Hi, welcome to another episode of Unlocked. I'm Skot Waldron. Today, we talk about unlocking the potential of people inside of the university space. Now don't go away if you're not in the university space, this will apply to you as a business leader, just as much. But Jeanne Hey, who's on the show today, comes from 20 years of being in that space. She was at Miami University. She was the university of New England. And she's spent that time, not only teaching, educating, but being in leadership positions. I found this interview very enlightening. I had no idea about the politics and I guess the background of leadership inside the university space and the dynamics within leaders and how that plays out between their colleagues and what they do and how they say things. And Jeanne adds some really interesting insights.
She just released a book called Balancing Acts of academic Leadership. And in there she talks about what she calls the seesaws of leadership and leading in the academic space. I would say that these seesaws not only apply to academia, but they apply to the business world as well. That's why I said, "Don't go away if you're not in academia." But she brings a very unique perspective to the academic space. So if you are in the university academia space, pay attention. Because you're probably going to go, "Uh-huh (affirmative), oh yeah. Oh, I get it Jeanne." You're going to probably acknowledge all the things she's saying, because you've probably experienced them on your own side. So one of those is the balancing act, the seesaw she calls them, about colleague or friend for versus a boss who has authority. How do I balance that out? And how do I feel about being a leader now versus being the person that is publishing papers and getting grants and things like that? So how do I balance all this stuff that I'm doing now as a new leader?
So anyway, this intro has been long enough. I want to get you listening to Jeanne and her insights. So let's do this.
Jeanne, welcome to of the show.
Jeanne Hey:
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Skot Waldron:
You have a new book coming out called The Balancing Acts of Academic Leadership.
JEANNE HEY:
I do.
SKOT WALDRON:
In your bio, there's some qualifications there that warrant the idea that you can speak about this topic. You've kind of been there a little bit and experienced academic leadership. But I want to come out of the gate really quick and ask you, why don't we, and this is like right out of the gate, because this is an interesting topic, why don't universities talk about culture as much in the leadership space? We hear it about business all the time.
JEANNE HEY:
Exactly.
SKOT WALDRON:
Right?
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
But we don't hear about it inside of the university system as much. Why is that?
JEANNE HEY:
You're right about that, but I hasten to add that, that's changing fairly significantly in recent years and right now. Universities have, I would say in the last five years, certainly, but even as much as 15 years ago, started to get more serious about their own leadership. I think coming off of business and all the work and research and institutes that focus on leadership in business, a lot of universities also started for example, in their business programs, leadership studies, MBA with leadership focus and I think that also helped us realize we've got to look internally. So why were we slow to the party?
I certainly don't claim to have a full answer, but I would say that part of it is that especially on the academic side, which where I focus. And I think a lot of people who aren't in higher ed think, "Well, isn't everything about university and college life academic?" And certainly it's the reason that we exist is to offer educations and conduct research on the academic side. But many of an institution's leaders don't work in academics at all. They're the chief financial officer, they're the people who take care of the buildings, they're running student affairs, the dormitories, all that kind of stuff. People who don't have PhDs. But most university presidents, provosts who are the chief academic officers, deans and department chairs, which is the group that I'm focused on, come up through the faculty ranks. And I think this is probably the nugget answer to your question. And there's kind of two answers.
First of all, the academic trajectory and I did it, you get a PhD, you become an assistant professor, you hopefully get tenure, you just move along, being a teacher and a scholar, none of that is about leadership. And so unlike in business where they're more typically thoughtful and deliberate about developing their leaders, universities, again, this is getting better, but universities tend to say, "Oh, okay, you, you're a good teacher and a good professor, you be department chair." And there's just not like a culture, an ethic or an understanding of that being department chair isn't just being the one among equals who fills out the forms and leads the meeting, but that department chairs really need to be strategic leaders and good managers and everything else.
The second, and I think more powerful reason though, is that within too many corners of academic culture, there's a disdain for leadership. And this is what my first chapter of my book is all about, because I think this is a real problem in academic culture. Among faculty, in many colleges and universities, there's an automatic distrust of people who become leaders. And they don't call them leaders, they call them administrators. So somebody is either appointed to, or even aspires to becoming the chair of the department, for example, rather than saying, "Oh, congratulations," it's more condolences and the classic, "Oh, you're going over to the dark side." Because within the halls of too much of higher ed, the currency of success is not the next level of leadership, it's are you promoted to associate professor, are you promoted to full professor, how many articles did you publish this year, did you get any grants. The currency is completely outside of leadership. Whereas in many businesses, you move up the ladder and that's success. It's not like that in most academic departments.
