The Ripple Effect of Leadership

Highlights from “Stepping Up to Leadership with Your Head and Your Heart”, Women@Work Inspiration forum, 2/12/09

It’s the opportunity you’ve been waiting for your whole career. You know you can do this, but how do you step up and lead at this whole new level?

Step 1:  Embrace the “Shift Up”   A difficult aspect of taking on a major leadership challenge is the psychology of “shifting up”-  that is, thinking differently in a way that allows you to meet the challenges that you face and have faith in your own ability. 

1.     You must believe in yourself before others will believe in and follow you

2.     Acknowledge your fears and find a safe place for them.  It’s natural to be a little leery of taking on new things.  Change is always hard.

3.     Be proud of yourself:  But don’t be arrogant.  You’ve worked hard for this opportunity and have met the challenges that got you here.  Know that you are capable, and show it in your actions as a leader.

Step 2:  Know your own center:  Spend some time thinking about what your “core values” are and what is totally non-negotiable.  I often refer to this as figuring out “what hill you are willing to die on” as a leader.  For things that you decide may be negotiable for you, work hard to think as flexibly as you can. 

Also, think about the things that make you angry or emotional in the workplace and become very conscious of those.  Although feelings and being emotionally intelligent are critical parts of your success, it is never good to make a decision or deal with a difficult situation when your emotions are running high. 

Step 3:  Negotiate What Really Counts:  As you move into a leadership role, you need to know what you must have to succeed personally and professionally and ask for that.  Do not hesitate to request what you need, especially as you take on your new role.  Many of us fear that asking for things will reflect negatively on us, when in reality, asking clearly for what you need to get the job done that they are asking you to do shows decisiveness and an understanding of the road ahead.  Having said that, however, be ready to negotiate and back down or let go of things that are not necessary. 

Think about your core values in #2.  If one of them is family or personal time, be clear that this time is non-negotiable for you.  Do not be apologetic about it if this is a core value.  Honoring and protecting these types of time will ultimately make you more productive and effective as a leader and will help you avoid burnout. 

Step #4:  Be Open to Outcome:  There are a few ways to go about creating change in your organization, but in order for the change to be well-received and supported in the long run, as a leader, you have to share ownership of the process.  To make this process work for you, you have to develop the ability to be open to the outcome of such group sessions and not attached to a specific strategy.  As a leader, you can state the goal, throw out some ideas you have, and then, honestly, open the conversation up to your team(s) to let them decide on a course of action. 

It’s also important to be open to outcome in your own career.   It may be helpful to think back to your core values from #2 and map your ideal career trajectory onto those.  Keeping career and personal goals for the next year, 3 years, 5 and 10 years may be helpful in evaluating opportunities that come up, even if they are unexpected or unconventional.  Be open to these sorts of experiences, as they may lead you in an unexpectedly fulfilling direction. 

A couple of weeks ago I attended a professional development workshop that was part of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) annual meeting focusing on “Stepping Up to the Deanship.”  The conference was good, but this session was the highlight for me, and over the days preceding the workshop, I diligently prepared for it as I had been instructed to do:  I found an ad for the type of Dean position I’d like to get someday, I wrote a cover letter for that position, and I reformatted my CV in an administration-focused style.  This exercise was a great opportunity for me to reflect on where I’ve been, what I’ve done and learned, what I will bring to a Deanship, and to articulate these things in a targeted way for the position and institution of interest.  I went into the workshop confident in my growing readiness to be a Dean, sure of the value of the experience I’ve had and am getting now as an Associate Dean, and eager to learn how I could improve my letter and my CV and best position myself to become a Dean in the next 4-5 years.  I left the workshop with important information about CVs, interviews, and the like, but also discouraged about my trajectory; the message was clear that being an Associate Dean is not the way to become a Dean, and in fact, is a disadvantage.  Happily, not everyone agrees with this position, but it was a drag to hear it from the Head Honcho of an Academic Search Firm.

