Dr. Patricia Chase
AACP Academic Leadership
Fellows Program
September 2014
Our Leadership Studies this Week
Talents
Knowledge
Skills
But this session is focused exclusively on academic pharmacy – and you!
Session Material Check
•PowerPoint
•Bibliography
•Assessment instrument &
scoring
•List of symbolic frame
ideas
Comments from ALFP Fellows & Mentors
 “Now I know why a project failed that I thought I
carefully designed. I didn’t design the project
considering all four frames.”
 “I wish I knew this information 20 years ago!”
 “I took the tools home and immediately started
seeing new things in my college.”
 “The frames help me solve problems in a new way.
I’m much more effective.”
 “I used the four frames of leadership that I learned
from the ALFP session.” (Karimi, R. – 2012 ALFP)
We Are Not Trying to Make You Deans!
 We want you to enjoy the leadership role you have.
 We want you to be more effective in your current
role by giving you tools to take back home.
 We want you to think about what comes next in
your career. You are the future of the academy and
it is important that we do succession planning.
In the next 5 years there will be a tremendous
number of positions open: Dean,
Associate/Assistant Deans, and Department Chairs.
Career opportunities will abound!
My Leadership Journey
Confessions of a leadership “junkie.”
Dissertation: A Study of Academic Leadership
(what it takes to become an excellent dean).
The AACP New Deans Conference in 1994
changed my path – ALFP can be this for you.
In my 14th year of being dean (both public and
private)
Dean’s Compass - many ALFP authors!
Harvard Institute for Management and
Leadership in Education (MLE)
Like you, I’m a work in progress!
The Concept of Frames
Case study:
 Course in Ph.D. program. Assignment: To read
the B&D book and apply the concepts to an
organization.
 The course totally changed the way I look at an
organization and make decisions.
 It began a 20+ year study of the concept of frames.
 Learned to use the frames to look at what is going
on and then how to solve problems.
Our Goals for Today
 To assess your preference for each of the frames.
 To describe the four frames that leaders can use to
become more effective in solving organizational
issues.
 To define the process of reframing and describe
how it can be used to solve problems.
 To discuss how the four frames can be used to
develop a stronger team.
Private Goals: Our Journey
 To discuss leadership in a more personal context by
sharing lessons we have learned on our personal
leadership journeys. You’ll never see this in books!
 Please Note: Not all of the slides are in your handouts.
This is intentional because some of this material reflects
my personal journey.
 Our next session will allow your team facilitators to share
their personal leadership stories - one of the best parts of
the program!
Our most important rule: What happens at
Airlie stays at Airlie!
Private Goals: Our Journey
 To have you begin considering the next steps on your
leadership journey.
 Please use a page in your journal to write personal
reflections about your leadership experiences.
Remember: Some of the most important leadership
lessons you will learn during “bad” times or from poor
leaders.
“They will make you better or bitter.”
There are no right or wrong answers!
Be honest, don’t try to second guess the survey.
Please take ten minutes to complete it the
32 items.
To score the assessment, put the numbers in the
appropriate spaces on the scoring sheet.
Add the numbers and put the total in the box.
We will discuss your results in a few
minutes.
The Concept of Frames
 Lee Bolman and Terry Deal wrote the book: Modern
Approaches to Understanding and Managing
Organizations in 1984. Seven years later it was
released as Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice
and Leadership. The 4th edition was released in 2008.
Frames are views (lenses) of an organization that
provide a context for much of the existing theory and
research on organizations.
The Four Frames
•The Structural Frame – Factories/Machines
•The Human Resource Frame - Families
•The Political Frame – Jungles
•The Symbolic Frame – Temples/Theaters
Organizations have all four frames! If you don’t recognize this, you
may be unaware of the forces that prevent you from solving problems.
The Four Frames
Structural
Political
Human Resource
Symbolic
Frames
…“are both windows on the world and lenses that
bring the world into focus.”
…“filter out some things while allowing others to
pass through easily.”
…“help to order experiences and decide what action
to take.”
Bolman and Deal 2003
By the end of this session you will not only know your preference for
each frame, but you will also apply these lenses to solve common
problems that face faculty leaders every day.
The Harvard Program
 Institute for Management and Leadership in
Education (MLE).
 Two week intensive program.
 Lee Bolman facilitated four days to using the
frames to solve problems in higher education.
 Bolman used a two step process – frame
analysis/problem resolution.
