Leadership. A concept that I think many academics shrug off in their particular work orbits… there are chairs and associate deans and even provosts, but they are relatively invisible in the faculty member’s consciousness [back to the: “I have no boss” kind of relationship to work]. Some of us aspire to take on those positions, for any number of reasons –– the service commitment; the money; pure ambition; or some such combination. But, what happens once elected or appointed? What do you do when you get the leader’s job?
Leadership training? I think often the very concept of leadership training gets a bad wrap from faculty members. Let me suggest two possible reasons why that might be:
- Hubris?: We already know enough and can figure it out if confronted with the need to lead. We are smart. Just give us the resources and the spread sheet and we will find our way, through sweat and tears and anxiety and maybe at the risk of a bad back or strained neck…we will manage.
- Anti-corporatism?: We have a knee-jerk response to the language of corporations and businesses. The very language of leadership training seems unwelcome and other. We went into the academy to avoid the generic rhetoric or empty platitudes of “training” as we are knowledge generators not automatons.
Yet, although I am sympathetic to both possibilities, I have grown increasingly convinced over these past eight months that leadership requires a set of skills and not ones that we are born with or acquire because we have inquisitive and analytical minds or because we have gotten millions in NSF grants or hundreds of thousands in private endowments funds.
I think it is worth opening a dialog about leadership training and its efficacy and relevance to making our university jobs as satisfying – and therefore productive – as they can be. Having good leaders matters and can mean real change. I have in mind the improvement of climate and an increase in work satisfaction.
What do we faculty tend to complain about?: lack of transparency; top-down decision making; unfair distribution of (often scarce) resources; unfair distribution of labor tasks; lack of vision; cronyism; informal networks that exclude some; sexism; etc. etc. etc.….
One way to confront these and the myriad other problems identified by faculty is embracing the idea of leadership training and mentorship among our leaders – from grad directors, to chairs, to deans on up – mind you good and professional and smart training and attentive and thoughtful mentorship.
Let’s focus on Departmental Chairs for a minute, what many consider to be the hardest – and least appreciated – job in the university…any university in general (maybe with the exception of the job of Provost, I have heard people say)….
I spent two days last week at the American Council on Education (ACE) conference on Chair Leadership here in Miami. It was a gathering of just about 100 departmental chairs from US institutions around the world, some coming from as far away as London and Qatar to hear from the experts on academic leadership and chairpersonship. FIU was represented by myself (probably the only non-chair in the audience) and our very own Erik Larson, Chair of Religious Studies, who will take over the reigns as Chair of the Chairs Council next academic year 2016-2017. I will speak for myself when I say that I learned an awful lot and I gained deepened appreciation for academic leadership training and for how important it is to have good, effective academic leaders.
Topics covered at this two-day meeting ranged from budgets to departmental planning to diversity training. We discussed “creating a culture of collaboration”; “what does a chair do?”; “how can a chair lead?” and how the position of chairpersonship is a job that someone should want (that this desire is the mark of an effective chair) when the term is up.
But, what struck me most were the sessions on conflict resolution and conflict management. Dealing with the types of issues that arise, from grumbling faculty who are sure that your department is imagined the black sheep in the college to confronting the toxic faculty member who plants the seeds of discontent among the newest assistant professors, is not easy and not intuitive all of the time, if ever… Leaders of academic units, large and small, should be helping to ease tensions and not create them. There are skills and strategies that are available and help to ease and not exacerbate tensions. Such skills and strategies, however, are complex, not necessarily intuitive, and require a thorough understanding, oftentimes even practice.
Let me end by asking the question: how does FIU appear from the vantage point of cognizance of this responsibility (of leadership training) to the institution and its faculty? I’ll begin my response by saying that it was the Office of Provost that paid for me (and Erik) to attend the ACE meeting (and it is not cheap) and it is the Provost who expressed interest in investing in creating good, meaningful programs in leadership training, for all of our leaders. The will is there. Many of our leaders attend workshops and meet with professionals who help them learn to become — and help them continue to be – good leaders.
And, to be fair, there do exist places on campus where leadership training happens, has happened and will continue to happen, from The Center for Leadership to Howey-in-the-Hills (a Florida system funded program that has chairs workshops twice a year at FSU). We also have a Council of Chairs (CAC), which serves as a natural point of contact for the creation of good programs. So, we are not in bad shape in that regard.
But, more is needed and most of all “buy-in” from all of FIU’s academic leaders, our leader-aspirants and each faculty member. What do you think????