Not That Kind of Doctor - Effective Strategies for Academic Leadership
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09/21/2023
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🎙 In this episode of "Not That Kind of Doctor," Guy and Nick delve into the intricacies of academic leadership, offering insights and strategies for those at any stage of their career. Whether you're a seasoned professor or just starting out, effective leadership is about more than just holding a title—it's about fostering collaboration, setting actionable goals, and navigating the unique challenges of academia.
🛠️ What You'll Learn:
How to balance leadership roles with your core academic responsibilities
The importance of clear, honest, and kind communication in building strong teams
Strategies for motivating and engaging diverse groups within academic settings
Tips for graduate students to gain valuable leadership experience without overwhelming their schedules
The role of innovative thinking in adapting to the ever-changing landscape of higher education
Whether you're leading a team or looking to step into a leadership role, this episode provides practical advice and thoughtful reflections to help you succeed. Join us as we explore what it takes to lead with purpose and integrity in the world of academia.
If you found this episode insightful, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes that tackle the real challenges of academic life with a blend of wisdom and humor. 🎓✨
#AcademicLeadership #HigherEducation #GraduateStudents #TeachingAndResearch #TeamBuilding
Leadership - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
Searchable Transcript
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- [00:00:00.060](upbeat ambient music)
- [00:00:10.170]Leadership. Leadership.
- [00:00:12.398]I'm sorry, that was drum roll, please.
- [00:00:15.960]You were like, "I am ready to go."
- [00:00:17.970]Hmm.
- [00:00:18.803]You were showing some leadership.
- [00:00:20.104](Guy laughing)
- [00:00:21.840]You were showing some initiative.
- [00:00:23.490]Initiative, yes. Things were moving.
- [00:00:25.500]Things will be moving.
- [00:00:26.700]Which I appreciate because you know what?
- [00:00:29.516]What?
- [00:00:30.750]It's one of my favorite times of the year again.
- [00:00:32.730]Yes, it is.
- [00:00:34.080]I love job season.
- [00:00:36.069]There's something delightful about it.
- [00:00:38.220]There's, you know, not that I'm looking, I'm not looking.
- [00:00:40.750]Yeah, yeah.
- [00:00:42.425]That was not a Freudian flip, I am not looking.
- [00:00:45.785]But it's always interesting to get a feel
- [00:00:49.650]for the ways in which academic jobs are changing.
- [00:00:54.870]And there's, as I was like,
- [00:00:57.930]researching for today and trying to think through like,
- [00:01:03.264]what else can we say about the job market?
- [00:01:07.851]I noticed two big things as I was looking through,
- [00:01:11.070]particularly literacy ed jobs,
- [00:01:14.670]but then I was delving into some other content area jobs
- [00:01:18.849]in teaching,
- [00:01:20.610]and one,
- [00:01:23.639]increased focus on being a salary neutral position.
- [00:01:30.150]Mm-hmm. Which I found interesting.
- [00:01:31.890]And so for those of you who don't know,
- [00:01:33.390]salary neutral is when you are tasked
- [00:01:37.560]with bringing in enough grant money to cover your salary.
- [00:01:41.752]Yeah.
- [00:01:42.585]So that was one trend that I saw much more of this year
- [00:01:46.560]than I have in previous years at the assistant level.
- [00:01:49.851]Yeah.
- [00:01:50.684]'Cause sometimes I'll see that,
- [00:01:51.840]it used to be associate or full.
- [00:01:53.310]Yeah. Right.
- [00:01:54.568]And then the other thing that I was noticing were
- [00:02:00.218]built into the job description
- [00:02:03.293]was taking on some larger leadership positions
- [00:02:09.030]that were interesting.
- [00:02:09.870]Like you will be coordinator of the elementary program
- [00:02:12.930]as a first year. Yes.
- [00:02:14.490]Faculty member. Yeah.
- [00:02:16.140]I've seen a few of those too.
- [00:02:17.850]Which is not impossible,
- [00:02:20.910]but as a grad student. Yeah.
- [00:02:24.150]Thinking about going up for that position,
- [00:02:26.623]how do you talk about leadership
- [00:02:30.630]and ways that you've been able to develop leadership
- [00:02:33.420]and what it is and what are the components of it?
- [00:02:35.540]And so both you and I have been in
- [00:02:38.400]a variety of different leadership spaces,
- [00:02:41.250]we've both had some really positive successes.
- [00:02:46.586]Also, I can only speak for myself here,
- [00:02:49.290]but also have gone down in flames, you know,
- [00:02:54.404]and have also been like really frustrated,
- [00:02:58.200]but also energized by those leadership positions.
- [00:03:01.650]And so I thought
- [00:03:04.110]what a great topic to get Guys' perspectives on.
- [00:03:08.135](Guy laughing) Yes.
- [00:03:09.510]And I've seen those, and I've wondered about those,
- [00:03:12.780]especially at the assistant level.
- [00:03:14.400]And I think there are two ways to talk about it today,
- [00:03:17.790]one is how can you project back?
- [00:03:20.850]So if you are on the market right now
- [00:03:22.680]and you're applying for these jobs,
- [00:03:24.390]how do you articulate the experiences you've had?
- [00:03:27.060]But if you are a little bit earlier in your career,
- [00:03:29.580]this is the opportunity
- [00:03:31.200]at your career as a graduate student here,
- [00:03:33.227]this is your opportunity to start thinking about
- [00:03:36.450]what are small experiences that I can build
- [00:03:38.987]a coherent narrative if that is required in a job
- [00:03:42.810]that's emerging?
- [00:03:44.520]And I want to apply to, and it's mostly what I do,
- [00:03:47.640]but there's an element of leadership, I will need something,
- [00:03:51.120]what do I plan on?
- [00:03:52.020]What are the opportunities?
