Excellence in Academic Leadership: Tulane 2023
Excellence in Academic Leadership: Tulane 2023
General Reference Materials:
Session Ten: Capstone Case and Closing
Session date: May 1, 2024
Session Materials:
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Session Nine: Becoming a Leader Who Makes a Difference
Session Date: March 26 at 11:00 AM EST
Pre-Session Materials:
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
- Prepare to discuss the Capstone Case at our next (final!) session.
- Review your journal and start an Independent Development Plan for how you will continue your growth as a leader.
Session Eight: Bullyproofing Academic Units
Session Date: March 6, 2024 from 12:00-2:00pm CST
Below are copies of a case study and situation analysis we will be using in the session. To make the best use of our time, we ask that you read them ahead of the session. Please make sure to have them on hand for our group discussion. As a reminder, we ask that you revisit the short video featuring “Professor Major” having a conversation with a new Department Head on his first day. We will be opening our session with a group discussion of the behavior you see in the video and the dynamics involved in the interaction. Please be prepared to share your thoughts.
Pre-Session Materials:
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
- Review the second version of the Professor Major video below. Make note of your thoughts on what the department chair learned in this program. What changes did he make to the interaction and its outcome?
- Meet in a group to develop a list of skills you’ve acquired through this cohort program that you see being applied in the second version of Professor Major. Be prepared to report at our next session.
- Meet in a Critical Friends group: use an issue a member of your group is facing. If you would like a case study to discuss, please contact us and we will provide one for you.
Session Seven: Giving/Receiving Feedback
Session Date: February 21, 2024 12-2:00pm CST
Pre-Session Materials:
Leadership Collection Resources:
LC Section: Maintaining Processes for Managing Careers
- Giving Performance Feedback: Quick Tips
- Sonya Stephens on Giving Feedback (3:10)
- Ed Feser on Giving Feedback (1:28)
LC Section: Handling Difficult Situations
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
- Use your Critical Friends to work on difficult feedback situations, whether giving or receiving. (Feedback is a gift.)
- Reflect on skills learned so far: practice them! Make notes about their usage in journal.
- Revisit the Professor Major video; we will open next session with a discussion of the scenario in the context of bullying.
Session Six: Negotiation
Session Date: January 24 at 12:00 pm CST
- Please read “Are You the Doormat?,” the case study sent via email. We will be discussing this in breakout rooms later in the session and taking the time to read it ahead of time will give you more time to have meaningful group discussions.
- You have also been assigned one of two roles for a negotiation role play to be undertaken in pairs. Typically, these documents would be distributed the moment before beginning the exercise. To adapt to an online setting, we will be providing them now, so that you may print them out to have ready for the activity. We ask in the strongest terms that you please refrain from reading them beforehand. The experience will be far more valuable and provide a better learning opportunity if you read their contents for the first time during the exercise.
Pre-Session Reference Materials:
- EAL – Negotiation Preparation Form
- EAL – Negotiation Summary
- Negotiating rationally: the power and impact of the negotiator’s frame, Bazerman & Neale, Academy of Management Executive, 1992 Vol. 6 No. 3DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1992.427418
Leadership Collection Resources:
- Negotiation Quick Tips
- Listening and Asking Questions Quick Tips
- Data and Managing Up (video below)
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
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Consider interactions you have that you now see as negotiations: what can do you do to improve your preparation for these conversations? Record them in your journal.
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Send us topics of difficult conversations around feedback you find challenging (next session is about giving and receiving feedback).
Session Five: Exploring Leadership
Session Date: December 6, 2023 at 12-2:00pm CST
This session will focus on leadership through the lens of preparing for (and responding to) paradigm shifts–Leadership Through Challenging Times, if you will.
In preparation for this week’s session, we ask that you have your definition of leadership from our first session on hand and ready to discuss.
