So I've now begun my tenure as chair of the Earth Science Department, having just finished one year as vice chair. I've been at it now for just a month. Few things in graduate school actually prepare you for taking on the duties of a chair. Although the duties of chair vary from school to school, in private universities, the chair not only has administrative duties but also the responsibility of leading the department to higher levels. The former requires one to be skilled at efficiently juggling lots of routine tasks to managing (the key word is managing, not directing) people, from staff to faculty to students. The second requires vision and the power of persuasion. As scientists, we spend years honing our research skills, toiling arduously in our PhD careers. But nothing in our journey directly teaches us the skills of how to be an effective chair or administrator.
As I start my tenure as chair, I must admit that I am a little scared, a little uncertain. I have had no proper training to be an effective chair, but I am not alone. Will I be able to lead the department on to new directions? I really do not know. Everything I do know, however, comes from me watching other people in leadership positions, here at my university and at many other universities I have visited. I have seen what doesn't work and what does work. Below, is my current list of things I consider important when it comes to leading a department. I am putting them out here now, for the record, so that 4 years from now, I can look back and see if my views have changed, hopefully for the better. As a disclaimer, even though this is what I believe, it doesn't mean that I have followed all my advice, even though I should. I'm not perfect. So here goes, in no particular order.
1. Earn the trust and respect of all your colleagues. The easiest way to do this is to genuinely be interested in what your colleagues do, each and every one of them. Take the time to learn about their work and understand how each and everyone them contributes to the department. While this sounds easy, it is actually very difficult and time-consuming. If you've only realized this after becoming chair, it's probably too late. Learning what your colleagues do is easy if you do it all the time in little bits, but over many years. If you never paid attention to your colleagues and only start after you become chair, it is quite disingenuous. I should also mention that the key word here is genuine curiosity about other people's work, even if it s not immediately related to your own research. You can't fake genuineness. Genuineness goes a long way.
2. Look at your department as a soccer team. While it is important to have superstars on your faculty, as chair, you're supposed to see that the department wins. What this means is that one has to look at the department as a team, with every single person, from students to staff to faculty, playing an important role. You have to get the superstars to work with others. Having a team full of all stars does not guarantee a win. Some will shine, some will work in the background, but everyone is critical. People who are not team players have to be dealt with or persuaded to change their ways. Make your colleagues look good because if they look good, you look good, everyone looks good.
3. The department is a business. And our commodity is in the form of intellectual capital: papers and students. Each faculty is a small independent business that generates its own creative product. The department is like a venture capitalist. It provides the infrastructure and startup capital for each faculty. It also serves to help recruit talent for each faculty. The chair should be promoting each of his/her faculty because if they do well, then the department does well. If the department does well, then there are more resources available, which can then be reinvested into the faculty and students.
4. A business with a terrible webpage is not one to be trusted. And if you think like a business, then you also recognize that part of running a successful business in a competitive environment is to be adept at promoting oneself by showcasing one's work and most importantly demonstrating that you are relevant. The easiest form of promotion and communication is through a good departmental webpage. This is your public face. Second after that is the faculty's own research group page. Some faculty or chairs may think it is beneath them to put a lot of time into making a good webpage while some just don't think it's worth the time. But in this day and age, if a business does not have a professional looking webpage, it would have no business. The only exception is for some specialty business like the one guy who knows how to tune a harpsichord for which there is little competition. But the reality is that most of us are not Einstein's (though many faculty think they are), so a good departmental and personal webpage is critical. If you don't know how to do it, get help fast.
5. Do not hold meetings unless they are necessary. Holding a meeting without an agenda just because one thinks there should be regular meetings is disrespectful and a waste of time.
6. Show up on time to all meetings. Some people have told me that if you show up late to a meeting, you quickly show who is in charge because the meeting can't start without you. This is wrong. If you're late, you are being disrespectful (of course, if a meeting without an agenda is called, you have every right to blow that meeting off; quid pro quo). If others are late, don't wait for them. Start the meeting on time. Those who are late will realize that they are no more important than anyone else.
7. If you take credit for any successes while you are the leader, you must also take credit for any failures. Even if a failure wasn't really under your control, as the chair, one needs to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the failure. When BP Deepwater Horizon blew out in the Gulf of Mexico, even if it wasn't directly the fault of the BP President, he should have publicly taken full responsibility. If you recall, he did not, which led to his rapid downfall. After all, it happened on his watch. It's your team and you have to love your team through all the ups and downs, even more so when they're down because you have to make it through. A true test of a leader I would think comes from how well one weathers a disaster. The buck stops at you.
8. Get out of the way. Don't micromanage. If you micro-manage, you will suffocate your people. Morale will go down. Nobody will dare to take the initiative in trying new things because they will fear your wrath or criticism. Once again, remember that your job is to lead the team, but your team consists of a bunch of very creative people. If you can harness their creativity, the department will on its own find its way. You alone, no matter how smart or creative you think you are, are no match for collective creativity. Collective creativity is there, but it is very easy to destroy it if you micro-manage.