- [00:03:53.580]And the caveat here, I think is always,
- [00:03:56.460]as you are emerging into a profession,
- [00:03:58.800]is you don't want to focus only on leadership.
- [00:04:02.027]You need your domain expertise,
- [00:04:03.930]you need your experience in teaching.
- [00:04:06.810]So it's just one more thing,
- [00:04:08.670]and it cannot take over your life.
- [00:04:10.230]It has to be contained enough that you can show the ability
- [00:04:15.630]and you can show the potential
- [00:04:17.250]without spending an extra year in graduate school
- [00:04:21.330]just to be able to do that.
- [00:04:22.890]Right.
- [00:04:23.723]And I think that ties in with,
- [00:04:25.425]there's so much out there around leadership,
- [00:04:28.830]right, like coaching, coaching, quote unquote
- [00:04:33.840]feels like it's become this like weird industry.
- [00:04:37.108]And we also as a society just tend to
- [00:04:42.237]fetishize some anomalies in terms of leadership.
- [00:04:50.464]Yes, we do. You know, like Steve Jobs,
- [00:04:52.860]like not everyone is a Steve Jobs,
- [00:04:55.080]like that's a particular kind of leadership.
- [00:05:00.570]Yes.
- [00:05:01.500]And. Elon Musk,
- [00:05:02.970]that's a particular kind. Let's not go down that road.
- [00:05:06.090]Of leadership. Yes.
- [00:05:07.440]Well, but it is part of like the discussion of,
- [00:05:10.475]oh, how do we be a leader like Elon Musk?
- [00:05:12.900]I don't care.
- [00:05:13.733]No. I don't care.
- [00:05:15.395]One, I don't have the money to care.
- [00:05:17.400]Yeah.
- [00:05:18.233]And two, I don't think I'm that arrogant.
- [00:05:21.168]And I think you can be a leader and not be an asshole.
- [00:05:25.710]Right, right.
- [00:05:26.880]And so how do we sort through kind of,
- [00:05:30.210]I'm so glad you said that and it wasn't me.
- [00:05:34.172]At the heart of this is that idea
- [00:05:37.740]that to really get things done, you have to be that way.
- [00:05:40.777]And there's no evidence for that.
- [00:05:43.384]I mean, there is actually.
- [00:05:45.870]Hmm.
- [00:05:47.958]When you look at like actual leadership studies.
- [00:05:50.514]Yeah. And not like
- [00:05:52.140]the popular science around leadership,
- [00:05:54.300]which sometimes gets some stuff wrong, right?
- [00:05:56.730]Like there is this relationship,
- [00:05:59.444]it actually mirrors onto the teaching relationship research
- [00:06:02.460]really, really well,
- [00:06:03.630]where people are more responsive to kind of a,
- [00:06:11.903]what I think of as a benevolent tyrant, right, like.
- [00:06:16.530]Yes. I know what I'm doing,
- [00:06:18.450]I have a plan moving forward,
- [00:06:19.830]my job is to persuade you to come into this
- [00:06:23.160]and leverage your expertise
- [00:06:26.070]in order to work toward this goal, right?
- [00:06:30.000]And there's a bit of asshole of in that.
- [00:06:36.210]Oh,
- [00:06:37.114]I don't think it has to.
- [00:06:37.947]Right, I mean. I think that.
- [00:06:39.540]It can though.
- [00:06:40.624]That is a little bit sidelined from that.
- [00:06:45.604]You don't have, I mean, when I say asshole,
- [00:06:49.140]I mean, a belligerent, a reductive.
- [00:06:54.050]Oh yeah.
- [00:06:55.410]No, that's not. Those behaviors,
- [00:06:57.210]because when we talk about Musk and even Jobs, again,
- [00:07:00.010]talented people, not taking the talent away,
- [00:07:03.090]but as managers, they leave something to be desired.
- [00:07:05.610]If everybody is afraid when you walk into a room,
- [00:07:08.100]whether they're gonna have a job
- [00:07:09.450]at the end of a conversation, that is a problem.
- [00:07:12.270]And definitely when we are talking now,
- [00:07:14.220]let's take it to when you are starting in a profession,
- [00:07:16.980]whether you're graduate students
- [00:07:18.210]or a young emerging faculty member,
- [00:07:21.895]you don't have that kind of power.
- [00:07:24.240]When Jobs walked into the room
- [00:07:25.770]or when Elon Musk walks into the room, he owns the company
- [00:07:29.296]and. Right.
- [00:07:30.480]He gets to sign all the checks.
- [00:07:32.250]That's a very different position of power.
- [00:07:34.170]So you have to understand that
- [00:07:36.870]when you're walking into these
- [00:07:38.340]beginning leadership positions,
- [00:07:39.840]there are lots of people around you
- [00:07:41.790]and you do not possess ultimate power or almost any power.
- [00:07:45.270]Mm-hmm.
- [00:07:46.110]Well, and so that kind of helps us segue
- [00:07:49.200]into this first area of like,
- [00:07:51.630]okay, so you're in this position,
- [00:07:54.000]you have very little power,
- [00:07:55.650]how do you bring about any kind of change?
- [00:08:00.150]And thinking about that,
- [00:08:02.446]which reminds me, I need to check up on that manuscript
- [00:08:04.710]I rewrote about.
- [00:08:05.543]This exact topic. Mm-hmm.
- [00:08:07.538]I'll do that after this podcast.
- [00:08:09.240]But like communication feels like
- [00:08:14.141]it's key to that kind of work, right?
- [00:08:19.260]Like how do we engage in, talk around,
- [00:08:25.956]whether it's program or whatever kind of unit
- [00:08:30.441]and boundaries that you're in
- [00:08:33.060]for that particular leadership position,
- [00:08:36.345]you know, that's clear, honest, and kind,
- [00:08:42.518]which I would love to know, 'cause oftentimes,
- [00:08:47.595]particularly when I'm talking with undergraduates
- [00:08:50.040]about the difference between kind and nice.
