Leadership capability workshop 2004
2-4 February 2004
Dr Colleen Chesterman
The second ATN WEXDEV leadership capability building workshop for 12 women academics with potential to be heads of academic units was held from Monday 2 February 2004 to Wednesday 4 February 2004 at RMIT. The workshop was developed by the ATN WEXDEV national management committee with the ATN Human Resources Directors and was directly supported by the five Vice-Chancellors. RMIT and Curtin both nominated and funded 3 woman; the three other institutions each nominated 2. The women did not attend the ATN conference as the first group had in 2003, as this had been moved to QUT, with a focus on Teaching, Learning and Research. It was decided to run the program for 3 days - a day longer than in 2003.
2004 Participants included a Head of Department, an Acting Head of School, an Acting Associate Dean (Research), a Coordinator Teaching and Learning Services, a Program Director and 7 currently not in administrative positions.
Professor Belinda Probert, who was about to leave RMIT to take up a position at UWA as Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic, welcomed participants on behalf of the RMIT Vice-Chancellor. In her brief presentation she spoke thoughtfully about her own transition from an academic to a management position. She believed that we should have more conversations about academic management, as there is often so little preparation and welcomed the possibilities offered by the workshop. She urged the participants to take opportunities when they were available, as the possibilities could be very exciting. She spoke of the advantages of having control of financial resources; when linked with power, exciting entrepreneurial opportunities emerged. She indicated her distrust of "management gobbledy-gook", recommending Don Watson's book Death Sentence, but pointed out that strategic planning linked to individual plans could produce valuable results, as long as it was not just words. She paid tribute to the people she worked with, saying that for a manager the most important thing was getting good people on the team. She recommended Jim Collins' book From Good to Great.
The rest of the first day concentrated on personal development and identification of leadership styles; this was facilitated by Leanne Faraday-Brash, a Melbourne-based consultant. The participants looked at the difference between management and leadership, the most important attributes of a leader, the challenges or tensions that might exist and strategies to overcome these. The importance of collaboration, of listening to people, of focusing on the new job and not continuing with your old one, were all emphasised.
On the second day, I facilitated a reflection session on the previous day, then introduced a panel of senior RMIT academic managers (Professor Gail Hart, A/Professor Alex Radloff and Ms Lauren Murray). It was a fascinating session, hearing from 3 women with very different backgrounds. Gail had moved to academia from a previous position as a nurse, at QUT had taken opportunities such as acting in positions, and in 2003 moved to her current position as PVC Teaching and Learning at RMIT. She talked of the importance of maintaining innocence, curiosity and compassion rather than cynicism, arrogance and callousness. Gail praised Ronald Heifetz's books on leadership - Leadership without Easy Answers and Leadership on the Line and quoted his affirmation of focusing on the future - 'Forgiveness is giving up hope of a better past.' Alex described an academic life in 3 countries and argued that she still saw her primary role as a teacher 'with different students', as she gained experience in a range of management jobs, most recently as Assistant PVC in Science, Engineering and Technology. She pointed out that people and relationships are the most important thing, that being part of a team is the best way to get things done and done well, and that just being good is not enough - you have to 'sell' yourself. She therefore urged participants to have a current CV and to 'know your own worth'. Lauren described with energy and humour her move from being a graphic designer to currently Head of School of Applied Communication and showed participants how she could maintain a passionate commitment to education together with reflective practice. In the evaluations it was pointed out that listening to these life experiences was 'inspiring'. 'These women provided me with role models and gave me inspiration to go into leadership positions.' Others valued the different routes that women had traversed, listening to the choices they had and the decisions they made. One said 'I particularly valued the sharing of women's stories about how they manage their lives and the various paths they have taken to make it to their current positions. Also the fact that these women don't proclaim to know everything but the certainly are strategic in the way they think and work. Why? It provides an alternative viewpoint to the uninterrupted career path that many men have taken to reach their current position and makes me believe that my advancement is possible. The characteristics of these women also show that you do not have to act like a man to be successful.'
After lunch I ran a session on values and higher education. It was interesting to see how many of the women had entered academia because of the flexibility it offered when children were small, or because of being approached. They all developed a commitment to the values of higher education, particularly bringing research and practice together. They agreed on the current challenges facing them, including tight funding, a culture of compliance, systems that were too rigid and a lack of support for universities from the broader society. They affirmed that they saw progress related to networking with others, to being positive and to thinking laterally.
Following this, participants had a joint session on the Nelson reforms with a group of ATN early career academics, convened by the TALC group. The participants discussed the strengthening competition between universities and the complex and contradictory expectations of them. The session enabled them to affirm that the most important indicators for universities were improving the quality of student learning and outcomes.
On day 3, Susan Flint of RMIT facilitated, and Angela Nicolettou (RMIT) ran sessions on goal setting and mentoring. She encouraged the women to break down their goals into a series of stages and to identify the things that blocked or enabled them. Mentoring she saw as a useful tool suggesting that people identify exactly what they wanted from a mentor and who could help them. For mentors she suggested it was important to identify what they could offer. Following this I presented on our research on women leaders and university culture which encouraged the women to think about their own attitudes to leadership, what they could bring to these positions and what they appreciated about good leaders.
The Evaluations of the workshop were very positive and ATN WEXDEV will bring the women back together in August for a follow-up session. We hope to develop a similar workshop for another group next year. One of the important benefits seems to be giving time for networking with other women and sharing their experiences. Women identified the importance of 'discussing approaches to problems/ orientations' and sharing 'dilemmas, secrets, doubts and strategies.' 'You need someone else who is in a similar situation to bring out the issues that you are facing but sometimes don't realize exist.' Interestingly, the WEXDEV research discovered that senior women, across all sectors, appreciated the opportunity to check out issues with others, so that they could affirm that they were approaching challenges in the right way. This seems to represent an important model of consultative leadership for women.