9. Trust your staff. Along these lines, make sure you hire good staff and that you allow them to do their job. There is no way you can do all their work. So you have to trust them. If you trust them, they will trust you. If you don't trust them, the system will decay with everyone back-stabbing each other, making much more work for you. The staff are there to support you and the department. If you allow them to do their job well, you will be free to worry about bigger picture issues. A staff or department with low morale is like a cancer. It will grow and never stop, and most of all, it reflects the culture set by the leadership, which could be the chair or one or more senior faculty members.
10. Let your staff deal with everyday administrative responsibilities. Focus on the big picture and define a vision. The chair's job is to develop a creative vision and to persuade the faculty and all other stakeholders to join. I think in business school, there are lots of classes on how to persuade effectively, with most tips centering on honing your charisma. I think most of that is nonsense. To be successful at persuading, you have to get "buy-in" from all stakeholders. What will they get out of it? And to do that, you have to know what they want, so your vision has to be broad enough to appeal to all or most stakeholders. Of course, you don't want your vision to be just one giant useless compromise, diluted by trying to make everyone happy. If you try to make everyone happy, I am sure in the end, everyone will hate you. So what is key is that even if your vision doesn't make every single person's life for the better, they have to know and trust that you are thinking for the team, not yourself, not for any faction in the department, but for the long-term health of the whole team. It is only then that everyone will agree to go with your vision. And a key aspect of developing a vision is to bring everyone on board and allow them to contribute and shape the vision.
11. Listen constructively and actively. Listening is not just sitting passively and letting the other person talk. It's not sufficient just to nod in agreement. Listening is about learning something new from the other party and this requires active participation, such as asking questions and taking the opportunity to make suggestions so that eventually, the outcome of the conservation becomes a team effort.
12. Make decisions. Don't waffle and don't try to make everyone happy. The chair's job is not to keep everyone happy. The chair's job is to look at the big picture and make sure the department gets better over the long run. Decisions have to be made and there will always be some people that are not happy with the decision, but as long as you have the department's health as priority, even if some people are not happy, they will respect and trust your judgment. If you waffle on your decisions or hesitate making a decision, before you know it, a whole year has passed and no decision has been made. You are just treading water then, while every other department is moving forward, so in net, you're moving backward. Be careful on making a decision, but do make them. If they turn out to be wrong, then apologize and quickly correct. Your job is to make the tough decisions. The faculty's role is to provide a collective way of self-correction. There should be checks and balances in your system.
13. Assign people to committees by matching with their skills and passions. Know your people. Know their skills and above all, know what gets them excited, what they are passionate about. If you want to assign tasks, such as committee work, match the task with their passion. People do their best when they find the job interesting. If you mismatch, you're setting up the faculty for failure, which means you failed.
14. Don't tell people what to do. Bring them into the process by asking them if they would like to do something. Try not to dictate what others do. Everyone is equal and as chair, one is no more important than others. Your job is to lead, but to lead by helping everyone achieve their own greatness and to help others work well with each other. For self-governance, various tasks are shared among the faculty and chair so that everyone has some role in maintaining the department or designing its future. But instead of telling people what committee they should be on, ask them if they would like to be on a particular committee. Provide options. And if you do assign, explain why you chose that person for the job. Hopefully, you've assigned someone because that person is the ideal person for the job.
15. Don't make your life harder. Don't unnecessarily complicate things. The worst thing you can do is make your life more difficult. There are lots of bureaucratic things in being chair. Don't add more bureaucracy of inefficiencies. Don't add more committees unless they are absolutely necessary. Don't generate more tasks for your faculty. For example, a common thing for faculty to do is apply more rules to the Student Guidelines, and in almost all cases, each new rule is an add-on motivated by some knee-jerk reaction to one random negative event. In some cases, new rules are justified, but remember, the more rules you impose, the harder it is to keep track and enforce the rules. You will then have to make a new committee to enforce the rules, but that committee will have to spend time learning the rules set by previous faculty. You get the point.
16. Prioritize. If you can't prioritize, you shouldn't be chair. There are always a hundred issues to discuss and tasks to complete. Focus on the big ones and do the small ones in the background. If one run's a faculty meeting, discuss the most important problems first.
17. Lead by example. If you want your faculty to publish more papers, you need to be publishing. If you want faculty to write proposals, you have to be writing proposals and getting funded. If you want faculty to participate in seminars, you have to participate. If you want faculty to teach well, you have to respect teaching. If you want your faculty to trust you, then you have to trust them. Nobody respects a hypocrite, especially one in power.
18. Don't talk about your research. Never, unless asked, talk about your work to your faculty. In your position as chair, this will only come across as self-serving and narcissistic. You might be able to do it once, but do it twice, everyone's eyes will glaze over. Plus, why is your work any more important than the faculty's work. So keep your research to yourself. If you want recognition for your work, just write a paper and publish it. You should be talking about your faculty's research and learning about what they do. After all, you are supposed to represent them. If you talk about your research, then you're not listening.