- [00:08:52.920]Yeah. How would you separate
- [00:08:53.910]those two things?
- [00:08:55.740](Guy chuckles)
- [00:08:58.535]Nice is, I think the way I'm interpreting nice,
- [00:09:03.090]especially Nebraska nice which is a thing,
- [00:09:05.697]it's not just Nebraska,
- [00:09:07.620]but it's really about being conflict averse.
- [00:09:10.440]It's like, I am not,
- [00:09:12.780]or I do not want to tell you something
- [00:09:15.090]you don't want to hear,
- [00:09:16.170]or that I think might cause you to feel something
- [00:09:21.570]and potentially negative.
- [00:09:23.329]And so I will just not engage, I will talk around it.
- [00:09:28.050]and this is something that elementary teachers,
- [00:09:32.100]which we work with a lot,
- [00:09:33.540]do very often is communicate about the child
- [00:09:36.690]who's not doing well in school
- [00:09:38.670]and communicate in these ways that
- [00:09:43.257]are not clear necessarily to the people listening,
- [00:09:46.110]in this case, parents.
- [00:09:47.610]And I remember meeting parents who were immigrants
- [00:09:50.848]and saying, "You know, our kid is now in middle school,
- [00:09:54.360]and for the first time a teacher told us that he can't read.
- [00:09:57.960]Why has it taken until sixth grade in middle school
- [00:10:02.130]to hear that from a teacher?"
- [00:10:03.630]And all I'm thinking on the inside,
- [00:10:05.160]I know the conversation,
- [00:10:06.694]"Johnny is trying very hard.
- [00:10:08.880]He's doing his best."
- [00:10:10.530]But you never actually say that.
- [00:10:12.870]And is it kind?
- [00:10:13.860]No.
- [00:10:14.877]Is it nice?
- [00:10:15.874]It avoids the conflict.
- [00:10:16.707]It avoids saying something hard that people need to hear.
- [00:10:19.350]So the kind is, you need to hear this,
- [00:10:22.260]I need to do it in a way that's not judgmental,
- [00:10:24.900]that is not hurtful, but you need to hear this.
- [00:10:27.660]This is for me the separation.
- [00:10:29.244]Yeah.
- [00:10:30.330]And that's hard to do,
- [00:10:32.100]especially when we take it back to leadership,
- [00:10:34.890]because talking to parents, you as the teacher,
- [00:10:37.560]you have some authority and you have some knowledge
- [00:10:39.810]that the parents don't necessarily do.
- [00:10:42.394]But when you are a young faculty member
- [00:10:45.467]and you are a graduate student
- [00:10:47.190]and you're feeling your way around
- [00:10:49.230]and you have even less power.
- [00:10:51.660]So there's an instinct to avoid conflict,
- [00:10:54.552]and to avoid saying things because you're still judging
- [00:10:59.243]how things are being done.
- [00:11:01.794]So I think it is harder.
- [00:11:04.260]Yeah.
- [00:11:05.093]I mean, it's definitely, I mean, even four years in.
- [00:11:09.347]Yeah. It's tricky.
- [00:11:10.680]Like when are you thinking about,
- [00:11:13.813]I always like to think about outcome, right?
- [00:11:16.320]Like
- [00:11:18.877]if I'm being truthful, honest, and kind in this feedback,
- [00:11:26.730]is it gonna result in an action?
- [00:11:29.167]Yeah.
- [00:11:30.300]Or is it gonna result in inaction?
- [00:11:31.860]And if it's gonna result in inaction,
- [00:11:33.488]I'm not gonna spend that social capital
- [00:11:35.250]at that point in time.
- [00:11:36.540]Right, like, when I'm thinking about feedback,
- [00:11:40.603]and oftentimes communication is about like,
- [00:11:45.570]feedback of evaluating ideas, those kinds of things.
- [00:11:51.047]The quality of the feedback
- [00:11:53.838]is not as important as the person receiving the feedback,
- [00:11:58.800]their ability to take that up and make that actionable.
- [00:12:01.590]So like, if someone is being kind to me
- [00:12:06.360]and telling me things that I need to hear.
- [00:12:08.730]Yeah.
- [00:12:09.563]Like that's an act of bravery.
- [00:12:11.472]I need to take that up, it might be unsettling.
- [00:12:14.673]Yeah. Right.
- [00:12:16.020]But it's also like a,
- [00:12:18.180]holy crap, thank you for investing in me.
- [00:12:20.378]Yeah. Right.
- [00:12:22.026]And I think something that you said is really important
- [00:12:25.800]because we're talking about communication,
- [00:12:27.600]but communication,
- [00:12:28.470]starting with communicating with yourself and saying,
- [00:12:31.087]"What is the action that I would like to see?"
- [00:12:34.015]And it doesn't mean, or where are we leading this?
- [00:12:37.470]And I think that's really important to remember
- [00:12:39.600]because you can communicate about so many things,
- [00:12:43.410]and that's where it stops.
- [00:12:45.750]And we see that sometimes, especially in academic circles,
- [00:12:48.987]sometimes we have a lot of discussions
- [00:12:51.180]and then people leave the meeting and nothing happens.
- [00:12:54.090]And then we have that discuss,
- [00:12:55.260]we pick up that discussion a year later or a month later.
- [00:12:58.650]Three years later. Or three years later,
- [00:12:59.773]whatever it is, and still nothing has happened.
