PREPARING FOR THE AACP ANNUAL LEADERSHIP SEMINAR
Walt Gmelch, University of San Francisco
Plan for the Sessions
In order to prepare for the AACP Annual Leadership Seminar, Walt Gmelch has prepared
separate presentations on three essential topics:
1. Your Role as a Leader: Managing Your Molecule
2. Communication, Conflict Management, and Working with Difficult People
3. Work-Life Balance
Please work your way through each one, taking advantage of the exercises and reflections so
that you are ready to dig deeper with Walt when we meet in Chicago. Remember to submit
your questions.
Overall Learning Outcomes
Topic 1: Your Role as a Leader: Managing Your Molecule
(Pages 2-5)
•
Identify the components of academic leadership and who is on your management
molecule.
•
Explore strategies to work effectively with your dean and manage your other internal and
external constituents.
Topic 2: Communication, Conflict Management, & Working with Difficult People
(Pages 6-13)
•
Identify sources and practices of clear and healthy communication and influence.
•
Analyze sources of conflict and ways to manage it in more “principled” ways.
•
Identify the five styles of responding to conflict.
•
Prepare to apply a five-step approach to managing conflict with difficult people.
Topic 3: Work-Life Balance
(Pages 13-15)
•
Identify common sources of stress for department chairs
•
Explore how stress impairs and enhances performance
•
Prepare to apply tips for managing your time and balancing your roles
1
TOPIC 1
YOUR ROLE AS A LEADER: MANAGING YOUR MOLECULE
Learning Outcomes
• Identify the components of academic leadership and who is on your management
molecule.
•
Explore strategies to work effectively with your dean and manage your other internal and
external constituents.
Your Molecule as Department Chair
External Others
Parents
Accreditors
External agencies
Local community
University offices
Hospitals
Finances, admissions
Internal Others
Faculty
Students
Staff
Other chairs
Dean and other executives
Other departments
Managing Up on Your Molecule
Strategies for Managing Your Dean
 Communicate, communicate, communicate.

What is your dean’s preferred communication style?

How do you keep the dean informed?

How often do you meet with the dean?

Who schedules the meeting?

Where do you meet?

Who sets the agenda?
 Be prepared and well-documented.


Preparation:
o
Set up monthly one-on-one meetings.
o
Send the agenda items ahead of time.
Documentation:
o
Don’t blindside the dean.
o
Bring documents/briefings to support your issues.
2
 Personalize the professional relationship.

Seek periodic feedback from the dean.

Find out whether you share common academic and/or personal interests with the
dean.

Ask the dean to lunch.

Expand:
o
What the dean knows about you personally
o
What you know (or don’t know) about yourself
 Increase your credibility quotient by being:

Honest (truthful, ethical, trustworthy)

Competent (capable, productive, effective)

Inspiring (enthusiastic, positive, optimistic)

Forward-looking (vertical and horizontal)
Pause to Reflect 1.1
Do you know the answers to these questions?
 What is your dean’s preferred communication style?
 How do you keep the dean informed?
 How often do you meet with the dean?
 Who schedules the meeting?
 Where do you meet?
 Who sets the agenda?
If not, how can you improve your communication with your dean?
Do you know what common academic and/or personal interests you share with your
dean?
 What are some questions you could ask your dean to get to know him or her more as a
person?
 What would you like your dean to know about you that would improve your relationship?
3
Managing Sideways on Your Molecule: Networking with Internal Others
Tips for Cultivating Productive and Cordial Relationships with Faculty
 Provide networking opportunities.

Sponsor faculty attendance at conferences.

Be accessible to provide social support.

Help faculty interest groups.

Celebrate faculty success.
 Mentor their professional development.

Show concern for each faculty member’s development.

Promote faculty accomplishments.

Serve as a role model.

Provide special development opportunities.
 Motivate and model productive performance.