19. Apologize. If you make a mistake, admit it and apologize, and quickly find a way to correct it and move forward. Apologize quickly.
20. Don't make rash decisions, especially based on emotion. This goes without saying. Typically, if you make an emotionally driven decision, you will regret it. If a decision was not justified, you will look silly if you continue with it. If you reverse the decision, because you finally realize what you did wrong, you will look silly. So think carefully about any decision you make.
21. Don't act like the smartest person in the room. You are surrounded by the brightest people in the world. Your job is to make decisions, but if you recognize that you have all these intellectual resources around you, the faculty, students and staff, why not interact with them and get their feedback? It would only make your plan or decision even stronger. Listen actively and learn from your faculty.
22. Know when to ask for help. One can't do everything at the same time. One is also not good at everything. So ask for help when necessary. People always feel happy when they know they are helping someone. You will make people happy when you ask for their help. You will also gain respect because people will know that when you want the job done, you will build the right team to do it quickly and efficiently.
23. Learn to delegate. See above. But don't delegate for delegate's sake. Think carefully about the tasks. Eliminate anything that is unnecessary. Match tasks with the right people.
24. Look at everyone as part of the family or future family. The network is key. Your job as chair is to help the faculty, but you will need help as well. Everyone can contribute to the greater good. Don't burn bridges, but build and maintain relationships.
25. Don't waste money or space. Wasting money on unnecessary projects is a crime. Wasting space is the same thing. If you're wasting space or money, then you cannot justify getting more money or more space. If faculty are not using space wisely, take it away and give it a young professor coming in. You can't argue for another building if space is not used efficiently.
26. Never play favorites. Don't hold grudges. This goes without saying. You don't need to be close friends with anybody to win their trust. You just have to treat everyone fairly and in the context of making a winning soccer team. Forgive and forget too.
27. If you have to lay someone off, do it in person. The buck stops at you. If you are going so far as to make such a life-changing decision for someone, have the courage and respect to do it face-to-face and explain why. Once again, if you're looking out for the entire department, your decision will be respected. If you do something like this out of spite, emotion, etc., you should step down as chair immediately.
28. Surround yourself with good people. Let your people shine. And you will benefit from their shine, together all of you rising.
29. Hire the right people. Let the right people go. Hire the brightest, most creative people, but make sure they have the personality and mentality to fit into a team culture. Sometimes, you may hire someone that ends up tanking early in his or her career or someone who is not a team player and or worse someone who is abrasive. Don't stand in their way if they want to leave the department. If they don't have a stellar record, don't tenure them. One person can destroy a department in a short time. It takes decades to build up a department.
30. Know your people. Don't just read metrics. Take your time to look at the big picture. Read the faculty's papers, pay attention to their teaching. The same goes for hiring new people. Study the package. Listen to them. Find out who they are. In this day and age, it is so easy to just count numbers of publications and citation rates. If this is all you do, you are being overpaid. One could have run these metrics through a computer. Faculty, staff and students are real people. Don't count beans. Look at the quality of the beans. Bean counters should NEVER be on search committees or tenure and promotion committees.
31. Admit your mistakes. Then apologize, correct them, and move on.
32. Never compare to your previous positions or institutions. "When I was at ____, we used to do it this way." All you will elicit from your audience is whispers of "well, then, go back to where you came from." This is about looking forward.
33. Don't look at upper administration as the enemy. Learn to work with them. The administration is not your enemy. They want to look good, you want to look good, and your faculty want to look good, so basically everyone has the same goal. Surprised? You're all part of the same team, so if you find a way to partner, you will be more effective. If the faculty do well, the chair looks good and the department benefits. If the department benefits, the university and top administration looks good. It's all rather simple actually.
34. Resolve conflicts quickly. Don't let things fester. Figure out what is actually going on. Don't side with any side initially. Learn the facts, then act.
35. Deal with problems quickly. Same as above. Brush fires eventually can become forest fires.
36. Don't let emotions dictate your decisions and actions, but do not be afraid of showing your emotions when appropriate. It is okay to show emotion, such as elation, sadness, and anger, when appropriate. It's okay to cry and to jump up and down with excitement. Never show your anger unless the situation calls for it.
37. Accept that you will be lonely. If you're the boss, nobody will ever tell you straight to your face that they don't like you or your decisions. Everyone will be on their best behavior when in your presence. You might fool yourself into thinking you're doing a great job. You may have been close friends with your colleagues before, but as chair, you have to separate yourself from that if you want to appear fair and objective. It will be hard for you to get honest feedback sometimes because people may be afraid. When things go well, nobody will say anything. When things go bad, everyone will balk.
38. Step down when you've accomplished your goals. Pass the torch on.
I'm going to link to this - great advice!
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