- [00:13:02.670]And you have to understand
- [00:13:04.890]from a leadership perspective what you're doing,
- [00:13:07.410]and there's really good empirical evidence about this,
- [00:13:10.770]if people feel that it's futile that you're coming,
- [00:13:13.110]you're discussing, and nothing happened,
- [00:13:15.030]they might play a part in that charade,
- [00:13:17.070]but they believe in your leadership
- [00:13:18.420]or in that our ability even to do anything
- [00:13:21.210]less and less over time.
- [00:13:22.650]So you just run out of,
- [00:13:24.594]there's a certain amount of currency that you have,
- [00:13:30.630]political currency that you have to make things happen.
- [00:13:33.030]And if for a period of time, you can't make anything happen,
- [00:13:36.720]people will stop believing,
- [00:13:38.580]and even if there's an action that they are interested in,
- [00:13:41.090]they will not believe that you can help them make it happen.
- [00:13:44.310]So they will disengage.
- [00:13:45.870]So it is about engaging, communicating,
- [00:13:47.910]but also first communicate with yourself, have a plan.
- [00:13:50.414]What do you want to accomplish?
- [00:13:52.083]And that's going back to other conversations
- [00:13:55.920]we've had about setting reasonable goals.
- [00:13:59.280]Yes, there are maybe 20 things that need to be done,
- [00:14:01.950]but what are the top two that you can actually accomplish
- [00:14:05.028]in a reasonable amount of time?
- [00:14:06.630]Let's focus, let's get them done,
- [00:14:08.250]and then we'll get to the other 18.
- [00:14:09.941]Right, like what's the timescale?
- [00:14:11.910]Like if you have a position like a coordinator,
- [00:14:14.756]I have three years. Yeah.
- [00:14:16.980]I have a big idea of what I wanna do in those three years
- [00:14:20.580]and trying to chop it up into doable projects.
- [00:14:26.080]Yeah.
- [00:14:26.913]And otherwise, yeah, you will lose faculty
- [00:14:29.280]and then you will have a situation, which we've had,
- [00:14:31.650]we have a large faculty in the elementary education,
- [00:14:34.710]and we've gotten to the point in the past
- [00:14:36.450]where three people showed up.
- [00:14:37.980]And that's, I mean, that says everybody's disengaged,
- [00:14:41.010]if they don't have to be there, they're not there
- [00:14:42.660]because they don't feel anything is gonna happen.
- [00:14:44.790]And that's not where you want to be.
- [00:14:46.230]Even if you are just a team player,
- [00:14:48.630]it doesn't feel like a team at that point.
- [00:14:50.580]Right.
- [00:14:51.413]And I feel like part of that is developing
- [00:14:55.393]kind of a set of active listening skills,
- [00:14:58.907]which is almost counterintuitive in academia
- [00:15:03.660]because we're trained to,
- [00:15:05.100]oh, I have this to say about this particular topic.
- [00:15:07.338]Yeah.
- [00:15:08.171]And my goal is to peer review your ideas
- [00:15:12.069]and impose what I know about the world onto those ideas.
- [00:15:16.200]Yeah.
- [00:15:17.033]And that's not what active listening is.
- [00:15:19.077]So it kind of runs counter to,
- [00:15:21.992]I like to think of active listening a bit like
- [00:15:25.415]you're building your literature review,
- [00:15:27.450]like you're figuring out and synthesizing
- [00:15:30.225]across all of these different sources,
- [00:15:33.685]what it is that are the big ideas within your group
- [00:15:38.640]and what people are wrestling with,
- [00:15:39.660]what the problems are or what they're trying to do?
- [00:15:43.590]And for me, it also goes back
- [00:15:45.930]to always remind yourself what the goal is.
- [00:15:50.640]What is the outcome we're looking for?
- [00:15:52.260]Because we can have discussions, somebody can say something
- [00:15:55.374]and you may have three problems with what they're saying.
- [00:15:59.246]And the question that I want to ask myself often
- [00:16:02.790]is, is this going to be,
- [00:16:04.980]are these comments really about the main thing
- [00:16:07.560]that we're trying to accomplish?
- [00:16:08.790]Or is this an academic discussion about the side issue
- [00:16:11.880]that really doesn't matter for our goals?
- [00:16:13.980]And once in a while, I catch myself saying,
- [00:16:16.408]oh my God, I know I gotten into this argument,
- [00:16:19.890]but that was really not the point here
- [00:16:22.107]and I just should have not said anything.
- [00:16:25.500]And so that's part of that.
- [00:16:29.760]But let's move forward and think about
- [00:16:32.533]as we are thinking about teams and thinking about
- [00:16:37.648]how do you play a part in the teams,
- [00:16:41.296]how do you think about the way you work in a team,
- [00:16:46.820]especially in academia?
- [00:16:50.190]So I mean,
- [00:16:52.539]I've been thinking about this a lot lately
- [00:16:55.110]as I move into. Yes.
- [00:16:56.460]Into roles like,
- [00:16:57.510]into roles and, you know, having failed at that role
- [00:17:02.859]to an extent previously.
- [00:17:05.220]Like I have a different framework for how to,
- [00:17:10.467]I'm not as naive this time, I think, right?
- [00:17:12.981]Yeah.
- [00:17:13.814]Like I've really been thinking about
- [00:17:18.474]better ways to secure investment from people.
- [00:17:25.770]Like very similar to what you were talking about before,
- [00:17:29.401]helping the members of that team
- [00:17:33.450]connect to a larger mission.
- [00:17:35.520]What are we trying to do broadly?
- [00:17:38.220]What's the vision that we're striving toward?
- [00:17:41.340]And then breaking down that vision into smaller projects
- [00:17:47.910]that are either immediately
- [00:17:52.020]or within a short amount of time, doable.
- [00:17:56.760]And helping people who are on that team
- [00:18:01.985]bring their diverse ideas
- [00:18:04.604]in order to create something that really works well for,
- [00:18:09.473]I mean, as coordinator, I'm thinking program wide,
- [00:18:12.360]right, like students,
- [00:18:14.160]our students don't experience this as individual classes,
- [00:18:16.950]they experience this as a program.