So the message then is, "If I'm going into leadership, I must not be good at these other things that my peers really value." And first of all, that's simply not true. There are abundant leaders who were, and even remain, exceptional teacher scholars. I can name a lot of them for you. And second, it's just so unhelpful because we need really good leaders. And so it's kind of shocking to see how many department chairs, for example, are so quick to apologize, "I'm chair, but I never wanted this job or I never sought this. It's not something that I plan to do forever." And very often that's true. But I also know in some cases they protest too much, and that was certainly me. I was somebody who kind of secretly thought, "I think I'd be good at administrating," but it took me a long time before I was willing to say that openly.
SKOT WALDRON:
That is fascinating. I have never heard that before.
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
And that is a shift from the business side. It's almost getting defensive about taking on that leadership role. And for people-
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah, exactly.
SKOT WALDRON:
For people like you, that may be thinking, "Oh, I may be good at that. That may be something," it's almost denying yourself that aspiration or that goal or that thing, because it's embarrassing or you're afraid of judgment or you're, whatever it is, being labeled as something. And that's really unfortunate. And I'm sure it's not like that everywhere. Right? And [crosstalk 00:11:01]-
JEANNE HEY:
Well, exactly. And I don't want to overstate it because certainly, most faculty are appreciative of their chairs and their deans. But that first step into leadership, I think when you switch out of just being on the professorial track and into a leadership track, that is often a hard one, that people aren't sufficiently supported and encouraged and rewarded. And instead, they get these subtle and sometimes not so subtle messages from their colleagues that, "Okay, you're taking a different path and it's not the pure one of success in our field."
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. So then they may say, "Oh, you're going over to that team. Good luck. See ya. You're not part of this anymore." And so do you feel somewhat like an outsider at that point as well?
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah. Well, I wouldn't say it's that. Because again, for most people that first step is department chair, sometimes associate chair, sometimes program director, depending on your situation and you're very much in and of the department. It's less that you're not one of us, but that, "Okay, now I'm going to perceive you like I have to keep an eye of, whose interests are you supporting, are you advocating for us a hundred percent, or are you now part of this other team. Are you playing for the other team, the administration, whom we don't trust, we think they're not transparent enough, their decisions, we don't like them," whatever it might be, "Even if we do like them, somehow they're separate from us." So department chairs and deans are, are so in the middle. By the time you reach provost or president, you're clearly on the administrative team.
But we deans and department chairs, we all have faculty status. We're tenured in our departments. We're usually continuing to teach and conduct research in there. So we're colleagues, but we're also the ones who move into these different camps. And I know as dean, I often felt like I was delivering the faculty point of view to the senior administration and the senior administration's point of view to the faculty. And I was either in a position... Well, I was often in a position of both sides thinking I was playing for the other team.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. I get it. I can sense that. Now, let me relate that. And I'm going to say that, that probably isn't far from the business side, when you go into normal business-
JEANNE HEY:
Like labor and management?
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, maybe in a sense, is that I have been, and... Let me put this out there. I'm coaching some individuals from the CDC right now. And I hear that from some of the people that go into management of a team, a team leader position. They've been at the team level with their colleagues and their peers and now they've been put into a leadership role. So now they're fighting this battle of, "Okay, now I'm their "superior". I am their leader, but I want to still be one of them, but I need to also understand what leadership is trying to do. So now I have to kind of take into account the interest of what we're trying to do as a bigger branch or whatever we're trying to do, versus just the team level. And I have to put myself in this bigger picture scenario, but also I love these people I've worked with for so long. I don't want to break those relationships and burn bridges. So I can see this balancing act that you're you're talking about in your book.
