Reframing Academic Leadership. Lee G. Bolman
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was annoying than to see how she might be fostering the very thing she hoped to avoid. George offered little help.
Interpersonal learning is also difficult because egos and defenses get in the way. Chris Argyris reminds us that in threatening or emotionally awkward encounters we automatically seek to protect ourselves against vulnerability, embarrassment, or the appearance of incompetence (Argyris, 1990, 1994). The result is a recipe for how not to learn about something we need to understand: how our choices and actions fail us. In the complex world of higher education today, such blindness is potentially fatal. Leadership lies in the eyes of the beholder – and if academic leaders don't know how their constituents see them, they're in trouble. They need information to recognize when they are off course, as well as strategies for improving their ability to learn from experience. Both enable them to bring more confidence and authenticity to their leadership. We suggest four learning routines that academic leaders can build into daily practice.
Four Habits of Learning for Leadership Effectiveness
1 Be proactive and persistent in seeking feedback from others.
2 Test assumptions and attributions.
3 Work on balancing advocacy and inquiry.
4 Learn about your theories‐in‐use.
Be Proactive and Persistent in Seeking Feedback from Others
We see our leadership from the inside. We know what we intend, and we are all sometimes blind to the gap between our espoused theories and theories‐in‐use. Feedback from those who know and work with us is the best way to determine how well our intentions match our actions. Few academic leaders, for example, seek feedback from faculty – often because they fear what they would find out. The result is that many crash into walls of faculty mistrust or anger that they don't see until too late. Two basic principles of interpersonal feedback can remedy that.
Ask and You Shall Receive
This sounds simple and obvious, but it's surprisingly rare. Feedback mostly occurs in structured, high‐stakes situations, like Sarah's annual review meeting with George or when debriefing major failures or special events. Experience makes people leery of offering feedback at other times unless they're sure the recipient wants it. Asking is the easiest way to encourage them. Getting the information you need takes persistence and skill in framing the right questions. If you simply ask a colleague, “What did you think about my report/speech/ … ?,” the first responses will often amount to vague reassurance (“Seemed fine to me”). Comforting platitudes feel safe, but they don't help. You'll need to keep at it to get the kind of information necessary to expand your learning. Help others help you by following up with more specific probes:
“What do you think worked best?”
“What could I have done better?”
“What would you suggest I do to strengthen it?”
“What message do you think the audience took away?”
People are reluctant to risk telling us more than we want to know. Persistence makes requests for honest feedback clear and credible.
Stay Appreciative
The risk of asking for feedback is that you may not like what you hear. If that's true, say so – the other person will sense it anyway. But don't defend your actions or explain why the feedback is wrong. You don't have to believe or act on everything that others tell you, but you want to hear them and respond in ways that encourage them to keep communicating. Be sure to thank anyone who tries to help. If you respond to feedback by rejecting it, criticizing it, or inducing guilt, the flow of future offerings will dry up quickly.
Skilled and confident academic leaders make it a point to regularly seek feedback from peers, subordinates, bosses, and other key stakeholders. Colleagues can also agree to support each other with open feedback. A seasoned coach or mentor is another alternative. Deep learning, the Talmud teaches, is only achieved in company.
Test Assumptions and Attributions
When others do things we find puzzling or infuriating, the temptation is to attribute unfavorable motives and thoughts to them and then to act on those attributions as if they were true. But none of us is 100 percent accurate in interpreting why others do what they do, and we often make difficult situations worse by operating on the basis of untested attributions. A better alternative is to ask others what they mean, what they intend, or how they are thinking.
In Sarah's performance review with George, for example, she believed George was trying to deflect the conversation away from his performance by his comments on her junior status and comparative inexperience. Sarah never mentioned this to George, but she got angry and began to pound harder (and louder) on him. As an alternative, Sarah might have surfaced her assumption with something like, “George, do you want to discuss my performance or yours?” If George is playing a game, as Sarah believes, then her question alerts him. His defensive maneuvers may be so automatic and overlearned that the question might help him see what he is doing. George may want to discuss Sarah's performance, and a confident Sarah would want that feedback. She could ask, “Would you like to discuss your perceptions of me first?” That gives her a chance to model listening to someone else's perceptions and might increase George's perception that she is willing to listen. But it is not a substitute for George's annual review.
Testing assumptions in this way can lead to learning for both Sarah and George. Sarah might learn that she can handle difficult people without being controlled by their aggression or her fears. This is important for us all. It is essential for young professionals and for women and people of color who are more often the brunt of uncivil behavior in higher education classrooms (Goodyear, Reynolds, & Gragg, 2010; Schmidt, 2010a) and other campus work environments (Freyd & Johnson, 2010; Sadler, n.d.; Riger, n.d.; Twale & De Luca, 2008). George may be acting out gender politics or playing an age‐old intellectual game of self‐protection through deflection and sarcasm. He may be unaware that not everyone finds his style charming – and that others who view him as hard to handle might choose to exclude him from events and critical conversations. If no one calls George's game, he'll probably keep on playing it. Sarah's question might help George become more aware of his tactics and of their consequences. A more skilled and confident Sarah might also enable the conversation that she and George really need to have about what is happening for him and why he is not producing at the levels he once did.
Work on Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry
Some leaders advocate far more than they inquire. Others do the opposite. Paying attention to your patterns can help you assess the appropriate balance for your purposes. Effective academic leaders are versatile and skilled in both areas. But effectiveness is reflected not only in the amount of each but in the quality. Quantity is easier to assess – and focusing on balance is a good entry point for academic leaders new to these issues. Improving the quality of advocacy and of inquiry is a harder task. Good advocacy is complex. It is the ability to communicate clearly and persuasively. That means talking about your take on reality and the reasoning behind your diagnoses and decisions without discouraging others from doing the same. Inquiry involves skills in listening, reflecting what you hear to test accuracy, and crafting questions that enable you to learn the things you need to know. You won't get that from asking leading questions that manipulate the answer. Yes/no questions will get you a brief response but may reveal little about what others think, feel, or know. Good inquiry uses questions of how, what, and why to get people talking about things that matter.
Yo‐Yo Ma, the world's most beloved cellist, is best known for his virtuoso concert performances and his many collaborations with artists