- [00:18:19.200]Yeah.
- [00:18:20.070]And so how are we pulling in
- [00:18:23.721]diverse ideas across our instructors?
- [00:18:27.420]And how am I helping individual instructors be heard?
- [00:18:31.075]But also how do those ideas help build
- [00:18:35.379]and accumulate knowledge across that program
- [00:18:39.240]for our students?
- [00:18:41.040]And so trying to give a variety of different options
- [00:18:47.820]for folks to be heard, for folks to participate.
- [00:18:51.510]So whether it's, oh, pre-meeting,
- [00:18:53.610]I'd love you for you to fill out this survey.
- [00:18:56.040]And I leverage that information to kind of structure
- [00:19:00.330]some of what we're doing within that meeting.
- [00:19:03.180]And thinking about how I can use those insights,
- [00:19:08.850]what's urgent to people?
- [00:19:10.106]What are they most excited about?
- [00:19:12.339]What can I build some action around
- [00:19:17.812]helps, I think, bring people in to that space.
- [00:19:22.271]And I think, this is hard sometimes in academic circles,
- [00:19:27.900]but thinking about people's incentives
- [00:19:30.165]and clarifying the incentives for,
- [00:19:33.570]and especially I think about as we engage graduate students,
- [00:19:37.050]one of the things, I talked to them,
- [00:19:38.550]why would you want to be on a committee, for example?
- [00:19:41.130]Well, you're getting the experience as faculty member.
- [00:19:44.100]So yes,
- [00:19:44.970]you're gonna spend a few hours a month reading some things
- [00:19:47.940]and getting ready for a meeting
- [00:19:49.170]and then spending time with faculty.
- [00:19:50.850]But you're learning a lot,
- [00:19:52.470]that's gonna serve you really well in the future.
- [00:19:54.420]So you've gotta find a way
- [00:19:56.100]to think about different constituents,
- [00:19:57.660]because in any of these meetings,
- [00:19:59.490]it's never just faculty, like tenure line faculty.
- [00:20:02.670]We have professors of practice or clinical professors,
- [00:20:06.810]we have staff, we have graduate students,
- [00:20:10.350]we have instructors and supervisors.
- [00:20:13.410]And so there's a variety of people
- [00:20:15.720]with very different incentives.
- [00:20:17.610]And you've gotta think about
- [00:20:19.418]what is going to make them want to stay
- [00:20:22.260]and engage with this problem.
- [00:20:24.090]You've gotta make sure they understand
- [00:20:25.920]why it matters to them.
- [00:20:26.970]Whether it's a big vision
- [00:20:28.530]or what are you gonna get accomplished in this semester?
- [00:20:31.745]There's gotta be enough clarity
- [00:20:33.810]that they will want to participate
- [00:20:35.250]because they seep at the point.
- [00:20:36.630]Or even like in a single meeting.
- [00:20:38.820]Yeah. Right.
- [00:20:39.725]In a single meeting. Yes.
- [00:20:41.073]We can draft a mission statement.
- [00:20:44.229]Like, and being able to, I think one of the things
- [00:20:49.200]when you're thinking about building and leading a team is
- [00:20:54.938]it's really easy to admire problems.
- [00:20:59.568]And we are really good at that.
- [00:21:01.920]And making them more complex than they need to be.
- [00:21:04.320]Yes, and that goes back to that quote,
- [00:21:07.290]complexity that lives rent free in my head
- [00:21:09.870]around being the refuge of the powerful.
- [00:21:13.800]Yeah. And a privilege of,
- [00:21:16.599]a marker of your status in the world.
- [00:21:19.610]Right, when you can say, "Oh, this is so complex."
- [00:21:21.829]Yes, let me tell you how complex it is.
- [00:21:24.360]Let me tell you how complex it is.
- [00:21:26.401]Yes, please tell me more. (Guy laughing)
- [00:21:29.040]Please, 'cause that's gonna help us solve that problem.
- [00:21:32.220]But like,
- [00:21:33.420]it's a different matter to actually solve that problem.
- [00:21:37.583]Mm-hmm. And to like,
- [00:21:39.706]I have really been challenged to think through
- [00:21:44.541]agendas as task items. Mm-hmm.
- [00:21:48.624]As action items. Mm-hmm.
- [00:21:50.910]And I feel like that helps build that buy-in.
- [00:21:57.585]If people leave a meeting
- [00:21:59.625]feeling like their time has been valued.
- [00:22:02.568]Yes.
- [00:22:03.862]And something has been accomplished.
- [00:22:05.760]And something has been accomplished and you talk about it.
- [00:22:08.100]Yeah.
- [00:22:08.933]Right, so like I've included at the end of every agenda,
- [00:22:12.000]what was the value of today?
- [00:22:13.290]Yeah.
- [00:22:14.123]I wanna know what was the value of today?
- [00:22:15.570]And if you didn't find any value,
- [00:22:16.890]that tells me that I need to be thinking something through
- [00:22:21.060]slightly differently, right.
- [00:22:23.310]If it's an anomaly, then
- [00:22:25.740]you might just have someone who never finds value in it.
- [00:22:27.990]But if the majority of people find value, then great.
- [00:22:31.523]So taking this to graduate students,
- [00:22:34.560]because we're talking a lot about our roles,
- [00:22:36.930]but we've been doing this for a while,
- [00:22:38.640]what can graduate students do?
- [00:22:41.031]And it is somewhat the same, but I want to really focus in
- [00:22:45.240]on what can graduate students do
- [00:22:47.490]to really effectively lead in the small ways
- [00:22:49.680]and their opportunities and motivate the team set, goals.