Assessing Your Survey
Structural
Human Resource
Political
Symbolic
Are you equally strong in all four frames?
Is there one that is move dominant?
My Report Card - 1993
Frame
Structural
Human Resource
Political
Symbolic
Grade
+
+
-
Advantages of Frames
 Similar to the StrengthsFinder - when you know your
“frame” strengths you can work to enhance your
understanding of your dominant frame(s).
 You can develop your understanding and abilities in
the other frames. The frames can be learned.
 Knowledge of frames can keep you out of trouble.
 Reframing is a critical skill and it can also be learned.
What is reframing?
Reframing
 The ability to examine the same situation from
multiple vantage points to develop a holistic
picture. Given a problem, you should use each of
the lenses to see it more clearly.
 Effective leaders change lenses when things don't
make sense or aren’t working.
 Reframing offers the promise of powerful new
options to solve problems.
 The ability to reframe experience enriches and
broadens a leader’s repertoire.
Bolman and Deal 2003
Reframing
“If all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail.”
Format for discussion of Frames
For each frame:
 Definition of leadership styles that are prominent
 Example of how the frame applies to higher education
 Advantages of the frame
 Potential problems in the frame
 Personal reflections
 Sharing reflections – personal and group
The Structural Frame
 Emphasizes goals, rules, formal relationships and
the rational side of an organization.
The Structural Frame
 A structural leader clarifies goals, attends to the
relationship between structure and environment and
develops a structure that is clear to everyone.
 A structural leader focuses on tasks, facts and logic
rather than personality and emotions.
 A structural leader defines roles and responsibilities;
clarifies organizational goals.
 You must have structure, otherwise organizations
misdirect energy and resources!
Structural Frame Leader
 Authoritarian, analyst, architect, military model,
bureaucrats.
 Frequently believes that organizations require tight
control. However, it doesn’t have to be. In specialized
areas where you have higher levels of expertise and
performance (professions) a less complex structure
works. Here, the structural approach should be broad
and more subtle.
The Structural Frame in Education
 Change strategy: Analyze, design, implement.
 Organizations operating in rapidly changing
turbulent times need more complex, yet flexible
structures. Leaders must understand the
complexity of the organization and create the right
structure.
 Important elements of the structural frame include:
Policies and procedures; organizational chart;
departmental structures; job descriptions;
accreditation and assessment,
and strategic plans/goals.
Structural Frame Problems
 Balance between architect and tyrant.
 Too rigid structure; ignores everything that falls
outside the rational jurisdiction of structures (P&P).
 Red tape, mindless memos and micromanagers.
 Cold, heartless; neglect other variables that are
critical to organization’s effectiveness.
 Organizational problems originate from
inappropriate structures and can be resolved by
simple reorganization. The terrible secretary!
My Personal Reflections
Personal Reflections
Please put one personal reflection on the structural
frame in your journal.
Do you know someone who is a very structural person?
Take five minutes and then we will share some of your
stories.
The Human Resource Frame
 Emphasizes needs,
attitudes, skills and the
human side of an
organization.
The Human Resource Frame
 Human resource leaders believe that people are the
heart of any organization. When people feel the
organization is responsive to their needs and
supportive of their goals, you can count on their
commitment and loyalty.
 Human resource leaders believe there is a synergistic
relationship between organizations and people. The
fit between the organization and the people must be
good. If it is, both benefit, if not, one or both will
suffer.
A HR Frame Leader
 Believes organizations exist to identify and meet human
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needs.
Taps into people’s talents and strengths; is totally committed
to developing his/her people.
Works to get, and keep the best people.
Recognizes strengths in his/her people; builds excellent
teams. Holds a personal belief in the quality of his/her
employees.
Allows people to do important work and make mistakes
(occasionally). Please read MacGregor!
Is a servant, catalyst, caregiver, mentor, educator.
Knows that change comes from building relationships,
listening, empowering.
The Human Resource Frame in Education
 Recruiting – get the right people on the bus in the
right seats.
 Dealing with difficult issues – get the wrong people
off the bus.(Check out Jim Collins Good to Great in
the Social Sectors – discusses higher education).
 Retaining excellent faculty.
 Designing faculty development programs.
With the shortage of faculty, number of new schools,
and mobility of junior faculty the HR frame is critical!
Human Resource Frame Problems
 Balance: Catalyst or wimp?
