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Academic Leadership Fundamental Building Blocks Professor Tricia Vilkinas Assoc/Professor Betty Leask Assoc/Professor Richard Ladyshewsky ©T. Vilkinas, B. Leask and R. Ladyshewsky 2009 ISBN 978-0-9806179-0-0 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the authors. Citation Vilkinas, T., Leask, B., & Ladyshewsky, R. (2009). Academic leadership: Fundamental building blocks [Resource book]. Strawberry Hills, New South Wales: Australian Learning and Teaching Council. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This program has the endorsement of the University of South Australia’s Deputy Vice- Chancellor, Professor Peter Lee and Curtin University of Technology’s Deputy Vice- Chancellor, Teaching and Learning, Professor Robyn Quin. The authors would like to acknowledge the significant contributions made by other members of the ALTC Research Team – Dr Sanjee Perera and Dr Tim Rogers – to this resource book as well as to the content and structure of the workshops which are a central component of the ‘Academic Leadership – Fundamental Building Blocks’ program. Our thanks must go to Ms Sue Jones, Dr Helen Flavell and Associate Professor Beverley Oliver, of the ALTC Curtin University of Technology Team who have provided support through their Academic Leadership Program for Course Coordinators project. Also the considerable contribution made by Dr Judith Saebel must be recognised. Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd. 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To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Requests and inquiries concerning these rights should be addressed to the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, PO Box 2375, Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 or through the website: http://www.altc.edu.au 2009 i ©T. Vilkinas, B. Leask and R. Ladyshewsky 2009 Contents OVERVIEW Welcome to the ‘Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks’ Program ........ vii Development of Academic Leadership ...................................................................... viii Program Format .......................................................................................................... x 01 WORKSHOP ONE: INTERPRETING YOUR FEEDBACK .................................. 1 Interpreting Your Feedback ......................................................................................... 3 Interpreting Your Feedback – Effectiveness ......................................................................... 11 Interpreting Your Feedback – Integrator (Chapter 6) ............................................................ 14 Interpreting Your Feedback – 5 Operational Roles ............................................................... 16 Evaluation: Workshop One ........................................................................................ 31 Preparation for Workshop Two .................................................................................. 33 02 PERSONAL ACTION PLANS ............................................................................ 35 Personal Action Plans (1) .......................................................................................... 37 Action Plan Implementation Process .................................................................................... 41 Requirements for a Certificate in Academic Leadership ............................................ 43 03 WORKSHOP TWO: FINE TUNING YOUR ACTION PLANS ............................. 45 Fine Tuning Your Action Plans .................................................................................. 47 Reflecting on Actions to Date ................................................................................................ 49 04 WORKSHOP THREE: EMBEDDING YOUR NEW BEHAVIOURS ................... 71 Reviewing Your Action Plan(s) .................................................................................. 76 Where to From Here? ............................................................................................................ 77 05 THE INTEGRATED COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK (ICVF) ................. 83 The Integrated Competing Values Framework (ICVF) ............................................... 85 06 DEVELOPING THE INTEGRATOR ................................................................... 91 Developing the Integrator .......................................................................................... 93 Activities .................................................................................................................... 94 6.1 Developing Reflection Skills ........................................................................................... 95 6.2 Being a Critical Observer ............................................................................................... 98 6.3 Responding to Feedback ............................................................................................. 101 6.4 Understanding Action Learning .................................................................................... 104 6.5 Learning From Experience ........................................................................................... 107 6.6 Learning New Behaviours ............................................................................................ 114 iiiiii ©T. Vilkinas, B. Leask and R. Ladyshewsky 2009 Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks 07 DEVELOPING THE DEVELOPER .................................................................... 117 Developing the Developer ....................................................................................... 119 Activities.................................................................................................................. 120 7.1 Learning to Listen ......................................................................................................... 