Encourage innovation and risk taking

Promote faculty teamwork

Help faculty pace themselves

Serve as a role model
Pause to Reflect 1.2
 Is there a conference, retreat, workshop, or other professional opportunity that should be
made available to your faculty?
 Do you check in regularly to provide social support?
 How are you helping faculty interest groups?
 Have you instituted times of the year dedicated to celebrating faculty success?
4
Managing Your Staff Molecule
 Hold check-in meetings every morning and afternoon

Communicate your vision and values

Personalize the relationship – get to know your staff

Include staff in decision making and planning

Provide professional development opportunities
Pause to Reflect 1.3
Pause to consider:
•
Is there a conference, retreat, workshop, or other professional opportunity that should be
made available to your faculty?
•
Do you check in regularly to provide social support?
•
How are you helping faculty interest groups?
•
Have you instituted times of the year dedicated to celebrating faculty success?
Students on Your Molecule
 Where are students on your molecule?
 How do you keep in contact with students?
 How do they get access to you (classes, socials, appointments, drop-ins)?
 What is the most important thing a chair can do to manage their student molecule?
5
TOPIC 2
COMMUNICATION, CONFLICT MANAGEMENT, AND WORKING WITH
DIFFICULT PEOPLE
Learning Outcomes
•
Identify sources and practices of clear and healthy communication and influence.
•
Analyze sources of conflict and ways to manage it in more “principled” ways.
•
Identify the five styles of responding to conflict.
•
Prepare to apply a five-step approach to managing conflict with difficult people.
Sources of Power and Influence
Power Base
Reward
When to Use
 When you want to add incentives
 When you want to recognize superior
performance
 When faculty value reward
Coercion




Authority
 When rapid compliance is needed
 When you are willing to take total
responsibility for decision
Expertise
 When faculty growth and development
are desirable
 When you are sure of the decision
 When data or rationale are complex or
confidential
Referent
 When harmony is important
 When friendships are valued
 When faculty must trust you and share
the same values
When you need to reinforce rules
When discipline is needed
When basic ethics are violated
When department has clear
procedures
6
Pause to Reflect 2.1
What sources of influence or power to you believe you use most often as chair? Rank the
following list from 1 to 5.





_____Reward
_____Coercion
_____Authority
_____Expertise
_____Referent
How can you tap into the other sources that might be useful in your role as department chair?
What Is Creating Conflict for You?
1. “Perceived” Levels
How many “perceived” levels are there in your university?
 Are goals clear?
 Are relationships more formal or informal?
 Are departments specialized?
How can you do a better job of:




Clarifying goals?
Shortening the distance in relationships?
Bridging departmental specializations?
Bridging levels of hierarchy?
2. University/Department Structure
Are you governed by tight rules and regulations?
How much autonomy and opportunity for creativity do you have?
Is there more interpersonal or more intrapersonal conflict?
3. Diversity
How diverse (in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, tenured, non-tenured, contract) is your faculty?
How diverse is your staff?
What conflicts does diversity create—or mitigate?
7
4. Participation Climate
Under what circumstances do faculty/staff have a voice in discussions?
What benefits might greater participation have for your department?
Are you satisfied with the tradeoffs in time, efficiency, and effectiveness with your department’s
level of participation?
Rewards
Do you have the ability to differentiate the rewards to your faculty and staff?
What conflicts is the department’s rewards system creating?
Do you have a plan for you using rewards effectively?
Pause to Reflect 2.2
Pause the recording and consider sources of conflict in your institution and department:
•
How many perceived “levels” are there in your university?
•
Are you governed by tight rules and regulations?
•
What is your current department composition?
•
Under what circumstances should faculty and staff have a voice in discussions?
•
Do you have the ability to differentiate
rewards to your faculty and staff?
The Three R’s of Conflict Management
1. Recognize the sources and nature of conflict.
2. Resolve conflict with principles.
3. Respond to conflict with appropriate style.
8
Conflict Management Organizing Questions1
1. Are there more than two parties?
2. Are the parties monolithic?
3. Are there linkage effects?
4. Is there more than one issue?
5. Is ratification required?
6. Are threats possible?
7. Are negotiations public or private?
8. Is there a time constraint?
Conflict Resolution Principles2
 Don’t bargain over position.
 Separate the people from the problem.
 Focus on interests
 Invent options
 Use objective criteria
Pause to Reflect 2.3
List each of your faculty members and their interests.
Faculty Member
Interests: intangible, non-negotiable, not
measurable
1. What are the common areas of interest?
9
Managing Conflict Model
2. Where do they diverge?
Collaboration
Assertive
High
Competition
Low
Compromise
Avoidance
Low
High
1
1
2
Accommodation
Cooperative
Adapted from Raiffa, H. (1982). The Art and Science of Negotiation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fisher, R. and Ury, W. (1985), Getting to Yes. New York: Penguin Books
10
Pause to Reflect 2.4
Assess your preferred style for dealing with conflict:
•
Accommodation: High Cooperation, Low Assertiveness
•
Competition: High Assertiveness, Low Cooperation
•
Avoidance: High Assertiveness, Low Cooperation
•
Compromise: Moderately Assertive and Cooperative
•
Collaboration: Highly Assertive and Cooperative
What is your primary style? Your back-up style?
Best Practicesfor Working with Difficult People
Step 1.
Don’t react: Go to the balcony

What’s the prize you must keep in sight?

