10 Strategies for University Department Chairs and Deans
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Being a department chair or dean on a university campus is one of the most challenging quasi-management jobs in the world.
I describe it as quasi-management because most academics don’t see the job as a management job, and yet, it has all the same attributes of any other leadership role without being felt as one. While the job looks different in many contexts, the reality is that being a leader of an academic department isn’t something any of us prepared for, or in some cases, even desired. Nevertheless, these roles are some of the most important jobs on a university campus.
I spent 25 years in the role of department chair for both undergraduate and graduate programs on university campuses, and during that same time I was a leadership development consultant to all kinds of corporations, not-for-profits and universities attempting to develop leader capacity. What has fascinated me is how few of the universities I have consulted with see these roles as key leaders, or even department chairs and deans seeing themselves that way. When universities invest in developing leader capacity, it’s usually focused on their staff and senior leaders - leaving department chairs and deans alone in their attempts to lead their faculty.