JEANNE HEY:
Exactly. And I think it comes from, I'm not a psychologist,. I don't know whether it's human nature, or biologist maybe, but there is this a suspicion and a discomfort with power across the human experience. So when somebody moves up to the next level, especially if they're exerting some kind of authority over you, that's going to introduce some tension, whether you work in a very hierarchical government office or business or in higher ed. And it's as you just described. I think it's exaggerated in academia because part of our identity and what a lot of us spend time doing, is critiquing power. We are the ground zero in our culture of places that examine issues of power and race and gender, and like all of those kinds of things and sexual harassment. It's universities and faculty types who are teaching about these things every day. Which is great, it's of value for our culture. But it also means means that, they bring that to their relationships with their leaders at the school. And so therefore, they might be even more critical or suspicious in that.
The other thing, is that the vast majority of universities in the United States have what's called a shared governance model by which the faculty, and sometimes including the staff, it's usually just the faculty, but sometimes including the professional staff, join in decision making. And there's a Faculty Senate or something like that, and there are very, very heavy volumes with all the rules about how the faculty get to participate in decision making. And anybody who's been following faculty relations with the administration, even before COVID, but certainly since COVID, those relationships are strained severely right now. Because under crisis, the leadership has to move quickly, they have to be decisive. Certainly in COVID, they couldn't afford to take a year to look at what should our policy about masking be. But then there's the Faculty Senate, maybe who feels that they should have been more included. Those kinds of dynamics are happening all over the country. And frankly, have been for many years.
SKOT WALDRON:
That makes a lot of sense. So that's one of the balancing acts, I can imagine of, "How do I honor my past as a teacher and then a professor, and then move into that higher role of becoming a chair or moving into the Dean role or whatever and then how do I balance that?" What's another example of a balancing act that you talk about in your book?
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah. Well, thanks. So another one is, it's related to this one, but it's a little more specific on our management style and it's the, "Am I the colleague/friend, or am I the boss/authority?" And this is especially challenging for again, department chairs, because they are faculty. They're very often associate professors, which means that they have not yet been promoted to the highest rank, which is full professor. They were hired by people in their unit. They are colleagues, we use that word colleague, that's how we refer to each other, so that's their dominant relationship. They've been in meetings with them forever. People that they now oversee, voted on their tenure and promotion, and will vote again when they go up for full professor. And in many cases, many of them are their best friends.
So there's not a lot of clarity around what authority a chair has. So very many come in thinking, "Well, I'm just going to continue to be a colleague and a friend." And then that bumps up against, there are moments, some obvious, some less so, when they have to wear that authority coat. So annual performance reviews are an obvious one. We all the chairs write the annual review. But others are, frankly, when things aren't going right. If an individual isn't performing well or canceling too much class or whatever it might be. Anybody who's responsible for the performance and professionalism of the unit is going to have to bring that authority persona to some places. So the balancing act is, how do I approach my management. Am I approaching it as a friend and colleague, or am I approaching it as the boss? And it depends on the situation.
Most department chairs can hang out kind of in the middle and on the colleague side. So long as they have the skills and the courage and the support to assert the authority when it's needed. If they spend almost all their time just on the friend or colleague, they run the risk that people just walk all over them. But if they spend too much time in the boss side, they'll gain resentment because we faculty, don't grow up or expect a culture in which the boss is telling us what to do. It's not how universities run. We create our own research agendas. We do it on our own time. The vast majority of what we teach in class, we decide how to do it. The autonomy that faculty have is one of the best perks of the job and it's something we value. And for the most part, it works. So if somebody's going to interfere with that too frequently, that's going to create resentment.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. And I would imagine that a lot of the things that you write about in the book may come from personal experience, either of yourself or a close colleague of yours. You are a college dean. What do you wish you would've known before coming to college dean, about all of this craziness?
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah. Well, I wish I'd been a lot more emotionally intelligent frankly, and the seesaw has helped me with that. But other reading that I've done around emotional intelligence has been really important and being hyper self-aware and other-aware. So that would be one. Another thing that I wish that I had been more savvy about understanding how others perceive me as Dean, and this gets to the authority, friend thing. I came into a new school, nobody knew me. I didn't know them. I had been in my previous university for 19 years and I came to the university of New England as dean, which has a lot to recommend it because you have a blank slate, but it also means how you present yourself at the beginning has an enormous impact. And I kind of was like, poo-pooing my leadership and authority.