What is the game? What’s at stake?

Buy time to think.

It’s not about you: don’t get mad, don’t get even.

Are you getting what you want?
Step 2.
Disarm them. Step to their side.

Listen actively. Ask clarifying questions only.

Acknowledge their point.

Agree wherever you can.

Acknowledge the person and their interests.

Express your views as neutrally as possible.

Create a favorable climate for negotiation by lowering the temperature of the
discussions.
11
Change the game. Don’t reject…reframe
Step 3.

Ask:
o
o
o
o
Step 4.





Step 5.
Why?
Why not?
What if?
What would you do if you were in my shoes? How would you advise me?
Make it easy to say yes. Build them a golden bridge
Involve your colleague—bring them in rather than avoiding them.
What are their unmet needs?
How can you satisfy those unmet needs?
How can you help your opponent save face?
Go slow to go fast.
Make it hard to say no.
Bring them to their senses, not their knees

What are the consequences? Have you let your colleague know the consequences?

What is your BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)? How can you defuse
their anticipated reaction?

What questions could you ask that would keep sharpening and clarifying your
colleague’s choice?

What are the elements of the lasting agreement that you are seeking? Don’t settle for a
temporary resolution.

Are the parties to the conflict mutually satisfied? Chose mutual satisfaction over victory.
Pause to Reflect 2.5
Pause the recording and think of someone who fits the “difficult person” description. Make notes
on how you can use the give steps to reframe the problems and develop a more satisfying
relationship.
12
TOPIC 3
WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Learning Outcomes
• Identify common sources of stress for department chairs
•
Explore how stress impairs and enhances performance
•
Prepare to apply tips for managing your time and balancing your roles
Leadership Priority Tradeoffs
Urgent
Not Urgent
I
Important
Not
II
HIPOS
(hotspots)
HIPOS
(planned)
LOPOS
LOPOS
Important
III
IV
13
Pause to Reflect 3.1
Pause the recording to consider:
•
Can you name two personal HIPOS?
•
Can you name two professional LOPOS?
What kinds of tradeoffs are you making that you might want to change?
Top Department Chair Stressors
•
Having insufficient time to keep current
•
Gaining financial support for programs
•
Evaluating faculty performance
•
Attending meetings
•
Managing a heavy workload
•
Keeping academic career on track
•
Writing letters, memos and other paperwork
•
Imposing excessively high expectations on self
Pause to Reflect 3.2
Pause the recording and take the Leader’s 4-Way Stress Test.
Ask yourself:
1.
How strongly do I identify with my identity?
2.
Am I comfortable with conflict?
3.
Do I focus on high priority tasks?
4.
Do I have a life outside work?
14
Guidelines for Time Management
 Plan (reflective time)
 Concentrate (flow time)
 Take breaks
 Don’t be a perfectionist
 Don’t be afraid to say no
 Delegate Low Pay-offs
 Don’t be a workaholic
Resources
Jeffrey L. Buller, The Essential Department Chair, 2nd Edition (2012). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Don Chu, The Department Chair Primer, 2nd Edition (2011). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Christian K. Hansen (2011). Time Management for Department Chairs. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Kent R. Crookston, Working with Problem Faculty: A 6-Step Guide for Department Chairs
(2012). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Walter Gmelch and Val Miskin (2011). Department Chair Leadership Skills. Madison,
Wisconsin: Atwood Publishing.
Mary Lou Higgerson, Communication Skills for Department Chairs (1996). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
H. Ibarra and M. Hunter (2011). How Leaders Create and Use Networks in Advancing Your
Career. Harvard Business Review, 171-192.
William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?”
Harvard Business Review, November 1999
Victor Vroom and J. G. Jago. (1988). The New Leadership. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall.
Questions?
Please record your questions or comments for Walt via the Google doc link below so that he
can address them at the conference on July 13.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10nloSScqvYVmtSh1fK5blNZNfMBalIUH7FDQouHGTrU/viewf
orm
15