I’ve worked with leaders for 30 years, but only in the last five years have I entered the world of academic leaders more deeply.
I have been fortunate to work with deans and academic leaders from Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and recently, Oxford University. Today, some of the examples of academic leadership that excite me, and make me hopeful for the future, are happening here in Thailand.
Thai universities are in a difficult place and face a very different future. Many would like to change faster in a rapidly changing educational landscape. Academic leaders now face questions around finding new opportunities in the hybrid world. How can we make teaching approaches more relevant and engaging for students? How can we better prepare students for real life in the transformed workforce?
Switching to an educational journey less centred on traditional lectures, courses and seminars is difficult. Staff, faculty and students are often not ready for it. However, educational approaches need to change to serve the future needs of Thai business and society. This inevitably means leaders will need to change as well.
Traditionally, academic leaders have been responsible for keeping everything stable and maintaining status in sometimes conservative organisations. They now find themselves in the position of needing to lead quite transformative change.
Previously they had to adhere to slow and painstaking approaches to changing curricula. They now need to transform learning content and experience to connect with students who won’t tolerate the old approaches. They now need to lead a group that doesn’t believe they need leading. Now they are required to inspire and show them the way.
In many ways, the role of the academic leader is more and more starting to resemble that of a chief executive officer. Just like their corporate counterparts, academic leaders of today are now responsible for making sure things get done quickly. They need to ensure everyone knows where we are going. They need to interpret the tea leaves and the trends to take advantage, or prevent damage as the case may be.
To succeed, and many are doing so, a new mindset is essential. They understand the past isn’t coming back, and they need to run their departments differently. Although more than ever they are now responsible for ensuring change happens and things get done, they should not be doing it all themselves. Their focus now needs to include developing leaders around them.
Academic leaders now need to constantly communicate and reinforce new directions and expectations. They need to provide their people with the tools to succeed.
How can academic leaders get started on their personal and organisational leadership transformation?
- Carefully examine how you are spending your time. Review your varying roles and responsibilities. What can you delegate, or can you bring in collaborators? What needs your attention? What is a genuine administrative need and what is just “the way it has always been done”? I’m sure this has changed a lot in the last two years.
- Identify collaborative opportunities in and outside the department and the organisation. There is no need to try and do it all with the limited resources you have. Innovation is found at the edges, so think outside of the box and consider how to help people do new things.
- Lead internal agile collaboration. Agile is now for everyone. It is a great way to manage and create shared responsibility, inclusion and engagement.
- Empower others. Empowerment is the purpose of education and education leaders alike. Support and elevate others by creating meaningful professional development opportunities for faculty and staff in various situations. They can’t be something different until they can do something different. You are the best-placed person to make this happen.
- Invite innovation. Ensure you inspire faculty and staff to lean into and/or contribute to innovation.
I have seen academic leaders recently successfully launch new programmes in a time of change, create new programmes for new groups, transform well-established organisations and embrace human approaches to deliver learning to connect better with students. I have seen them create an educational ecosystem and transform faculty mindsets and worldviews.
If they can do it, so can you.
Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAC — Southeast Asia’s Lifelong Learning Center. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa. Talk to us about how SEAC can help your business during times of uncertainty at https://forms.gle/wf8upGdmwprxC6Ey9
