Chapter 2
Strategy

If We Were To regard Iowa State University's Academic Leadership Forum (ALF) program as a test case for what institutions should consider as they develop strategies for their own programs in academic leadership development, what conclusions would we draw from this experiment? Certainly we would need to take into consideration the unique cultural, political, and social climates of each institution or university system when planning an effective leadership program for administrators. In addition to that important principle, we may cite the following twelve lessons learned from ALF as a flexible blueprint that most schools can use in launching or improving an academic leadership initiative:

1. Lesson 1: Cohort groups can play a key role in most leadership development programs. Since leadership by its very nature involves relations with others and cannot be practiced in a vacuum, a successful leadership development program should offer numerous opportunities to confer, work, and interact with colleagues who are experiencing similar challenges. In fact, a combination of different sized cohort groups is probably the best possible solution. Very small groups, like the partners in academic leadership (PALs) developed at Iowa State, give the program an opportunity for peer-to-peer mentoring and allow participants to discuss issues they would prefer not to mention in front of the full group. Larger groups, like the monthly three-hour sessions scheduled for ALF, can bring a broader perspective to the issues addressed in the program and reinforce the participants' understanding that no one is alone in facing administrative challenges.
2. Lesson 2: Leadership development programs should not merely serve as training programs; they should also act as support groups. There is a great deal more to academic leadership development than mastering a body of knowledge and honing administrative skills. Many participants in ALF believed that the most important benefit they received from the program was the support network it provided across campus. By having regular opportunities to discuss significant issues with others who were affected by them, the participants developed a sense that "we're all in this together." That sense of camaraderie serves as an antidote to administrative burnout. For example, the transition to an administrative position can be very difficult for a newly appointed chair who, while serving as a faculty member, had often socialized with other members of the faculty on a level of equality. The leadership development program offers access to a set of colleagues who "get it." Moreover, the higher up the administrative hierarchy one goes, the more isolating it can feel. Leadership development programs serve to counteract this sense of loneliness by providing a peer group that understands what the person is going through and can offer sympathy even when it can't offer solutions.
3. Lesson 3: Leadership development must be an ongoing process. As educators we understand why learning that occurs in easily digestible amounts over an extended period of time is often retained better than learning that occurs in high concentration within a very confined period. That is why most students tend to retain what they learn in foreign language classes better if the course meets an hour a day all year rather than three hours a day all summer. In much the same way, immersion-based leadership training workshops, regardless of whether they take place over a weekend or an entire summer, frequently fail to change people's behavior. There just is not enough follow-through. After the chair or dean returns from the workshop, new priorities arise, and the lessons that seemed so life changing only a few weeks before are quickly forgotten. To be truly successful, a leadership program should adopt a systems approach that builds on continual, progressive, and sequential development, offering frequent constructive feedback and opportunities for ongoing reflection. Management consultant Peter Bregman suggested in his blog for the Harvard Business Review,

There is a massive difference between what we know about leadership and what we do as leaders. I have never seen a leader fail because he or she didn't know enough about leadership. In fact, I can't remember ever meeting a leader who didn't know enough about leadership. What makes leadership hard isn't the theoretical, it's the practical. It's not about knowing what to say or do. It's about whether you're willing to experience the discomfort, risk, and uncertainty of saying or doing it. (http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2013/07/why-so-many-leadership-program.html)

Developing the ability to live with that discomfort, risk, and uncertainty does not come about through lectures and reading. It comes about through ongoing reflective practice and skill development on the job; shortcuts simply are not possible. If participants are going to commit themselves to effective leadership development, they must be prepared to engage in a long-term process.

1. Lesson 4: Leaders can create and deliver their own learning opportunities. Although training opportunities provided by external consultants and organizations can be valuable components of a comprehensive development program in academic leadership, they should never constitute the entire program. Each institution and university system includes numerous experts who, because of either their extensive experience or academic training, can provide administrators with valuable insights into conflict management, team building, strategic planning, budget supervision, faculty recruitment, and other issues central to academic leadership. Moreover, local experts possess something that even the most accomplished consultant does not have: an intimate knowledge of the local culture and the people who compose it that makes each college or university different from every other. It is not uncommon in higher education to encounter a consultant who provides excellent advice that will not work in one setting or another. The systems are different, and the people who make up those systems are different. For this reason, making use of experts on your own faculty and staff provides a useful counterbalance to the tendency of outside experts and professional organizations to assume that academic leadership works in the same way everywhere.
2. Lesson 5: Successful leadership development programs require a supportive culture. It was established long ago that institutional change processes almost always fail if they do not receive a high level of commitment from the upper management. (See, e.g., Eckel, Hill, and Green, 1998.) The ALF program, while not dependent on resources from the university's central administration, did receive enthusiastic endorsements from the president and provost. That level of support can prove to be invaluable when the pressures of administrative work threaten to distract academic leaders from the program. Without overt recognition from upper administration that leadership development activities are worth the time and expense they require, participants may soon begin to drift away from the program or participate in its activities only halfheartedly. There are several ways in which this high level of support can be demonstrated. Most commonly, the CEO of the institution or university system will convene and provide a formal welcome at the group's opening meeting. But it is also possible for the upper administration to look favorably on continued leadership training when evaluating administrators under its supervision or lead by example through attendance at training programs itself. For instance, in the Academic Leadership Center, an initiative in which both state and private universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia participate, the minister of higher education attends and is actively involved in all training sessions for university rectors (the presidents or chancellors). He makes a point of saying how useful he finds the sessions and how much he learns from them. As a result, almost all the rectors throughout the university system attend these sessions (their conclusion being, "My boss is going to be there, so I guess I'd better go too"), take them seriously ("My boss thinks these programs are important, so I guess I'd better be an active participant too"), and recommend leadership training to other administrators at the university ("My boss is always pleased when I attend these programs, so I'll be pleased if my deans and chairs attend them as well").
3. Lesson 6: Leadership programs tend to be most successful when they capitalize on small wins as they proceed. Karl Weick, the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, described a "small win" as a "concrete, implemented outcome of moderate importance" (1984, 43). When each small win builds on the previous one, participants in a program feel a sense of progress they would never experience if they were forced to wait for a single "transformative experience" after the training is complete. In addition, those who support the program are repeatedly galvanized because they can point to positive results that occur on a regular basis. Those who may have opposed the program for whatever reason find that they can no longer argue that leadership development is a mere intellectual exercise; they recognize that the program is producing...