Everts: Listening a key leadership skill

Speaking to about 50 women at the Oakwoods Country Club clubhouse, Everts emphasized the importance and challenge of listening well and said it’s tantamount to empathy if done with an active approach that asks, “What am I going to do with what I’m hearing?”

The Nebraska native said empathetic listening means “listening to what we and others share and have in common…. Being that active listener assures one has access to a wealth of information and ideas.”

Everts said a good listener notices non-verbal communication because it carries 97 percent of the message.

She said learning and reading have always been paramount to her, “so when you jump to leadership, data-driven decisions are key from my perspective.” Decisiveness is an important leadership trait, Everts added, but being decisive without data or information can be disastrous.

She also said she believes in paying attention to those who dislike her for the right reasons because she stands to learn from them.

According to an introductory note on Everts on the Appalachian website, Everts spent her first year at ASU intently listening to faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends.

“There was nothing broken at Appalachian State when I came and there was no grand plan” for changes, said Everts, who previously had been provost and vice president for academic affairs at Illinois State University since 2008.

Everts mentioned the value of diversity in a student body, which Appalachian is known for lacking.

 She is known for her efforts to increase diversity at Illinois State. Twenty-five percent of the student body there was considered “of a diverse background” when she left, compared to 11 percent six years earlier. Illinois State was recognized in 2013 for being 19th in the nation for public universities increasing graduation rates for Hispanic students, while keeping rates for other students steady or improving.

Efforts to increase diversity at Appalachian since Everts became chancellor include expanding mentoring, requiring inclusion and diversity training for faculty, starting a bias incident reporting process and expanding the faculty and staff exit interview process.

She said construction of a new facility for the Beaver College of Health Sciences, which is underway, “will transform Boone and the area in terms of health care.”

Everts said Appalachian is at capacity with a student body of 18,300 “so ensuring that we have quality growth” is a goal.

In response to Wilkes Chamber of Commerce Executive President Linda Cheek asking Everts to tell her own story, Appalachian’s seventh chancellor said she and seven siblings were born to a farming couple in Nebraska and she attended a one-room elementary school.

Her father graduated from high school at age 16 and was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals to pitch. Her mother had an eighth grade education and went to work at age 13 cleaning other people’s houses.

Everts said her parents made sure all eight of their kids attended college. “My parents liked to say you can go anywhere you like as long as you go to the University of Nebraska,” she added.

“I found many of my early mentors through reading the biographies of famous people,” she said,  explaining the importance of reading early in her life.

Everts said her favorite was the biography of Andrew Carnegie, who was born to poor Scottish immigrants and became famous as a philanthropist and one of the richest Americans ever. She said Carnegie’s writings about a life of service resonated with her.

“I couldn’t imagine that a poor girl from rural Nebraska could grow up to be the chancellor of a major university, but I remember wondering how people became leaders if they weren’t born to it…. I wondered how they built their life experiences that gave them a chance to lead successfully.”

Everts added, “I also wondered how people learned from people who were different than they were…. I thought about myself as being from a single box on a piece of graph paper. I had a really small life, but I could read about these people who had enormous graphs full of experiences.”

She said she dreamed about knowing interesting people who were different from her. “My library card took me to places I could never afford to travel. It placed me in the room for conversations with interesting people with far different experiences and ideas…. That library card opened the world that I could only afford to learn through books.”

Everts said she thinks often about that library and about the importance of libraries in the lives of other young people. Libraries “are such a great equalizer.”

 “Learning on daily a basis, regardless of how much you know, is a lifelong journey… not one that ended when I received my PhD and certainly not when I became chancellor.”

Everts started keeping a journal as a child and has kept a professional journal since she was a high school English teacher. “I learned the power of writing from a very early age. Those of you with literacy or English degrees…. you know how important writing is to retaining information,” she said.

 “Writing and self awareness are linked for me…. It ties very close to what I call ‘Sheri’s Book of Rules.’  I have one for myself and I wrote one for my kids.”

She recommended that others write down rules for themselves to remind themselves of what they hold true, particularly on bad days. “Those rules are very different for everyone…. I attempt to value the differences my book of rules and the ones which I run into every day.”

Everts said her rule number one has always been to be the most positive and enthusiastic person she knows. She said this has sometimes been easy, but not at Appalachian because of the many positive and enthusiastic people there.

She said Dr. Sue Edwards, interim vice provost for faculty affairs, is particularly consistently optimistic and enthusiastic.

“Rule number two: always, always, always be grateful,” said Everts. “Every bad day holds a learning opportunity and I have probably said that my entire career…. If you can put it in that context, it can remind you to be grateful of every learning opportunity. Some days it’s far easier than others, but it helps me to remember to be grateful for opportunities to serve.”

Her rule three is to be kinder than necessary. “I learned that from one of my professors who lived that rule perfectly.” Everts said she has often been called upon to “redirect, remove or realign people in their careers and I have tried to do it kindly.”

She said rule four was often repeated by her parents while she was growing up: “You are no better than anyone else and no one is better than you.”

Everts said she isn’t always successful but does always try to live by her rules.

“We can’t always be in the situation when we’re right. Sometimes we are the jerk.”

Everts said she is accustomed to being the only woman at a meeting. She is among only 24 percent of the university and college chancellors in the nation who are women.

She received a bachelor’s degree in English instruction and secondary education from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1980.

She taught middle and high school English in Kansas and Nebraska before returning, enrolling at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where she received a master’s degree in literacy education and English in 1991, and a doctorate in administration, curriculum and instruction in 1994.

She began her higher education career as an assistant professor in the teacher education at Nebraska in 1994. Everts rose through the academic and administrative ranks and was interim senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at Nebraska when she was named provost and vice president for academic affairs at Illinois State in 2008.