Reframing Academic Leadership

This book takes the same four-frame schema as Boleman and Deal's well know Reframing Organizations, but specifically in the context of higher education. The first few chapters do seemed like a rehash of the other: structural, political, and so on ... but then the examples became infused with something that is very unique to academia. That is the rift that often develops between faculty and administration. "Faculty can see staff as unduly constrained and bureaucratic," they explain. "Staff often wonder why they have to track their hours and vacation days when faculty seem to come and go as they please."Working within a discipline or - more often - sub-discipline is not very amenable to hierarchical control. The focus for faculty is within their specific areas - a "silo" mentality. It's not easy for faculty members to see or appreciate the complex institutional machinery required to assemble groups of inquisitive youth in rooms, on schedule, like clockwork, year after year, in a fluid and unstable environment. Meanwhile, academic administrators (unlike those running a factory or grocery store), cannot understand what actually happens at the other end of the hierarchy. They simply do not have the expertise. There's a built-in volatility which is difficult to control.The popular Boleman/Deal book, now it its fourth edition and widely used as a text in management and leadership classes, only went so far as to compare universities to hospitals. That's an interesting thought - doctors there are the counterpart to faculty members here.But they go much farther in this book. Faculty members' reference group, for example, may not include the administration or staff, colleagues in other departments, or even colleagues in their own area. They may, instead, be aligned intellectually with likeminded specialists in other institutions, institutions which are (from the business model) competitors. The culture, goals, outlook, perspective, motivation, and knowledge base of Professor Jones may be worlds apart from that of Dean Simon or Provost Peters. And although they may distrust one another, and even fight, they also pull in the same direction. Such is life in academia.The audience for this book is probably small not only because this is specific to academia but because it will be of more value to administrators than to faculty. Faculty can often all but ignore the broad institutional view of the administration. But they shouldn't, of course. Faculty will find the book interesting, and will like to read that they are of primary importance. The first law of higher education leadership, the authors write, is "If you lose the faculty, you lose." And yet, they also discuss the "pervasive faculty scorn for bureaucracy, administrators, and hierarchy."The same three threads are wound again through academia: political, structural, human resources ... to great effect. As before (in Boleman/Deal) an effort is made on account of symbolism too, which fell short again, I thought. Yes there is no denying the symbolic power of Arizona State University President Michael Crow's 2002 inaugural address, reprinted in part, in which he describes "A new gold standard" of higher education. The speech was moving, inspirational, and effective because it presented a vision; yes, a vision which involved people, politics, and structure. It wasn't the symbols that were so valuable in themselves, it was that they were an effective mode of communication. If symbology is an entire frame of academic leadership, so is shouting. If there was anything symbolic that needs a little explaining, it may be the stark difference in dress code between faculty and administration. If communication and interaction is so important between these groups, I understand the jeans and and sneakers on faculty -- they're comfortable, and that's also what students wear. Not that I think they're so bad in themselves, what's with the suits and ties. Probably, administrators must communicate with politicians, businessmen, legislators, donors, and others who will appreciate the formality. But it does affect the faculty-administration dynamic and it's an issue that may be worth taking up in the next edition.Despite that shortcoming, and a couple of chapters at the end that refer vaguely to "feeding the soul" and the "sacred nature of academic leadership," the insights keep coming, chapter by chapter: Transparency and secrecy, reward structures, recruiting and hiring, managing budgets and personnel, review, accountability, motivation, cross-disciplinary cooperation, communication, self-control, autonomy, accountability, conflict resolution, assessment, regulations and guidelines - these are all addressed. Anyone involved in higher education will be thankful for this illuminating book.