Not that I didn't embrace it, but people would call me Dean Hey and I'd say, "Just call me Jeanne. It's just me." Or people would say, "Oh, Well, so now you have this power." And I'd be like, "Yeah, it doesn't feel like it." And I realize now that my dismissing their articulations of their perception of me as the dean, I told myself that I was wanting to make them comfortable with me. And I'm sure there was part of that, but I think it was also my way of like not wanting them to put on me, "Oh, you're the big cheese," or something.
And that was denying their experience. They see this person come in, she's been hired. She makes more money than I do. She has a bigger office. She's got power. And I should have just accepted, that's how they perceive me. First of all, I think as a way to honor them. And second, because suddenly the scrutiny on me for everything that came out of my mouth was just so much more severe than I'd experienced before. And that's because of this perception of power. And I wish I'd been more savvy about that earlier on.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's really interesting. And I think it's interesting, you brought up emotional intelligence as one of the first things, and I'm a firm believer in that as well, that it all starts with you. I say we have to be healthy on the inside before we can be healthy on the outside, and have to know ourselves before we can lead ourselves. And that is so profound that, that is one of the things that you mentioned first. And I'm sure you teach that now. And that idea of emotional intelligence.
JEANNE HEY:
And the seesaws are, I didn't use this language when I first kind of developed them and started talking about them, but they are a form of emotional intelligence. Because everything about situating yourself is understanding where you are. So for example, one of the seesaws is what kind of feedback you give. And the extremes are, you can give all praise or all reproach. And then I ask everybody, just think of yourself, not just in how you write annual evaluations, but how do you interact with people through the day? Are you telling them what's working, keep it up, or are you telling them what's not working? You need to change this. And it's fascinating how unself-aware most of us are, me included, just about our natural tendencies on that. And the reality, is the vast of our direct reports need a balance of that.
They need to be told what they're doing well and keep it up, but they also need the authority person to point out to them, "We need you to do better on this." And many chairs, people, are so conflict avoidant that they spend almost all their time on the praise side, and they maybe squeak in a sentence about what you should fix. And that's a balancing act where more people, more department chairs especially, have to be willing to spend more time on the reproach side. That's kind of a harsh word. But being willing to say what needs attention. Because it's only fair to the faculty or staff member. How can they improve if you don't articulate the issues?
SKOT WALDRON:
And what's the consequence of them not paying attention to that. What kind of culture does that lead to inside of the organization?
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah. Well, in an academic department, it has two primary consequences. The first, is that you just have performance problems and wide variability on how people are doing. Because if you have 50% of the department who's performing at a high level teaching, scholarship, everything else, and 50% who don't, but they're all getting praised from you, that's a recipe for not only 50% performance for your whole unit, but long term resentment from the high performers, because they see that their rewards are the same as the low performers. And speaking in very gross, simplistic terms obviously. But the second, and this is fairly unique to the academy is that with people who are on the tenure track, who don't receive sufficient information about what they need to address to successful when they go up for tenure, you run the risk of, then their sixth year, they get to their tenure decision and they're denied because they're not good enough teachers, or they haven't produced the amount or quality of scholarship that the university requires.
And they say, "But my department chair said I was doing okay." So that's a pretty severe consequence because the academy has this fairly unique thing of up or out. You either cross the bar or you don't. And if you don't cross the bar at your tenure decision, you don't get a second chance. You lose your job after a year. So that's one of the consequences.
SKOT WALDRON:
Wow. That is a pretty steep consequence. See, I didn't know about that either. That's really enlightening. And that's a lot of pressure, I would say for that leader as well, to be intentional about their communication style. Because you said there are a lot of people out there, a huge part of the population, that loves to be liked, that love to be encouraging, and that love to make people feel like a hundred bucks, a thousand bucks and a million bucks and they want to be there to support. They don't ever want to bring anybody down. And that a fear of conflict can be a real issue with that leader in understanding, "Hold on, I need to build you up. But I also..." So it's a terminology I use with some of my clients, it's calling them up versus calling them out. Right?
