Note: In the “Ask the Chair” series, the author of How to Chair a Department answers your questions about departmental leadership. Send your queries via Twitter, Facebook, or email. Read last month’s column here.
Question: I’m a faculty member in a small interdisciplinary program at a large R1 institution. I am set to become chair next summer (2023) and have been thinking about what I could do to prepare myself for the role. Do you have any advice for new chairs or soon-to-be chairs?
I thought about taking some leadership-coaching courses or learning more about our university budget, but I don’t know what would be most useful. Or perhaps I should just wait until I’m in the role and trust that the two months before the fall term starts will be enough to get me up to speed? As you can probably guess, I like to plan things in advance and be well prepared, so I know that the uncertainties involved in being a chair are probably going to be challenging for me.
Signed,
Chair in Waiting
Dear Waiting,
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown — even if that crown doesn’t come with any absolute power. I’ve been thinking lately about how prospective chairs can be given the tools to help them succeed, so your question comes at an opportune time. I touch on some of the secrets of the guild (learn Excel!) in my book, How to Chair a Department. I’ll allay my embarrassment at recommending it by pointing out that it’s very short and won’t take a big bite out of the precious time you’ve got left before assuming The Chair.
Since you’re starting the post in just six months, my advice would be largely to take the time for yourself rather than trying to anticipate the on-the-job skills you’re going to need (although your eagerness to seek out such training bespeaks a generosity of spirit that’s going to make you a wonderful chair).
You’ll need to learn your institution’s accounting software, but staff members on the campus will bring you up to speed on that. Some new chairs go to boot camps and other forms of leadership training. I’m a big fan of professional coaches, but I suspect the return on that investment would be greater after you’ve been in the saddle awhile.
No doubt the job will be somewhat overwhelming at first, but I’m not sure there’s much you can do to ready yourself for the stress: Reading about an earthquake doesn’t meaningfully prepare you for living through one.
What we do know for certain is that your time will no longer be yours to spend as you see fit, as it has been to a much greater degree during your faculty role. You won’t have the discretionary time and attention you’ve been used to. You’re going to lose control of your calendar, and your creative bandwidth — at least for a little bit. For that reason, I’d suggest using these next six months to bring your own projects to completion (or to a logical pause) and to get your fall courses (if you’ll be teaching) in apple-pie order.
But, Waiting, you’re a self-confessed prepper, and I suspect that my reassurances are not going to be enough to quiet the voices in your head. If you need some areas to focus on — and all kidding aside, of course you do — consider the following. Like most academics, I’m both suspicious of, and strangely drawn to, the listicle as a form for organizing knowledge. But with your forbearance, I’ll talk briefly about a half-dozen things I wish I’d known before my first stint as a department chair.
- I wish I’d had a clearer sense of my leadership style. One of the most familiar caricatures of a department head is the embattled chair memorialized in Richard Russo’s campus satire Straight Man. That character was modeled after the guy I replaced in my first experience as chair. He had a very, very different personal style from mine. My predecessor was the academic equivalent of a thug — me, I’m a writer, not a fighter. It took me a while to realize that my weakness (prioritizing relationships over outcomes) was also my superpower. Don’t let a one-size-fits-all notion of how chairs “should” operate cramp your genuine style.
- I wish I knew more about how departmental budgets work. You don’t need to go into excessive detail on this front. You just need a solid understanding of the funding sources (dean’s office, grants, endowments) for various line items in your department’s budget. You also need to know which revenue lines are restricted (designated for a specific purpose by their donor) and which are unrestricted (available for any legitimate need the department might have), and which funds expire at the end of the fiscal year and which carry over. All of which would have been very useful to know upon taking office.
- I wish I’d had a better sense of the experience of staff members working in my department. If you’re like most faculty members, you only minimally understand what the staff in your department do. Last month’s column dwelt on this subject at some length, so I’ll be brief here: Your department’s staff members are probably some relatively poorly compensated folks, working alongside professors who enjoy real professional privilege. Empathy goes a long way — but has to be learned, and earned. Get to know the staff members and what their jobs feel like to them.
- I wish I’d had an email strategy in place. When I was in sixth grade, knowing that my handwriting would always be execrable, I taught myself to type. I got pretty good at it, but I also baked in some bad habits: I still move my whole hand to press the shift key with my index finger. Moral: Bad habits acquired when you’re learning a new skill can be tenacious. When I became a chair, my email load grew exponentially, but my means of dealing with it did not: I was essentially trying to put out a wildfire with a shot glass (and, force of habit, still am). There are lots of better options. Consider, for instance, creating a rule in your email that lets the messages of VIPs get through (the provost, dean, program administrator, spouse) and deal with the others just once or twice a day in an efficient, focused burst. Or: Deal in some way with every email in your inbox before you go to bed.
- I wish I’d understood the need to protect my calendar. The work, as the adage goes, will expand to fill the space you give it. Set some boundaries. Decide that on Tuesday and Thursday mornings you will work in your office with the door closed, and not answer phone calls or emails, or that on Fridays you will work from home. Build time into your weekly schedule for the things that matter most to you because you’ll never “find” a spare minute.
- I wish I’d gone into it with a chair buddy to confide in. It may be a quirk of my own makeup, but I’ve always found the confidentiality of the chair’s role to be a challenge. Not because I’m a gossip — at least I don’t think so. It’s more because I don’t always trust my own instincts when thinking about how to deal with a tricky personnel or financial situation, and I want to run it by someone. Having a friend or two among the institution’s chairs can help. They’ll have practical experience to share, and sometimes advice. But mostly, it helps to hear from someone in a similar situation that what you’re confronting isn’t unique — that you’re not alone.
I hope that mulling some of this over will help you be better prepared for the challenges of this new job. At least you’re “waiting,” not dreading — anticipating, even, I’d venture to say. If you’re at all excited about taking on the challenge of leading your department, you’re way ahead of the game.