Reframing Academic Leadership is chock full of good ideas about leading in an academic environment. The authors base the idea of reframing on the notion that the academic environment presents very particular leadership challenges. Power is dispersed through the the institution, and it is difficult for any single person to control anything. Faculty play a role in governance, and administrators find themselves caught in the middle of the often conflicting interests of faculty, students, and other administrators. Leaders are under pressure to initiate change and adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. In this environment, leaders may fail in one (or both) of the following ways: they fail to notice cues in their environment that should act as guideposts, and try move things in the wrong direction; and they fail to carry their people with them. Reframing is a habit of strong academic leaders. It means looking at a situation from multiple perspectives, understanding it in new ways, and developing new strategies for moving ahead.This is a challenge, say Bolman and Gallos, because while administrators new to an institution "step midstream into institutions that have evolved distinctive histories, cultures, and traditions," (p. 18) they tend to frame situations to fit familiar patterns. Under pressure to initiate change, "they are off and running before they're even sure what's most important and where they should really be heading" (p. 19). They may exhibit skilled incompetence, which is akin to expertly hitting everything with a hammer - not the solution to most problems. And they find themselves in the difficult position of working astride an 'internal world' of faculty, collegial culture, and academic freedom, and an 'external world' of senior administrators, managerial culture, and the values of efficiency and accountability.The authors provide plenty of good advice for coping with all this, which doesn't really add up to a coherent approach, but which makes the book useful to dip into or refer back to, whether for specific quotes or more elaborated models. For example, here is one way to preempt what may turn into a difficult conversation: "George, let me tell you what I dread. If I raise questions about your work, you'll get angry and the meeting will go downhill. Should I be worried about that?" (p. 38) More conceptually, their Advocacy/Inquiry communication model provides useful insights into how to make a conversation go well, and to analyze how a conversation may have gone wrong.Further on, they tackle the question of how the institution can become ineffective through an organizational structure that keeps producing one thing when what is needed is another. As long as A is being rewarded, it will be difficult to produce B. They illustrate how administrators may be authorized to act, but may lack the expertise of the faculty they oversee, resulting in a weak authority system. And academic units in an institution can become isolated from each other, resulting in silos that do not work or play well together. To these kinds of problems, they offer numerous solutions appropriate to the academic environment, one of the most useful of which is the importance of respecting the process that faculty have come to expect when attempting to implement change.The book tends to become rather generic and formulaic as it progresses, offering a bit of a mishmash of rather cliched leadership advice, under headings such as open communication, empowerment, and teamwork. Similarly, the various leadership metaphors offered chapter by chapter - "Analyst and Architect," "Compassionate Politician," "Servant, Catalyst, and Coach" (all three at once?) is overwhelming. Each of these ideas really deserves much more space, but the format of the book is to take the reader through them at a swift pace; there is little time or space to process. Perhaps a companion workbook would help. Overall, I don't think the authors do an effective job of connecting the concept of reframing to the challenges they describe.Still, I took away a lot from Reframing Academic Leadership, and recommend it as an ideas book for any administrator looking for solutions in a hurry.

This book is a great read for those interested in understanding how higher ed differs from the private sector. This was an assigned textbook for a graduate certificate in educational leadership and I expected it to be boring. However, I looked forward to reading each chapter and walked away with several pages of notes that apply to my current roles. The writing is clear and kept my interest.

Book was assigned for a class, the book was comprehensive and well written. For leaders in higher education I thought the book was definitely worth reading.

I brought 20 years of corporate experience in to higher ed. None of that experience prepared me for my job. This book was extremely helpful in shifting my paradigm to the frame of higher edu administration and the complexity it has at its core. I've suggested this to multiple people in my current administration and they loved it!

It gave good examples to support the material in each chapter. It was divided into three sections with a preface on what the chapters would cover. It also reinforced previous information reviewed in the book. This book was used an the academic portion of my graduate internship.

Very informative but out of date with references

I read this as part of my ACE Fellowship. Of the volumes of reading that was required, this book, by far was the best read of them all. It's incredibly logical, really speaks to the state of higher ed today and how to navigate it. Very well written and easy to read. I think I need to re-visit it!

Bought the book as part of my graduate study. Very deep discussions across the book along with practical examples. Thought provocative and well written book.