders build generous cultures. Secure leaders build secure cultures. Visionary leaders build visionary institutions.

When you walk through High Point University, you can feel it. The students are confident. The faculty is engaged. The facilities are not just impressive, they are intentional. Every detail reflects a leader who has thought carefully about what kind of human being he is trying to develop.

That is leadership.

What This Means For Your Organization

You do not have to be a university president to apply this lesson. The principle is universal.

If you lead a sales team, the question is not how to hit a quota. The question is what kind of salesperson you are developing.

When you run a company, the question is not how to grow revenue. The question is what your company should be known for in ten years.

For department heads, the question is not how to be efficient. The question is what your team should be capable of that no other team in your organization can do.

The leaders who answer these deeper questions build extraordinary organizations. The leaders who skip them build forgettable ones.

Dr. Qubein answered a deeper question two decades ago, and that single decision built one of the most remarkable transformations in American higher education. The lesson applies to every leader who reads this article.

What deeper question is your organization not asking?

Read More

The full US News and World Report interview with Dr. Nido Qubein on High Point University’s life skills ecosystem can be read here: Life Skills Ecosystem for College Students in the Age of AI

Learn more about Dr. Nido Qubein and High Point University at the Office of the President.

I wrote a full chapter on Dr. Qubein and the philanthropic leadership principles he has demonstrated throughout his career in my book The Solutions Oriented Leader. The book is available on Amazon and Audible.

If you would like to bring this kind of transformational leadership thinking to your organization through a keynote, workshop, or executive coaching engagement, contact me directly at rickgoodman.com.