Some leaders are known for their large personalities. Bold and aggressive, they seek spotlights and thrive on conflict. Their accomplishments may come at a high cost to others, but this, they say, is a necessary part of being a visionary.

Showing us another way, however, are the quiet leaders, those who work to build a better world, not by moving fast and breaking things, but by stepping carefully, treating everyone (even opponents) with respect, nurturing relationships, sharing credit, and—always—thinking about the greater good. They don’t always get as much attention, but their light burns brighter and, in the end, they get more done.

Joe McDonald, who died December 14, 2023, at the age of 90, was the epitome of the quiet leader. A member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, he was the driving force behind the development of Salish Kootenai College (SKC), which he led for 33 years before his retirement in 2010. Humble and soft spoken, he nonetheless built what many of his peers in higher education agree was one of the very best colleges—tribal or otherwise—in the country. “He was the best administrator I ever met,” said longtime colleague Michael O’Donnell. Many feel the same about his accomplishments as a friend and father.

Joe rose to national prominence, serving on boards for the American Indian College Fund, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the American Indian Business Leaders, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, among others. He was also the recipient of many distinguished service awards and honorary degrees. Yet the focus on his work, and his life, never wandered far from his home on the Flathead reservation. Raised by loving parents, he grew up surrounded by an extended family that, for the rest of his life, affectionately called him Baby Joe.

His first love was sports—all sports. He started playing basketball in sixth grade, then added baseball and football. As a high school sophomore, his football team won a state championship, an early achievement that some on the reservation rank about as highly as his educational accomplishments. While still in high school, he started coaching basketball at the Ursine School. After graduating, he worked as a Forest Service smokejumper.

Joe did well in school, though he claimed in a 2013 interview that he went to college only after his father reassured him that he would not have to give up athletics. “He told me I could go to college and do nothing but PE,” he recalled. “I couldn’t believe that.” He enrolled at Western Montana College on a basketball scholarship and graduated with an associate’s degree and a teaching certificate.

For the next decade he taught and coached at numerous K-12 schools across Montana, while completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and PE, respectively. After a stint of college coaching, he returned home to serve as principal and assistant superintendent of the Ronan Public Schools, while also completing a doctorate in education. It was during this time that he started building the foundation of what would become Salish Kootenai College.

“I went into it innocently,” he once said, insisting he had no clear goal in mind other than a desire to bring more educational opportunity to the reservation. “He was really worried about those folks who weren’t able to achieve their full potential,” explained son Tom McDonald. “He wanted to make sure they had something meaningful.”

With federal and tribal funding, Joe first started an adult GED program at the high school. From there, he created and directed a college extension program under the sponsorship of a nearby community college. When he saw how the Blackfeet tribe had turned a similar extension program into their own tribal college, Joe decided to do the same. Serving on tribal council, he put forward a resolution for the establishment of Salish Kootenai College.

Like many tribal colleges, SKC began with almost nothing. Michael O’Donnell, who briefly served as the college’s first president before taking on a variety of administrative positions over the next 30 years, recalled how Joe opened the college’s first bank account by depositing five dollars pulled from his wallet. But it grew and matured with remarkable speed. When I first visited the college in 1986, just nine years after its founding, I encountered an institution that felt far more mature and accomplished than its young age would suggest. At a time when many tribal colleges were still operating out of trailers and rented storefronts, SKC had already conjured an attractive campus, thoughtfully sited under a grove of pine trees. Timber structures, some solar heated, were welcoming and homelike, especially on cold winter days when a wood stove was kept burning in the main administration building.

Believing the college should, above all, serve the practical needs of the community, Joe and his colleagues devised a curriculum centered around job-focused vocational and associate degrees. But they also added a solid general education curriculum and included a wide range of cultural courses. Somehow, they found time and funding to start a PBS-affiliated television station and build the region’s largest and best library.