Session Materials:
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
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Re-visit your definition of leadership and reflect on your strengths; how will you play to them? What would you like to focus on going forward? Record your thoughts in your journal.
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We invite you to reflect on paradigm shifts occurring in your field or life. How you recognize and respond to these events is key to being a successful academic leader. Do you see a paradigm shift in your field or institution? How will your leadership help your colleagues prepare for or react to it? Record your thoughts in your journal.
- In preparation for our next session on Negotiation, read the case study, “Are You the Doormat?”
Session Four: Difficult Conversations and Personal Scripts
Session Date: November 8, 2023 at 12-2:00pm CST
Please be prepared to share your one-minute elevator pitch and to report back on your Critical Friends sessions.
We have attached the conflict self-assessment we sent once before. We ask that you continue to keep this in mind as you consider your conflict style and how you tend to react to difficult conversations. Among other topics we will cover, we will revisit your conflict comfort and style and introduce the And Stance, a powerful tool that grows out of work on influence and persuasion at the Harvard Project on Negotiation. The idea behind the And Stance is that ‘but’ is a stopper word in American English; the exercise is to practice moving to the And Stance, where you use “and” instead of “but” (or “however” or “although”)– without changing your message. If you have time to look over the exercise in advance, we can spend more time discussing and working on it during the session.
Pre-Session Materials:
Leadership Collection Reference Materials:
- Listening and Asking Questions – Quick Tips
- Issue Spotting – Quick Tips
- And Stance - Quick Tips
- Complaint Handling Guidelines
- Personal Scripts – Quick Tips
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
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Practice applying the And Stance in your everyday life. First, try to go one week without using “but” in an email, instead restructuring the statement with “and” to align with others. Then, try to go 24 hours without saying “but” at all. This is a very difficult and worthwhile exercise that helps make you aware of just how often you use stopper words and where you can change your approach.
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Select and continue to read a book of your choice to support your growth interests. Our team members are available for recommendations if you need any!
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Prepare personal scripts and consider sharing them with other members of the cohort, using the Personal Scripts Quick Tips as a guide. Also consider the Complaint-Handling Guidelines. You may find these helpful for handling difficult conversations and for constructing personal scripts when faced with these scenarios.
Session Three: Vibrant Academic Units
Session Date: October 25 at 12-2:00pm CST
We ask you to be prepared to discuss the AUDiT that you filled out for your unit along with the real or hypothetical situation you developed for use with a Critical Friends group. We have also attached a self-assessment document that we will be using during today’s session. Please download it to have at hand during our meeting.
As always, please make sure that you have your journals at hand. We will be asking you to refer back to them throughout the program.
Pre-Session Materials:
Homework Assigned:
- Create a ONE MINUTE or shorter elevator pitch for your unit, based in its purpose and mission.
- Remember that there are books available to support your development—use your funds!
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Session Two: Critical Friends & Group Problem Solving
Pre-Session Materials:
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
- Review the AUDiT you filled out for your unit; be prepared to discuss
- Develop a real or hypothetical situation to use in a Critical Friends Group
Session One: Leadership in the Academic Environment
Pre-Session Materials:
Slide Deck Reference (for Personal Use Only):
Homework Assigned:
- Find attached the Testing Yourself exercise and take a few minutes to respond to the prompts within. We will discuss these prompts and share responses in our next session when we dive deeper into handling contentious situations like these.
- Also attached is a copy of the AUDiT Dashboard developed by NCPRE to help systematically assess the health of your department. Our observation has been that many leaders tend to focus on areas that they think are problematic. The AUDiT approach helps ensure that your assessment is comprehensive. Use the AUDiT table to score your unit. Start by putting a number in each cell – the more the cell describes your unit, the higher the number should be. In the green and red columns, scores run from 0 to 5; in the yellow column, it is 0 to 3. When you are finished, add up your green scores and subtract the totals from your yellow and red scores. We will be revisiting this tool throughout the course so please keep the original with your journal.