A professor in the sciences found himself in a new job “within a week,” he told me, when he was named interim dean of the college following his predecessor’s sudden resignation. Yes, it was stressful to have to learn a lot of unfamiliar job duties very quickly. But he said it was the mental jolts that almost drove him to quit, a month into the position.
His relationships with faculty colleagues changed nearly overnight (and not for the better). Deadlines now seemed life or death. Late-night work emergencies, and evening and weekend commitments, put strains on his family and general well-being. He stuck it out. But rather than apply for the permanent position, he happily returned to faculty life — a little richer from his temporary pay boost but very relieved to relinquish the hot seat.
In all my years of writing about academic administration, I’ve heard a lot of faculty members explain why they don’t go into administration, or why they decide to exit rather quickly. The No. 1 reason: They have trouble making the mental adjustment required for leadership posts. That transition is hard enough when you intentionally pursue an administrative career and plot your path up the ranks. It’s far more difficult when you are asked to step into a new post on short notice.
And that happens a lot in campus administration, thanks to any number of controversies or life circumstances that create unforeseen job vacancies. Lately in the Admin 101 series, I’ve been exploring these abrupt leadership appointments, both for professors new to administration and for administrators getting unexpectedly promoted up the ladder. This month’s column is on how to cope with the psychological challenges of a sudden career transition.
Prepare mentally to relinquish control of your calendar. When I was a graduate student, I distinctly remember being busy all the time. I felt the same way as I advanced through each faculty rank, but the nature of that “busyness” changed. The same was true as I moved up the administrative ladder as a graduate director, a program chair, and now a dean. I did fewer and fewer tasks that I controlled (like teaching) and more and more that took over my schedule, not to mention my attention span and brain bandwidth.
Promotion usually meant less autonomy. As a faculty member, I showed up to teach, held my office hours, and attended committee meetings but much of my week was my own. I could dive into my research at 2 a.m., and nap at 4 p.m. — my call. As dean, I feel like my time is only sketchily self-managed. Certainly, my calendar can tell me I have an 8 a.m. meeting Tuesday with the finance team to update our budget projections. Yet one email, text, or phone call — from the dean of students, a concerned parent, or a professor having a technological meltdown in the classroom — and I must veer course and change my agenda. However much I plan my day, lots of other people can replan it.
In administration, assume “the map is not the territory.” Emergency phone calls at 2 a.m. don’t happen often, but they do happen. In the first weeks of a promotion, you will have to rethink your concept of calendars, agendas, and time to one that is more nimble, flexible, and facile. Get used to pressing the restart switch.
Redefine your definition of “responsive.” My father was a professor, and I still have several boxes of his letters from the 1960s and 1970s. Hand typed on onion-skin paper, they feel, look, and sound like relics of a lost civilization. He corresponded with other scholars in his field about research, theory, methodology, and teaching ideas for class lectures and exercises. What struck me most was how unhurried and precise the writing was. He would write to someone he was collaborating with in, say, Germany, elaborating for four or five single-spaced pages. He didn’t sound rushed. He didn’t sound like he expected a reply within the hour. It was the true musing of intellectuals that the popular stereotype of academic life still aspires to.
Today, reading my own administrative “correspondence,” I am somewhat embarrassed by the quality of my messaging. I have not written anything that qualifies as a “letter” in years. And I often end up texting some version of, “Sorry, I typed too fast; what I meant was …” In my defense, I legitimately feel that people in 2023 expect me to get back to them in a timely fashion — which could be minutes or hours, depending on the situation.
My point: This is another mental adjustment you will have to make in your new position. No more taking your time and answering when you feel like it (or not at all). You will have to set your own protocols for how responsive you’re going to be, based on your needs and the expectations of the constituents you serve.
How much pressure you will feel to respond quickly to every email or text will depend on the job. The chair of a language department at a small liberal-arts college will not be under the same pressure as, say, the vice president for research at a huge state university. Talk to your counterparts in similar positions, and form a plan for what works best. (Oh, and invest in the best smartphone you can afford.)
Rethink the meaning (and limits) of work friendships. People who transition “overnight” into a new leadership post have usually served for years as faculty members on their campus. What they find most jarring about becoming a chair or dean is how their relationships also transform seemingly overnight. I’ve had many administrators tell me some version of, “When I became a chair, I found out how few friends I had,” or, “On my first week on the job as a dean, I felt like most of my colleagues changed their personality.”
I don’t mean to make this sound like a dour, cynical screed on human nature. As an administrator, you should always identify with faculty interests. In my own title, I list “professor” before “dean.” But administration means a new or additional identity and complications can ensue.
A case in point was described to me by a newly installed chair for a social-science department. After just two days on the job, he got a visit from a colleague and friend of many years. The friend was happy because he thought his long-denied request — for all of his classes and office hours to be scheduled by Wednesday so he could have the rest of the week free — would finally be approved by his “old buddy.” The new administrator suddenly realized his predicament: He would have to say “no” because the department had to schedule classes based on student need, room availability, and many other factors — not just faculty preference. His “friend” was disappointed, and not the first time as it would turn out.
Part of the mental transition to your new role is deciding what kind of leader you are going to be — one who tries to treat all colleagues as fairly as possible or one who plays favorites.
Is your temperament really a good fit for this job? That question ambushes a lot of people who move into a new leadership job without much time to think about it. Administrative culture varies so much from campus to campus. There are no simple leadership formulas: Do X and you will get a good result; do Y and you won’t. But when it comes to temperament, I do see two key fundamentals that are nearly universal:
- Always be the calmest person in the room. Even if people have lost their temper and made outrageously inappropriate remarks, your response has to be as cool and collected as possible. You don’t have to sit silent in the face of abuse. But you do have to be mature in your rebuttal: “Harold, that remark is completely out of line and factually inaccurate.” We are all humans in the workplace — so far anyway — and we all have limits and boiling points. But when you lose it as an administrator, you lose the argument, and your “brand” suffers. Part of your paycheck includes the expectation that you will behave professionally in any situation.
- Always tell the truth, insofar as you legally can. As an administrator, you can’t speak candidly on every issue. Even if you have a reputation for honesty, there will be situations in which you have to admit, “I don’t know enough to answer that,” or, “I’m sorry but that’s a confidential matter.” Further, if it turns out that you didn’t get the facts right, you should be the one correcting the record as soon as possible.
Unless an open, even temper comes naturally to you, maintaining one can be the source of a lot of stress, and especially so in a new role. You will be working long hours to get up to speed but you will also need some time to decompress. Whatever it is you do to relax — fish, hike, sew, paint, play Call of Duty, volunteer at animal-rescue centers, read French novels — make time for something that completely transports you out of thinking about your job. Those who live and breathe academic administration often end up living and breathing a shorter (and unhappier) time than otherwise.
You’ll also need a toolkit to calm you during those moments on the job when you’re in a volatile meeting or on receipt of an incendiary, all-caps email. Visualization and timeout techniques really do help: If someone is ranting in your office, imagine yourself on a beach for a few moments; if you’ve just received an insulting text, take a walk and study some campus art to avoid a quick reply that you will regret. Above all, hesitate. Think first about the big picture, and the good you are supposed to do tomorrow and the week after, and escape the urge to strike back.
The instant you sign a contract to be a chair, dean, or any other leadership post, the clock is ticking for you to adopt a new mind-set. That transition includes thinking through what your public face will be and how you will maintain it. If the very idea makes you squirm, you will have to either adjust on the job or opt out of administration.