JEANNE HEY:
Oh. Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
How do we build them up to feel empowered, collaborative, reaching potential, as opposed to when we leave that conversation, them feeling discouraged, them feeling torn down, them feeling dominated in some way or micromanaged. So it's just that subtlety-
JEANNE HEY:
But you've conveyed the information in either case.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yes. And it's the way you communicate that information. And also, I think it's interesting what you said too, earlier, about coming into this new dean position. That, that first impression you make, which I come from branding and marketing and sales, and that brand is very important. And you're a brand impression that first, initial, out of the gate talk you have, or interaction with somebody and that's going to drive a lot. And so that investment you make in that person before you have to either call them up in some way, shape or form, is going to impact that relationship for the future as well.
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah. Yeah. I really like that, "Calling them up". And yeah. And you can certainly do it professionally, compassionately. But it goes back to what I said at the first, that if you're coming to the department chair role, "I'm a friend, I'm a colleague. I don't really like this power stuff," all of those things make it harder for individuals, especially who haven't had training or conversations like we're having now with anybody, to think through this, it makes it really hard to put them in that position of delivering sometimes those difficult messages. Especially if on the other side, you have somebody who thinks they're knocking it out of the park or who isn't self-aware or is super defensive, and is going to go complain to the dean or whatever. The kind of loosy-goosy culture of academia, where hierarchy is very fluid, makes this even more challenging. Now, again, there's a lot of good that comes out of it. Many of us thrive in the academy because we're comfortable in that and we didn't join the military, for example. We're not into big hierarchies. But there's a downside to it as well.
SKOT WALDRON:
This has been a really enlightening conversation for me. And as I told you before the show, before we started recording, these are so much more informative for me I think, than anybody else. So thank you for doing that. Your book Balancing Acts of Academic Leadership comes out in November. So if you're listening to this before then, stay tuned. If you're listening to this after November, go out and get the book. I assume it's on Amazon.
JEANNE HEY:
It'll be ready for Christmas.
SKOT WALDRON:
Christmas. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I assume it's on Amazon and everywhere that you can buy a book.
JEANNE HEY:
Yeah. Thank you so much, Skot. I super appreciate it.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. This has been really, really good. So good luck in everything you're doing and helping shape the world of academia. Because we don't need only to shape the students minds and the people that you're educating, but the culture within the leadership, is ultimately what's going to have an impact on those students as we move forward.
JEANNE HEY:
Absolutely. Yeah. Leadership, I think about leadership is so important because leaders by definition have followers and those are the next generation, those are the people who are going to fill your shoes when you leave. In no place is that more obvious than in higher ed.
SKOT WALDRON:
Thank you very much. Have an awesome day.
JEANNE HEY:
Thank you. You too.
SKOT WALDRON:
As I was listening to Jeanne talk, I was thinking about how unfortunate it is sometimes that we, as leaders, are almost embarrassed or defensive or ashamed or kind of downplay that achievement or that recognition. Somebody thought that we were good enough, that we were just that, just enough to be in that role and that we had something to bring to the table. And we, at times, I'm going to say I, because even I do this, downplay that and we say, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm like you. No, I'm like you." And what is that in us, that creates that? It's this feeling of belonging. It's this feeling of acceptance. It's this feeling of, "I'm still one of you, don't worry. I'm not going anywhere." But in reality, what we need to understand is that there is a balancing act and there are those seesaws that we need to, I guess, adapt to, understand and be able to, I guess, maneuver as we go throughout our leadership journey.
I love this, the one she brought up. And the idea of emotional intelligence and how she wishes she would've known more about that, about herself, her own tendencies, her own maybe, insecurities and strengths so that she can embrace them, but also build on some of those weaknesses. Those are the things that will make us, not only better leaders, but better team members, and better husbands and spouses and wives and kids and all those things. Emotional intelligence, being self-aware and others-aware is going to change worlds. Change world. And I'm really grateful for Jeanne. I'm grateful for her coming out and telling us about this. I'm grateful for her, writing this book. Because I feel like it's going to help a lot of people.
If you want to find out more about me, you can go to skotwaldron.com. You can find some interviews there and some helpful resources and assessments. I've got a free book on there. If you want to go to my YouTube channel, that would be awesome and like, subscribe, comment, all those things. I'm looking to build that audience and provide you some really helpful resources and information like Jeanne has just shared here. Also connect with me on LinkedIn. I would love to hang out with you there as well. So thank you everybody for being on another episode of Unlocked. I'll see you next time.
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