- [00:22:53.370]And we talked about that and?
- [00:22:56.363]Well, and I think one of the biggest skills that they can,
- [00:23:01.511]that grad students can hone is separating
- [00:23:07.280]that problem commemoration from problem solving.
- [00:23:10.470]Mm-hmm. Like
- [00:23:11.303]what does this actually look like in action?
- [00:23:14.730]What's the result of the discussion?
- [00:23:18.150]Like what's the change in the world that we want to make?
- [00:23:21.485]And then how do you plan for that?
- [00:23:24.510]And that might not be like
- [00:23:26.610]they themselves doing that planning,
- [00:23:30.390]but being involved in what are those action items, right?
- [00:23:34.980]Like how do we move from, "Okay, this is our problem.
- [00:23:40.932]Okay, how are we solving it?"
- [00:23:43.056]And I think that to one of your earlier points,
- [00:23:46.860]you can't build your entire CV
- [00:23:49.170]or your entire letter of application.
- [00:23:51.930]Yeah. Around leadership,
- [00:23:52.860]but you can say, "Look, in terms of my leadership",
- [00:23:55.950]if that's something that they're wanting
- [00:23:57.270]in that job posting, "I believe in actionable items,
- [00:24:00.810]I believe in really thinking through how to solve
- [00:24:04.560]a problem through a series of actionable steps."
- [00:24:07.463]And so even if, because as a grad student,
- [00:24:12.240]you may not have the opportunity to enact those steps,
- [00:24:15.240]but really thinking through
- [00:24:17.240]what would I do in this situation?
- [00:24:19.920]And being careful to like, leadership sucks.
- [00:24:23.714]Yeah, sometimes. You know, like,
- [00:24:26.828]it's not always,
- [00:24:30.665]I mean, we can both say that
- [00:24:32.310]because we've had a lot of therapy.
- [00:24:34.290](Guy laughing) Yes.
- [00:24:36.000]Right. Around that.
- [00:24:36.833]Yes.
- [00:24:37.666]So, but like, it's not easy.
- [00:24:41.910]Yeah, and many of us do not get into academic lives
- [00:24:46.751]to go into leadership.
- [00:24:49.140]Mm-hmm. We go into academic lives
- [00:24:50.730]because we love thinking about how kids learn.
- [00:24:53.610]We get into it
- [00:24:54.900]because we wanna make sure we create great teachers
- [00:24:59.640]that go out there and change the world.
- [00:25:01.770]We want to write about our experiences
- [00:25:04.320]and do some research and share it with the universe.
- [00:25:07.303]Mm-hmm. And so leadership
- [00:25:09.660]is an avenue
- [00:25:10.500]that many of us don't think about when we get into this,
- [00:25:13.620]I did not get into academic life to become a leader.
- [00:25:16.410]It happened along the way a few times,
- [00:25:18.630]but that was not my goal, so.
- [00:25:20.370]A few times. A few times.
- [00:25:22.140]But check out his CV.
- [00:25:23.460]It's ridiculous, he's lying right now.
- [00:25:25.890]Not so much. But okay.
- [00:25:27.630]But as a graduate student,
- [00:25:30.150]I wanna take it somewhere else for a second
- [00:25:32.490]because I wanna say that one of the things
- [00:25:34.890]you have to learn to do
- [00:25:36.300]is actually you have to learn to follow and watch.
- [00:25:39.094]I spent my first few years as a young faculty member,
- [00:25:43.290]just watching my leaders, watching their moves, good or bad,
- [00:25:47.130]watching how everybody else is reacting.
- [00:25:49.440]So I was almost an ethnographer in faculty meetings,
- [00:25:52.500]for example.
- [00:25:53.561]I was almost an ethnographer.
- [00:25:54.880]I was less interested in the content to a degree
- [00:25:58.597]because I was young,
- [00:26:00.030]I did not fully understand what was going on
- [00:26:02.310]or how we were in a period of transition.
- [00:26:04.710]And that's really,
- [00:26:05.980]it's really interesting to watch periods of transition
- [00:26:08.790]because there's people who have been there for a while
- [00:26:11.010]who are, some of them resisting change,
- [00:26:12.959]some of them championing change.
- [00:26:15.176]And you, I just walked in into that change.
- [00:26:18.570]So I'm like, "I don't know which side is up."
- [00:26:20.370]So I'm just sit here.
- [00:26:21.701]Switzerland.
- [00:26:22.982]Yes.
- [00:26:24.883]Sit here and watch.
- [00:26:27.150]So the ability to watch leaders and say,
- [00:26:29.617]"Here's the practice that I really like.
- [00:26:31.770]Here's something", I had for example, as a graduate student,
- [00:26:34.730]worked with Bob Calfee, and he was a new dean.
- [00:26:41.220]So it was new to him, he was associate dean at Stanford,
- [00:26:43.890]he came to UC Riverside.
- [00:26:45.750]And he was complete transparency
- [00:26:48.210]to the point where it was uncomfortable at times
- [00:26:50.490]because the transparency included
- [00:26:52.795]the health situation of his wife and all of these things.
- [00:26:56.010]Oh yeah. It was
- [00:26:57.180]somewhat uncomfortable.
- [00:26:58.140]It's not something that I would recommend.
- [00:26:59.940]But he had radical, radical transparency.
- [00:27:05.220]He shared everything.
- [00:27:06.240]There was an email at the end of every week to the faculty
- [00:27:10.950]and to the graduate students that worked with him
- [00:27:13.380]that laid everything out,
- [00:27:15.270]everything happening in the college,
- [00:27:16.913]everything that was making moves.
- [00:27:20.430]And again, as a new graduate student,
- [00:27:23.850]I was a master student at the point,
- [00:27:26.610]that was a little jarring.
