Taking on academic leadership even if you are not prepared for it

“Some are born leaders, some achieve leadership, and some have leadership thrust upon them. Which of these are you, or would you rather not bother?” Maurice Flanagan, airline executive

Reflecting on Emirates founder Maurice Flanagan’s riff on Shakespeare about the nature of leadership, I am definitely among those who have had senior roles thrust upon them. I was happily focused on being a good lecturer with no leadership ambitions and what appeared to be a couple of people above me on the leadership ladder. Within a short time, a few resignations resulted in my being asked to be deputy head, then acting and finally head of the discipline group.

I was not prepared, and my sudden move up the ladder came with a definite change in my focus. I wasn’t a born leader, but I still didn’t want “yes people” around me. I wanted to work with positive people who help to solve problems and make things better for everyone. So generally, my leadership style focused on the acronym OTHERS.

• Open to ideas: not being closed-minded but willing to consider new approaches 
• Think about opportunities: rather than business as usual, explore opportunities 
• Hear people’s views: listen to advice from colleagues, students and even outsiders 
• Evaluate options: use advice from other people to evaluate the best option and make decisions to undertake actions 
• Respect for all: be respectful of everyone and consider possible negative consequences of your actions
• Selflessness: think about what is best for the staff, department or the institution when leading and accept that it may mean sacrifices that affect your personal plans.

From ‘geek’ management style to ‘lead’

At first, when this was new to me, I wanted to be head yet remain true to myself. I fell into what I felt was a GEEK management style. The idea underlying the acronym involved the following: 

• Guidance: being a guiding force to give direction and advice to staff and students
• Engagement: making sure that I was engaged with what was happening in the department and university with management, colleagues, subjects and students 
• Encouragement: ensuring that colleagues’ positive activities were praised to encourage staff to continue their good work
• Kindness: aiming to be kind in my manner and decisions, and not be a mean or angry manager.

The last point aligns with my policy to be myself. While this leadership style was a comfortable approach at first, I felt that there were instances where my kindness was taken advantage of. These limitations came to light during Covid shutdowns that required immediate changes to deal with the new teaching and research environment. 

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I knew I had to (another acronym) LEAD, including:  

• Learn: as administration was still new territory for me, I had to learn about how to manage people and situations as they occurred, but I also learned by watching and listening to the advice from others with more experience than me, such as my dean, other heads of department and administration managers 
• Equality: in dealing with people, I had to be fair and equal with everyone, and not show favouritism to any person or group
• Actions: practical actions can provide positive changes and engage staff, whether this is in the form of new initiatives, teaching or research workshops, engagement meetings or seminars 
• Decision-making: what staff want is certainty, and so it was important to make clear decisions, and not leave issues unresolved. 

As the head of department (or lead geek), I tried to support and motivate staff and champion innovation in teaching and research. When face-to-face teaching was stopped with Covid shutdowns, the university worked hard to manage online education. However, tighter budgets also led to cutbacks in research funding.

The four Cs of supporting staff undertaking research

In an attempt to support staff with their research activities, my role was to be both an example and encourager. Here I used the 4Cs: continuation, communication, collaboration and congratulation: 

• continuation of my own research, which included producing Zoom presentations and new publications and updating previously rejected papers that I had put to one side, to lead by example 
• communication of information relating to research, such as sending out relevant calls for papers, new publications and industry articles
• collaboration is fostered within and outside the department, although having some single-author publications is encouraged, as well as having small grants for collaborative projects 
• congratulations for research output and impacts are sent to individual researchers as well as circulated within the department so research output is celebrated. 

My rise did surprise some colleagues at the time. It was not easy, but after many years in academia I felt that I could make decisions that would benefit the staff and the institution.

NFL coach Vince Lombardi noted that leadership is forged through effort. He said: “Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”

Coming to understand the realities of this has been one of the most enjoyable times of my career so far as I step down after almost five years as department head.

David Waller is associate professor and former head of the marketing department in UTS Business School at the University of Technology Sydney.

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