 Romanticized view of human nature in which
everyone always hungers for growth and collaboration;
is too optimistic.
 Wishy-washy leadership: Good guys make bum
bosses!
 Spends too much time on the trouble makers; forgets
to reward the good people.
 Blinded by people; fails to be
fair; plays favorites.
My Personal Reflections
Personal Reflections
Please take five minutes to write down a personal
reflection and then we will share some with the group
The Middle Management Trap
 Structural and human resource approaches may
help you build a successful career in middle
management.
 You will not rise to top leadership positions if
you cannot reframe in more than these two.
Warriors and Wizards
 Bolman and Deal wrote The Wizard and the Warrior:
Leading with Passion and Power.
 Managers typically rely on two frames (structural and
human resource) when they need four!
 Political and symbolic frames are required to make sense
of the chaos that exists in organizations today.
 These are the two frames that leaders are usually the
weakest.
 This book focuses on developing leaders as Warriors – to
learn to command power, and as Wizards – to learn the
mastery of symbols.
Warriors and Wizards
 Warriors: this role mobilizes strengths, demonstrates courage and
willingness to fight as long and hard as needed to win the
battle/fulfill their mission.
 Wizards: this role brings imagination, creativity, meaning and
magic to the organization.
So let’s find out how to become
 Warriors:
And
 Wizards:
In Pharmacy Education
The Political Frame
 Emphasizes power, conflict, and
coalitions among those who have
vested interest to protect and advance
an organization in a context of scarce
resources.
Political Frame Leader
 A political frame leader is an advocate, negotiator,
warrior.
 A political frame leader recognizes political realities and
knows how to deal with them. Inside and outside any
organization there are always a variety of interest groups
and coalitions, each with its own agenda. There are
never enough resources.
 A political frame leader recognizes his/her major
constituencies and develops ties to them.
 A political frame leader knows that power and conflict
are central features of organizational life; accepts the
fact that leadership requires managing conflict as
productively as possible.
The Political Frame Leader
 Key skills:
 Agenda setting
 Mapping the political terrain
 Networking and forming coalitions
 Bargaining and negotiating to reach compromise
 Managing resources effectively
 Understanding the many sources of power
 Assessing risks and opportunities
 Change comes from putting all these skills into play:
developing networks, building allies (even with
people you don’t like), bargaining, jockeying for
power and negotiating solutions.
The Political Frame in Education
 Higher education environment: chronic scarcity,
diversity and conflict. Resources are especially scarce
in universities – but politics are not!
 Leaders need to build a base of support.
 Leaders need to be political and spend time building
networks to key decision makers. It takes time and
patience to do this.
 May be hard for new leaders to learn!
Political Frame Problems
 Balance: Advocate or hustler?
 Unethical politicians: amoral, scheming and
unconcerned.
 Spend more time advancing one’s career.
 Enticed by the perks of leadership positions.
 Too diffuse; work doesn’t get done.
 People are rewarded for political games; this
creates unhealthy competition, and reinforces
conflict and mistrust.
My Personal Reflections
Personal Reflections
Please put one personal reflection
on the Political Frame.
Perhaps think about the question: Do you like
politics?
Please take five minutes and then we will share.
The Symbolic Frame

Explores how organizations create meaning and
belief through symbols-including myths, rituals, and
ceremonies.
The Symbolic Frame
 A symbolic leader knows what is most important about
any event is not what happened, but what it means to
people.
 A symbolic leader uses dramatic, visible symbols. They
create a cultural tapestry of rituals, ceremonies, and
stories to help people find meaning, purpose, and passion.
 A symbolic leader believes that the most important part of
a leader’s job is to inspire. Give people something that
they can believe in – a vision! People become excited and
committed to an organization that is special.
 A symbolic leader knows in the face of uncertainty and
ambiguity people create symbols to resolve confusion,
increase predictability and anchor hope.
A Symbolic Frame Leader
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Is charismatic.
Is a prophet or poet.
Articulates a vision that differentiates the organization’s
unique capabilities and mission.
Creates slogans, tells stories, gives awards, appears
where she/he is least expected;
MBWA - manages by walking around/riding
lawnmowers!
Tells stories, creates drama.
Is sensitive to an organization’s history and culture.
Is visible and energetic.
Is passionate about making his/her organization the
best. Has faith in the future.