- [00:27:28.020]I've never seen that kind of radical candor,
- [00:27:30.420]but it worked really well, he was fairly open.
- [00:27:33.984]It did not mean that everything went smoothly.
- [00:27:37.410]He actually had quite a few scuffle with faculty
- [00:27:41.700]who did not appreciate that candor,
- [00:27:43.140]but also did not appreciate other things.
- [00:27:45.210]So their response was not it,
- [00:27:47.400]radical candor does not necessarily make everything better,
- [00:27:50.100]but there's something about learning about transparency
- [00:27:52.320]and also what goes wrong
- [00:27:53.538]if you have faculty member that's mentoring you,
- [00:27:56.300]talking about these things
- [00:27:58.203]is probably going to be helpful.
- [00:28:00.660]To get their perspective,
- [00:28:01.740]it doesn't mean you have to adapt it
- [00:28:03.240]because they may have healthy or unhealthy observations,
- [00:28:06.141]but talking about it is really, really important
- [00:28:10.110]because you learn,
- [00:28:10.943]because you learn some things you don't necessarily know
- [00:28:13.320]from just observing.
- [00:28:14.610]So.
- [00:28:15.480]Yeah.
- [00:28:16.363]And I think that like finding mentorship
- [00:28:18.450]or being aware of what moves do you find,
- [00:28:23.400]what practices do you find particularly useful, right,
- [00:28:28.170]as you're looking across a wide variety of leadership
- [00:28:31.327]styles.
- [00:28:32.760]I mean, there's no one way to engage in leadership.
- [00:28:37.050]There's some really clear ways
- [00:28:39.240]to engage in leadership badly.
- [00:28:40.553]Yes, and yeah, and going back to that,
- [00:28:43.730]it really determines who you are because,
- [00:28:46.235]and not just from a power perspective,
- [00:28:49.620]but if you are from a minoritized community,
- [00:28:52.710]it is much harder for women,
- [00:28:54.090]and they have to act in different ways.
- [00:28:56.160]There's all of these complexities around who you are
- [00:28:59.370]that impacts the way you can project leadership
- [00:29:02.232]that you have to think about.
- [00:29:03.930]And you want to look for people that are making those moves,
- [00:29:07.800]because when I came, when I was, for example,
- [00:29:12.690]again, going back to my example with Bob Calfee,
- [00:29:15.242]he was a veteran of many years,
- [00:29:18.673]he has published large amounts, he had grants,
- [00:29:22.950]he had a lot of power, he was dean.
- [00:29:25.257]So he was able to project
- [00:29:27.090]and lead in ways that are very, very different
- [00:29:30.240]than you will as a new, as faculty members just hired,
- [00:29:34.547]and part of the description is,
- [00:29:36.540]and you've gotta lead this teacher education program.
- [00:29:39.690]Good luck.
- [00:29:40.523]Well, yeah, and the good luck part,
- [00:29:43.257]'cause chances are
- [00:29:45.030]if you take on these leadership positions.
- [00:29:46.537]Yeah.
- [00:29:47.739]What I find interesting
- [00:29:49.290]having been at several institutions
- [00:29:51.150]is they're all ahistorical.
- [00:29:54.450]Yes.
- [00:29:55.283]So like, it's like reset.
- [00:29:57.630]It's like Mario has died and this is the next life.
- [00:30:01.113](imitating Super Mario introduction song)
- [00:30:03.341](Guy laughing)
- [00:30:05.025]I was wondering which Mario you were talking about,
- [00:30:07.860]but now I understand.
- [00:30:09.544]And so it's like, okay, I have this game restart.
- [00:30:14.490]Yeah.
- [00:30:15.323]What is exactly happening, right?
- [00:30:17.253]Yes. So like.
- [00:30:18.810]So which is kind of both a blessing and a curse
- [00:30:22.294]in terms of like,
- [00:30:25.408]when we're thinking about like adaptation,
- [00:30:27.903]right, part of leadership is adapting to.
- [00:30:30.540]Yeah. Both the changing
- [00:30:32.649]roles of academic institutions
- [00:30:36.330]and then also thinking about the changing roles of,
- [00:30:39.510]for us in particular, teacher education.
- [00:30:42.148]We have pipeline issues,
- [00:30:44.190]we've got questions around enrollment,
- [00:30:48.983]and the old ways of doing stuff isn't going to work.
- [00:30:55.080]So how do we adapt moving forward?
- [00:30:59.895]How have you, as someone who's been in academia for.
- [00:31:04.740]A while. A little bit of time.
- [00:31:06.453]You young one you.
- [00:31:08.888]How have you kind of developed innovative mindsets
- [00:31:15.240]to support innovative work?
- [00:31:17.475]What does that mean to you?
- [00:31:19.590]Well, I always leverage the change around us
- [00:31:25.500]to help people think about,
- [00:31:27.630]because there is this instinct always,
- [00:31:30.720]especially of large institutions, to stay the way they are.
- [00:31:33.390]I mean, the simplest way to think about it is
- [00:31:38.400]how do we create next spring schedule?
- [00:31:41.910]We take the previous skin schedule
- [00:31:44.160]and just project it forward and then say,
- [00:31:45.817]"What do you want to change?"
- [00:31:47.160]And sometimes that's a really bad way
- [00:31:49.260]because you're just tinkering with the edges of change.
- [00:31:51.990]Instead of saying, "What has changed in the world?
- [00:31:55.260]How are we going to respond to it?
- [00:31:57.510]Or how are we going to be part of it?"
- [00:31:59.910]So I've always, I always like to change.
- [00:32:04.800]I always like to move
- [00:32:05.910]because I think that we are way too satisfied with the ways
- [00:32:10.101]higher education has been and teacher education has been.