The irony of this message, of course, was that it was delivered to a group of current Associate Deans (ADs), all ready to transfer and grow what we’ve learned as ADs into Deanships.  Admittedly, many of the folks in the room were still very much thinking “in the weeds” rather than thinking “Deanly” thoughts, meaning that, as is typical of ADs, they are consumed with the minutia of running a college and actually making things work relatively smoothly rather than working in broad, visionary, funding-oriented, and more comprehensive strokes as Deans must do.  There were, however, plenty of us who understand that distinction and are ready to get out of the weeds and pursue the vision we have for the leadership of a college, reaching out to connect with other units on campus and external constituencies to build research and curricular programs, develop funding relationships, recruit and retain the best faculty and students, and put a public face on modern higher education.  The message, however, was that being an AD is not the way to step up to such a role-  being a Department Chair or center director is more appealing to search firms and search committees than “in the trenches” experience running, building, and solving problems within and outside of a college as an AD.  It was a sobering and depressing message. 

Sadly, it’s not the first time I’ve heard this message.  An admired colleague and mentor of mine, now a university president, gave me the same advice.   The gist of the numerous conversations I had with him about this topic was the always the same- that the best path to the Deanship is not through an AD position, but through a Department Chair job.   I did hear this piece of advice and took it to heart, first serving as Chair of my Department for a year while the permanent Chair was on sabbatical, after which time he was planning to go back to the faculty and I would be Chair for our typical 3-year term.  He, however, was (is) a great Chair, and decided not to step down after all, leaving me heading back to the faculty having only been Chair for 1 year.  The AD position opened soon after this, and I applied for and got the job.  I very much enjoy my work as an AD, and am learning a great deal about all the departments in the college, management and oversight of curriculum, faculty and staff evaluation, hiring, and promotion, and budget, and, importantly, how to lead and take a complex and ever-changing organization to a higher level.  I feel I am becoming well-prepared to be a Dean as a result of my cumulative faculty and administrative experience, but most of what I know will help me be a dynamic, inclusive, and tough but fair-minded Dean has been learned in my time as an AD. 

Moreover, having worked for 3 different Deans since becoming an AD, I beg to differ with my mentor and the workshop facilitators on their point that being a Department Chair prepares one better to Dean a college than being an AD.  The basic issue here is the size and breadth of the frame people bring to the job of Dean.  Dean #1 had little experience as either a Department Chair or an AD, and he struggled with the scope of the Dean job, including simple issues of management and communication up and down within the college, and building consensus in an efficient, actionable manner.  Dean #2 had been a Department Chair for a number of years, but never an AD or a Dean.  He was benignly non-collaborative in his leadership style, seemingly unaware of budgetary constraints, and lacking in the toughness needed to reward those who were doing well and hold those who were not compassionately accountable.  Dean #3 was a Department Chair initially and then served as an AD, and although he, like everyone, has strengths and challenges, he has assumed the Deanship already able to see the college as a whole entity, appreciate its complexities and the need for frequent, clear communication, and prioritize the necessity of upholding standards and compassionately mentoring faculty and departments to meet those standards.  This combination of skills, I believe, results from his experience as both a Department Chair and, importantly, as an AD, a position in which he had a great deal of responsibility for making aspects of the college, including faculty, budget, research, and curriculum, actually work on a large scale.  This breadth of experience and view is simply not afforded by serving only as a Department Chair.

In summary, reflecting on the workshop has left me with some new challenges.  First, I must carefully and thoroughly articulate the value, depth, and breadth of the sum total of my experience as a faculty member and administrator as I work to step up to the Deanship.  It may be that at many institutions, ADs do not do much, but at my University, the ADs are where “the rubber meets the road” for pretty much everything.  The work is incredibly decentralized to the schools and colleges, and although my position does not manage a group of faculty, I successfully manage numerous complex processes that are critical to the success of the faculty and the college.  I manage these groups and functions in a manner that faces not only up to the Dean and the Chancellors office, but down to the Departments, staff, and faculty in the college.   I have a story to tell about why my experience as an AD is preparing me to think in a “Deanly” way-  the experiences and responsibilities I have are preparing me to take on the authority necessary to move a college forward.  As an AD, I have the responsibility and experience, but not the authority, to be the leader I am ready to be as a Dean.