I became chair of my department in January 2020 when my predecessor stepped down after 10 years (!) in the position. My department is small, so I’ve known since I was hired that I would eventually be chair, but I never considered how to prepare for the role — I was more focused on getting tenure. I certainly could not have guessed that my first year of chairing would be during a global pandemic that coincided with the departure of our president and provost.
My department is the only one at my liberal-arts college with graduate programs, so I am in the unique position of having additional duties that other department chairs on our campus don’t. So in addition to overseeing our department’s undergraduate programs, I function as a graduate-school dean, graduate-admissions director, and financial-aid director. In the fall of 2019, just before I took the departmental reins, I got my act together and decided I needed some training if I was going to succeed in my new position(s).
Like most faculty members, I receive email solicitations promoting all kinds of professional-development workshops. To be honest, they always felt like a hoax to me. For $4,000, I would get the pleasure of sitting in a room full of strangers, while someone with no familiarity with my institution told me how to lead my department. I wasn’t interested.
At one point, I looked into hiring an executive coach, but that was even more expensive, and I was pretty sure my college would not foot the bill.
So I went back to square one, looked more deeply into the workshop options for new department chairs, and found a few that piqued my interest. I emailed my dean to ask if the college could help support the cost of the training, and, happily, she agreed (turns out, we have institutional memberships with many of the sponsor organizations, so that helped lower the cost). I signed up for two leadership workshops for the spring and summer of 2020 — both of which were canceled because of Covid.
I stumbled through my first year of (virtual) chairing, hoping the workshops would be rescheduled. Eventually they were, and one fit my schedule perfectly. I recently completed a four-week, virtual boot camp for department chairs that, to my surprise, proved highly useful.
So here I am, eating crow, and sharing with you what I learned from my boot-camp experience. In what follows, I’m not advertising a particular group; just telling you what I learned and why I think you should ditch your reservations.
Format. At first, I confess, I was leery of the boot camp’s virtual format. After 16 months of Zoom teaching, I know how difficult it can be to make online learning engaging. The boot camp was scheduled for four consecutive Wednesdays, alternating between six- and three-hour sessions. The idea of sitting in front of my computer for six hours did not appeal to me, but hey, at least I didn’t have the hassle of traveling somewhere for this experience.
After the first six-hour day, I was surprised that it hadn’t felt that long. The workshop was limited to 25 participants; its two instructors took turns presenting on the strengths and pitfalls of various leadership styles. There were small-group breakout sessions in which participants could talk about complex topics (e.g., How do you maintain authority when most department members outrank you?) and share strategies that worked in our respective departments.
I generally dislike role-playing games but even those workshop exercises — on handling sensitive conversations and managing difficult faculty members — were excellent opportunities to practice new skills.
Over all, I found the workshop to be incredibly interactive. Participants were able, much more than I expected, to get to know each other and build personal and professional connections. We enjoyed one another’s company so much that we’ve asked the organization to hold bimonthly Zoom check-ins for us, and a reunion next spring.
Content. I chose this workshop because its range of topics appealed to me. The organizers designed a curriculum that moved from leadership theory to practice, and focused on conflict management, self-care, and career development. Each session included self-reflective exercises on our leadership values and goals, and concrete strategies for a variety of practices — building a relationship with the dean, working with human resources, initiating termination proceedings.
My favorite activities were the self-assessments and the leadership “audit” that solicited anonymous feedback from our department colleagues. The audit was particularly well done. All I had to do was send department members a link to a three-question, open-ended survey about my leadership strengths and limitations. The host organization collected the responses and aggregated them into a single report that was shared with me two days before the second session.
I then had a one-on-one meeting with a workshop leader to review the results. This 45-minute conversation was extremely valuable as it (a) allowed me to get to know one of the facilitators, and made me feel as though he was genuinely invested in my professional development, and (b) provided an opportunity to process the departmental feedback that, I admit, made me uneasy (see below).
Before our conversation, I was not looking forward to discussing my faults with a stranger, but having an outsider’s perspective was actually very useful. He helped me contextualize my colleagues’ comments in the audit, and strategize about how to leverage my strengths and fill the gaps in my leadership style. I’ve opted to do three additional coaching sessions, post-boot camp, (for additional fees, of course) and I’m glad I did. Those sessions will offer more individualized support for my leadership development.
What I learned about my leadership style. My biggest takeaway from this experience is that I am an effective leader — but not always the leader my team needs me to be. Let me unpack that:
- Who I am personally is indistinguishable from who I am professionally. We did an exercise where we identified the things that matter most to us in our role as chair. Mine were competence/willingness to learn, reliability, and integrity. The facilitators made a big deal of reiterating that these were professional values, not personal ones. They said most people value different things in work versus home settings, and that it was OK if the three values that mattered most to you on the job were not the same as what mattered to you in your personal life. But for me, my professional and personal values are the same. I am not sure if that’s good or bad, but it is my reality.
- My leadership assessment revealed that I am a critical thinker in times of calm, but a warrior in times of stress. Both of those profiles are task-oriented and data-driven — with very little focus on interpersonal relationships. Basically, I just want to get things done properly and efficiently, no matter who does the work. However, a second assessment — of my conflict-management style — showed that, in making decisions, I prioritize dialogue, collaboration, and compromise. Those two sets of results contradict one another on the surface. But after much reflection, I’ve realized that what I feel and think is not always what I externalize. In other words, I may feel impatient to get things done, but I make certain that in moving forward, everyone’s voice is heard and that we all feel satisfied with our direction. Or, maybe I don’t. …
- My leadership audit affirmed that I am a “natural chief operating officer” and that my strongest attributes are my dedication to the department, work ethic, time management, and organizational skills. But among my weak points are a tendency to “leave colleagues behind,” so much so that my attempts to collaborate “can feel performative” and that I don’t “make time for personal connections.” Ouch.
So here I am with a lot of data points (which I love), some of which conflict with one another (which I dislike).
But the boot camp is not meant to answer questions. It’s designed to expose your leadership style for further self-reflection. Toward that end, I am meeting with a trusted department colleague and friend to parse through all of this information, with the hopes of getting concrete examples of my leadership practices that do and don’t work.
I’ve already taken steps to better communicate my genuine appreciation of my colleagues — something that clearly gets buried beneath my desire to get things done. I sent thank-you emails to everyone who completed the leadership audit, summarizing their collective feedback and reiterating my commitment to improve in my role as chair. I mailed hand-written cards noting each person’s unique contributions to the department and to my professional and personal growth. I sent our newest colleague a welcome gift with a personalized note indicating my excitement to have her join us.
Once the fall semester gets under way, I hope to continue to make space for genuine personal connections during monthly one-on-ones with colleagues and especially during department meetings. I am going to work with my coach on managing my “precrastination” — a tendency to “complete tasks quickly just for the sake of getting things done sooner rather than later” — borne of my fear of getting behind in my work. To some, precrastination might not sound like a problem, but it can become one if you offend someone by answering emails too quickly or ending a meeting too abruptly just to have those tasks done.
I also want help figuring out how to balance my team’s desire for process-oriented collaborative work (people working on tasks together) with my preference for outcome-oriented, distributed work (people working on tasks individually). While the idea of having even more to do this coming year triggers my warrior mind-set, I am grateful for this experience because I know it’s the kind of work that will advance my career.
If you are on the fence about whether or not to pursue formal leadership training, I vote yes. It was worth the money and the time to invest in my professional growth.