121 7.2 Using Questioning Skills to Build Teams ...................................................................... 126 7.3 Developing Others Through Coaching ......................................................................... 129 7.4 Delegating Effectively ................................................................................................... 135 7.5 Managing Conflict ......................................................................................................... 138 7.6 Building Teams ............................................................................................................. 144 08 DEVELOPING THE MONITOR ......................................................................... 149 Developing the Monitor ........................................................................................... 151 Activities.................................................................................................................. 152 8.1 Managing the Flow of Information and Communication ............................................... 153 8.2 Monitoring Group Processes ........................................................................................ 157 8.3 Monitoring Program Performance ................................................................................ 160 09 DEVELOPING THE DELIVERER ..................................................................... 165 Developing the Deliverer ......................................................................................... 167 Activities.................................................................................................................. 168 9.1 Setting Goals ................................................................................................................ 169 9.2 Being Productive........................................................................................................... 173 9.3 Managing Your Time .................................................................................................... 176 9.4 Managing Stress ........................................................................................................... 179 10 DEVELOPING THE BROKER .......................................................................... 189 Developing the Broker ............................................................................................. 191 Activities.................................................................................................................. 192 10.1 The Skill of Persuading Others ................................................................................... 193 10.2 Influencing Your Line Manager................................................................................... 198 10.3 Negotiating Effectively ................................................................................................ 205 10.4 Using Power and Influence ......................................................................................... 211 11 DEVELOPING THE INNOVATOR .................................................................... 217 Developing the Innovator ........................................................................................ 219 Activities.................................................................................................................. 220 11.1 Introducing and Managing Change ............................................................................ 221 11.2 Managing Resistance to Change ............................................................................... 226 11.3 Strategies for Managing Change ................................................................................ 229 11.4 Fostering Innovation ................................................................................................... 231 11.5 Brainstorming.............................................................................................................. 234 12 GENERAL READINGS ..................................................................................... 237 iv ©T. 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Ladyshewsky 2009 List of Tables TABLE 1: Personal Traits That Affect Listening Effectiveness......................... 122 TABLE 2: Example Coaching Questions ......................................................... 133 TABLE 3: Components of Goal Setting Theory ............................................... 169 TABLE 4: Sources of Stress in the Workplace ................................................. 180 TABLE 5: Types of Power That Can Be Used in Negotiations ......................... 206 TABLE 6: Potential Change Driving and Change Resisting Forces Operating Within a University International Program ....................................... 231 TABLE 7: The Six Thinking Hats of Eduard de Bono ....................................... 234 List of Figures FIGURE 1: The Triangulation of Feedback for Developing Action Plans .............. x FIGURE 2: Sample Certificate in Academic Leadership .................................... 44 FIGURE 3: Integrated Competing Values Framework ........................................ 85 FIGURE 4: Ladder of Inference ........................................................................ 114 FIGURE 5: Four-Stage Model of Change – Coach’s Role ............................... 131 FIGURE 6: Managing Life Stress (adapted from Covey, 1989) ........................ 173 FIGURE 7: Time Management Traps ............................................................... 176 FIGURE 8: Long-Term Effects of Stress .......................................................... 180 FIGURE 9: Cycle of Negative Self-Talk ............................................................ 185 FIGURE 10: Strategic Process of Negotiation .................................................. 208 FIGURE 11: Increasing Your Upward Influence ............................................... 