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Education

East Carolina University

03/05/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 03/05/2026 16:37

Chancellor Emeritus Steve Ballard shares leadership lessons

Published Mar 05, 2026 by

ECU News Services

Filed under:

"It's a great day to be a Pirate."

Ballard, center, is surrounded by members of his executive council. (Photo by Sam Huffman)

Those words were spoken by East Carolina University Chancellor Philip Rogers as he welcomed back Chancellor Emeritus Steve Ballard for the 10th annual Ballard's Annual Lessons in Leadership (B.A.L.L.) event on March 3 in the Main Campus Student Center ballrooms. Rogers noted that this phrase was one that Ballard often used when he served as ECU's seventh chancellor from 2004-16.

The ECU Staff Senate launched the event in 2017 to honor the former chancellor. That year, Ballard was named director of the Truist Leadership Center and became a professor, teaching leadership courses in the Honors College. He retired in June 2024.

"ECU is a special place," Ballard said. "I sometimes wonder if we realize all of it, all the ways that it is special and how we've nurtured that over time."

Rogers led the conversation, often calling on former members of Ballard's executive council in attendance to share their experience of public leadership, service and institutional culture.

Following are excerpts of their conversation.

What is Leadership?

Ballard calls leadership "a relational process of inspiring, encouraging and influencing positive change." That definition was developed during a retreat in a committee co-chaired by Dr. Virginia Hardy and the late Dr. Austin Bunch.

"We were thinking about how we would come up with being the leadership university," Hardy said. "We were intentional about those three words, and especially positive change."

Ballard added, "It's a relational process; you're not going to get much done if you don't understand the issues and the people."

Leadership Teams

As part of a discussion on leadership teams, Ballard and Rogers shared their philosophies and how individuals can help a university fulfill its mission.

If you are not learning more from your team than they are from you, you don't have the right team together.

Ballard noted the importance of a leader being able to learn from those around them.

"If you are not learning more from your team than they are from you, you don't have the right team together," he said.

Later in the discussion, Ballard shared his leadership rules of engagement including, "Ask the right questions, not the easy questions."

He went on to list three more that emphasized encouraging leadership to listen to others' perspectives, understanding what they can control, and providing a culture where colleagues know they can bring all ideas to the table for discussion.

Additional topics discussed at B.A.L.L included leading in crisis situations and developing an institutional culture.

Ballard and Rogers closed their conversation with a reminder to those attending to be open to learning from others, to keep their focus on the mission of the university, and to remain attentive to student success, not because it sounds good, but because it is what makes ECU special.