These Laws contain some (perhaps most) of what I learned in 16 years as a university administrator--department head, dean, and academic vice president. We academics pride ourselves on our ability to generalize largely from the limited data at hand, and I'm persuaded that much of what I've learned is as applicable to the real worId as it is to the academy; hence the wide utility I see for Wilson's Laws.
To claim that these laws are really Wilson's would be both arrogant and untruthful. These are Wilson's formulations of some laws that appear to me as necessary to the governance of academic people, individually and in groups. In truth, probably not even these formulations are wholly mine: I've had some of the best instructors the academic world has ever seen, people who nearly always by example and only occasionally by precept have taught me most of what I've learned. Students, teachers, department heads, board members, deans, secretaries, provosts, technicians, vice presidents, graduate assistants, presidents, and professorial colleagues too numerous to mention or even to remember accurately have been my instructors over the years, sometimes deliberately and consciously, but more often by acting out with total unself-consciousness all of the wisdom and some of the folly encapsuled in these laws. Most of the folly is, of course, my own, not least of which is this probably vain (in both senses, no doubt) effort to pass on what I've learned.
I've tried to state Wilson's Laws clearly but briefly. Every teacher knows that to say a thing only once, and abstractly, places great demands on the student, who may lack the experience and hence the catalog of images necessary to flesh out the abstraction. Nonetheless, I omit most illustration; brevity suggests the omission, but accuracy demands it. In the end, only the reader's experience can satisfactorily illustrate and thus confirm the truth of these laws. If readers lack all the necessary experience, then the brevity of the statement may help them retain the general principle and permit them instantly to recognize its truth when they encounter the situation later on. If the readers' own catalogs of images are up to it now, however, they will find each law a clear, succinct statement of truth, instructive and improving.
Wilson's First Law
If you wouM lead the academy, push, don't pull, on the end of the string.