This rapid growth was made possible by the college’s remarkable staff and faculty. But it was obvious that Joe set the tone and brought out the best in everyone. “Every day was an adventure,” O’Donnell said, recalling the college’s early years. “His belief became our belief.”

There was always something of the coach in Joe—the way he motivated and inspired those around him. Like the best coaches, he had high standards, but he led by example and, above all, knew that success was a collective effort. “He took the blame for things that were not his fault, and he always shared credit,” O’Donnell said. Because they felt trusted and supported, many people who joined the college in its earliest days stayed for decades, and also made it their life’s work.

There was nothing false in Joe’s manner. “He loved people; he loved all people,” said Tom McDonald. And he looked for the best in others. “He always talked about finding common ground,” said O’Donnell. Even when meeting with adversaries, “he tried to find the one thing they could agree on.” He never saw value in conflict. I remember him once shaking his head sadly, recalling a meeting with state education officials that ended badly when someone decided to parade grievances and escalate conflict. What was the point of that? Joe asked. Why burn bridges?

What Joe knew instinctively was that it’s not enough to have a good idea and a solid plan; to succeed, any new endeavor needs friends. In a very real way, the college’s success reflected the degree to which Joe was liked and trusted within the community, and the degree to which he nurtured relationships within and beyond the reservation.

“He could converse with anybody,” said Tom McDonald. When he traveled to Washington for any reason, he would often stop by offices of grants managers in federal agencies, unannounced, just to say hello. “He called it management by visiting around,” O’Donnell said. It would be enough to talk about inconsequential things, but O’Donnell noted that Joe “often learned about grant opportunities before they were officially announced.”

Still, when necessary, Joe could be blunt, especially in defense of his colleagues and his community. When a university administrator once remarked that SKC graduates who enrolled in his institution “didn’t know how to write”—implying in this comment a deeper criticism of the college and perhaps tribal colleges in general—Joe calmly replied, “As a high school principal, we hired many teachers [from your university], and they couldn’t write either.”

“And that would end that,” he said.

His favorite way to make a point was to tell a story. They were often funny or wry. Only later, upon reflection, did it occur to me that they also contained a moral, a mild reproach, or a practical suggestion. He didn’t talk much about his faith, at least not to me, but in later years I began to see how important it was. He taught in parables and, more than any person I know, lived the Beatitudes.

To know Joe was to be part of the McDonald family. Sherri, his wife, almost always accompanied Joe to meetings, and visitors to the college often found themselves invited to dinner at the McDonald home. Sherri always worried that Joe was working much too hard—though she was, in her own way, no less driven. With other members of their church, she started, then for many years managed, a community food pantry that, according to Michael O’Donnell’s calculations, served over 540,000 meals over the next 30 years. Together, Joe and Sherri raised four exceptional children: Terry, Tim, Tracie, and Tom.

Sherri died in 2020, and son Terry passed away not long after. He didn’t talk a great deal about these losses when I last saw him in 2022, a visit long delayed by the pandemic. Instead, always the host, he wanted to hear about my family. We had lunch at a cafe in Ronan, where he recommended the cinnamon buns and stopped to chat with others—more “management by visiting around.” He then wanted to show me how much the college had grown. When Jerry Slater, the college’s vice president of academic affairs, proposed buying an expansive piece of land in Pablo for the new campus, Joe was skeptical, but he now wished they had purchased more. The original collection of buildings I first saw years ago was now overshadowed by a sprawling expanse of dormitories, apartments, administrative offices, and classrooms, including a theater, buildings dedicated to art and the sciences, an accredited childcare center, a football field, the Silver Fox Golf Course, and the Joe McDonald Health and Fitness Center. Students could choose from over 40 degree paths, ranging from vocational certificates to master’s degrees. What a remarkable legacy, I thought, to bring all this about.

I once asked Joe how he would explain the college’s success. His simple answer was that he never asked for anything from the tribe. Instead, he said, “We just served.”

And that, I propose, sums up Joe’s life as a whole: he just served.

Paul Boyer, EdD, is the founding editor of Tribal College Journal.