Symbolic Frame in Education
 Education is tremendously symbolic – think of the
ceremonies, academic regalia, special events, tributes, etc.
 This is not understood or recognized in many colleges.
This failure contributes to many problems.
 Walking into a school you can easily diagnose a symbolic
frame deficit no
 The symbolic frame is especially important in times of
rapid change – you can use it to change the culture of an
organization – given time.
 This is a critical skill for all leaders.
The Symbolic Frame Problems
 Balance: Prophet or zealot?
 Symbols only work when they are attuned to people
and place. Meaningless symbols antagonize and
empty symbolic events backfire. Good examples are
the meaningless words in a vision statement that no
one owns or meaningless employee reward
programs.
 Faced with uncertainty and ambiguity, people create
symbols to resolve confusion, increase predictability
and provide direction – this may be good or bad!
 The water cooler/post faculty meeting meetings.
My Personal Reflections
Personal Reflections
Please take five minutes to
think about one personal
reflection on the Symbolic
Frame. We will then share.
Discussion Questions
 Is there a frame that you don’t
understand, don’t like?
 Is there a frame you would like to
explore in greater detail?
 How many frames do you use?
 How many frames should you use?
Research by Bensimmon:
In a study of 32 university presidents:
1 frame
13
2 frames
11
3 frames
7
4 frames
1
Bolman and Deal: Modern organizations are so complex they cannot be
understood from a single-frame perspective. Leaders who use only one or two
frames may be extremely vulnerable to changes in climate or competition.
Four Frame Leaders
 Work to understand the situation by looking at it
from the perspective of all four frames – this
involves a combination of analysis, intuition and
artistry.
 They take the most appropriate action(s) to resolve
the situation.
Developing a Team
You don’t have to be good in all four frames. You can
build a team using the concepts and recruit people
with strength(s) in the frame(s) where you are weak.
Think of the incredible organization you can have if
you have team strength in all four frames.
Assignment: In the space on your assessment
instrument place the names of your team members
and their scores in the boxes.
Case Study Question….
 You are the new dean/assistant or associate
dean/department chair in a school/college of
pharmacy. As you build your team, are there any
frames you could not delegate to someone else? If
there are any, why?
Structural?
Human Resource?
Political?
Symbolic?
Now let’s think about your
school/college….
 If you had to rate your college/school would you say it
is primarily structural, human resource, political or
symbolic?
 Is your supervisor (department chair/dean) more
developed in one of the frames? Does he/she operate
in more than one frame?
 If your supervisor (department chair/dean) uses only
one frame, how will you “manage him/her?”
Reframing
 Reframing is the ability to view the same thing
from more than one perspective.
 One of the most important parts of the concept.
When you use frames as lenses that bring your
world into focus, you can use the frames to help
you see what needs to be done to solve problems.
 Each frame/perspective has a unique, comparative
advantage. Each is likely to be more salient and
illuminating in some circumstances than in others.
Exercise: Reframing
 Reframe each situation to determine what is going on by
looking at the problem through each of the four
frames, or lenses.
 What frames are the most important?
 What do the frames show you?
 What steps should you take to solve the problem?
Case #1
 Your state’s financial resources are extremely poor;
your faculty has not had a raise for two years. You don’t
want to lose talented faculty.
Case #2
 You just received a call that one of your brightest P4
pharmacy students has died secondary to a drug
overdose.
Case #3
 You are the new department chair in a college with
very low faculty morale. Faculty members hide in their
offices, backstab each other, and have developed
“alliances.”
When You Go Home
 Look/observe/listen.
 Make a list of the people in your organization.
Understand what frame(s) they use.
 Are there any frames that are overly dominant in your
college/school?
 Are there any that are missing? If so, how can you
correct the problem?
 Always ask yourself: “Where
is the best place for you
to be?”
When You Go Home
 Reflect on your progress in becoming a leader and list
the areas you want to develop.
 Write your observations in a leadership journal.
 Read B&D: The Wizard and the Warrior:
Leading with Passion and Power.
 Send ideas to get to 200 Symbolic tips.
Leadership
 Wise leaders understand their own strengths, work to
expand them, and build teams that can provide
leadership in all four frames-structural, political,
human resource and symbolic.
Leadership Lessons
Leadership is a wonderful,
lifelong journey.
References – Please see Bib
Special Thanks
Lee Bolman
Brad, Ruth, Karli,
Lucinda
and….
Special Thanks to You!