214 FIGURE 12: Experiential Learning Model ........................................................ 222 FIGURE 13: Template for a Force Field Analysis ............................................. 232 v ©T. Vilkinas, B. Leask and R. Ladyshewsky 2009 OVERVIEW Welcome to the ‘Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks’ Program Tailored leadership development that is role relevant… (Yielder & Codling, 2004, p. 327) This program has been designed to assist you in your development as an academic leader. More specifically, it has been designed to assist you in acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to perform your academic leadership role more effectively. These roles may have various titles depending on the University within which you work. They may be Program Director or Course Coordinator. Whatever the title, the role is one where you have responsibility to manage the delivery and quality of an academic field of study. For ease of writing, the Academic Coordinator title is used in this book. It is based on the principle that leadership development needs to be tailored to the needs of both the individual and the role, and recognises that you are in an academic leadership role with little or no formal authority or power. This program builds on research on leadership in management as well as research on academic leadership. It utilises critical reflection as a strategy that fosters deep learning. The new understanding will help you to develop your personalised action plans. These will strengthen your professional competence as an academic leader. In this resource book you will find: • some background information on academic leadership, • workshop materials designed to assist you in interpreting and responding to feedback that you have received via the online survey, • copies of workshop slides, • an outline of some Personal Action Plans for you to complete, • a suite of self-access activities and resources for ongoing use with your action plans, • a CD that contains a copy of this resource book. We hope that you will find the program and this resource book useful in assisting you to build your skills as an academic leader. Enjoy the program! The Research Team: Tricia Vilkinas Betty Leask Richard Ladyshewsky Sanjee Perera Tim Rogers vii ©T. Vilkinas, B. Leask and R. Ladyshewsky 2009 Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks Development of Academic Leadership Academic leadership is critical in higher education because it has an impact on the quality of student learning (Ramsden, Prosser, Trigwell, & Martin, 2007). Academic leadership is also complex and challenging. Many academics (e.g., Academic Coordinators), may not see themselves as leaders in the traditional sense. This often stems from a lack of formal authority or line management over other academics that deliver the course/program. However, leadership is also about inspiring individuals without necessarily using force or power. Through their work, leaders need to be able to influence, motivate, and inspire others to follow. As Academic Coordinators, you have this responsibility. You must build relationships and use your influence to get your peers to deliver on program outcomes and quality. In other words, as Academic Coordinators you must consider yourselves leaders in the roles you occupy. This is becoming more important as work is delegated and distributed in flattened organisational structures of most universities. Academic leadership requires breadth and depth of knowledge and skills, and is defined as a whole by a complex suite of behaviours. A leadership framework, the Integrated Competing Values Framework (ICVF) provides insight into this complex suite of behaviours as a whole and assists in overcoming one of the difficulties we have in improving our effectiveness as academic leaders – the difficulty of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the ‘parts’ and developing those, when they are usually practiced and evaluated as a ‘whole’ (Vilkinas & Cartan, 2001, 2006). Effective academic leaders are more than the composite of their constituent parts – they know when to focus on the people and when to focus on the task; how to achieve a balance between a focus on internal vs. external factors; and are able to move between the five operational roles identified in the ICVF – Developer, Monitor, Deliverer, Broker, and Innovator. Most importantly, academic leaders need to be effective Integrators (Vilkinas & Cartan, 2001). They must be able to make split second decisions on which role is most appropriate in a given situation and react accordingly. This ‘split second decision’ usually involves reflection on, and analysis of, previous experiences relevant to the new situation, what worked and did not work in the past in the same or a similar situation, and what therefore what needs to be done now. Academic leadership development is not a straightforward process. The literature on transfer of training (Baldwin & Ford, 1988) and leadership development makes it very clear that attending a course is not enough to affect significant changes in leadership style and potential. Development is an ongoing process that takes time and persistence. Research in leadership development also indicates that individuals must triangulate self-awareness of their leadership style and influence with feedback they receive. (Atwater, Brett, & Charles, 2007). Our self-evaluations are often flawed. Hence, the contribution from our significant colleagues is important to gain a holistic or 360° degree view of our leadership capabilities. After all, those who probably have the most important experience of our leadership style are those individuals who frequently interact with us in our work. With a valid and reliable triangulation of your leadership profile, you can then use experiential learning principles (Kolb, 1984) to build your leadership skills and profile. A clear goal or target provides a focus for your learning and attention (Locke, 1996). viii ©T. Vilkinas, B. Leask and R. Ladyshewsky 2009