- [00:32:14.250]And the world is radically different
- [00:32:17.160]than it was 20 something years ago when I came here,
- [00:32:19.980]and we've gone through at least two phases of change.
- [00:32:22.710]A major change, for example, in elementary education,
- [00:32:25.350]but even in the department and in the school.
- [00:32:27.870]And we need more of those.
- [00:32:29.910]We need to actually have somewhat continual change
- [00:32:32.520]because we are in conversation with the society we serve.
- [00:32:35.670]And if you're teaching,
- [00:32:36.990]I dunno, maybe if you're teaching philosophy,
- [00:32:41.142]you can change a little bit slower.
- [00:32:43.320]But we are working in the real world,
- [00:32:45.270]we are sending our students. In real time.
- [00:32:46.380]In real time.
- [00:32:48.060]As they are here, they're going to schools.
- [00:32:50.820]So if we are behind what schools are doing,
- [00:32:54.200]that is a problem for us.
- [00:32:56.310]We need to be a little bit ahead.
- [00:32:58.020]Yeah, we really need to.
- [00:32:59.117]Definitely with. We need to forecast.
- [00:33:00.453]Yes. Right, like.
- [00:33:01.477]And think about and explore and be ready to fail.
- [00:33:05.610]And this is really
- [00:33:06.960]where we are averse to failure on our personal leadership,
- [00:33:11.460]but we are also averse to leader when we make changes,
- [00:33:14.520]everybody succeeds through iteration,
- [00:33:16.200]not through trying to plan the ultimate perfect move.
- [00:33:19.800]There is no perfect move out there
- [00:33:21.660]for any academic plan.
- [00:33:24.187]Yeah, no.
- [00:33:25.341]I've recently come across a phrase that
- [00:33:27.748]you'll hear me use a lot. All right.
- [00:33:29.940]It's called get go.
- [00:33:32.414]Okay.
- [00:33:33.780]Get go. Get go.
- [00:33:34.980]Essentially it means good enough to go.
- [00:33:37.410]Oh, okay.
- [00:33:38.779]Like there is no perfect plan.
- [00:33:41.130]No. There
- [00:33:41.963]is no perfect initiative.
- [00:33:43.890]Perfection does not exist.
- [00:33:45.720]It's the satin line coffin of productivity.
- [00:33:48.720]Right, like this specter of perfection.
- [00:33:51.420]And it really does screw with our ideas about innovation.
- [00:33:55.947]Yes. Right.
- [00:33:57.283]And thinking about,
- [00:34:00.029]whenever I'm thinking about innovation in particular,
- [00:34:04.633]I always like to think through is it something that we value
- [00:34:09.711]or is it something that we live?
- [00:34:12.420]'Cause if it's something that we value, we admire it.
- [00:34:15.390]It's like the Mona Lisa and the Louvre,
- [00:34:17.193](Guy laughing) right,
- [00:34:18.026]like it's much smaller. Yes.
- [00:34:19.800]In real life. Yes, it is.
- [00:34:20.883]Than we think.
- [00:34:22.560]And you can admire something without actually doing it.
- [00:34:27.961]Yeah.
- [00:34:29.100]And so like, when I'm thinking about innovation,
- [00:34:32.646]I was like the negotiation of the ideal to the reality.
- [00:34:36.750]Like that's the fun part for me in anything and research
- [00:34:40.560]and whatever, cooking.
- [00:34:44.190]Yeah.
- [00:34:45.023]What do I have in my pantry and what do I want to eat
- [00:34:46.650]and how do I negotiate those two things to come to
- [00:34:49.352]a happy medium? Yeah.
- [00:34:51.575]So like innovation, I tend to think about,
- [00:34:55.114]it doesn't have to be a new computer system,
- [00:34:57.990]it doesn't have to be a battery run,
- [00:34:59.490]it doesn't have to be Tesla, right.
- [00:35:01.260]It has to be a way of thinking about existing resources
- [00:35:05.294]and remixing those existing resources
- [00:35:07.740]to create a different approach to a problem.
- [00:35:11.940]Mm-hmm.
- [00:35:13.140]And it needs to be, in my mind,
- [00:35:15.360]it needs to be radical enough,
- [00:35:17.366]and I use that word carefully,
- [00:35:19.530]that it actually makes a change.
- [00:35:21.780]And it's not something that looks like change,
- [00:35:24.750]but it's really, again, tinkering at the edges.
- [00:35:27.060]It's gotta be real change.
- [00:35:28.620]And I go back as I do sometimes to Steve Jobs,
- [00:35:33.240]despite what we said, not to learn from my style,
- [00:35:36.600]but being unafraid
- [00:35:39.445]as you are walking into the scratch moment,
- [00:35:42.840]we're starting from scratch,
- [00:35:44.160]not to build the same thing all over again to do something.
- [00:35:47.190]And sometimes you get resistance, people are saying,
- [00:35:49.387]"But we've had this program for a long time
- [00:35:51.630]and it has always worked
- [00:35:53.100]and we're gonna lose a few students."
- [00:35:54.971]Or whatever it is that's going to happen is an outcome,
- [00:35:59.100]and you have to say, this is a much better solution,
- [00:36:01.590]we have to build it and we have to try it.
- [00:36:03.750]And yes, there will be consequences to that.
- [00:36:07.170]We can't do everything all the time.
- [00:36:09.708]If we do something new, we need to do away with the old.
- [00:36:13.753]And I think a skill,
- [00:36:15.510]another skill like grad students can work through
- [00:36:17.610]as they're thinking about leadership
- [00:36:19.140]is so much of it's about persuasion.
- [00:36:20.970]Yes. So much of it
- [00:36:22.110]is about building up that case, appealing to emotions,
- [00:36:26.970]which academics kind of, that's not how we deal.
- [00:36:31.110]Like we have objective facts
- [00:36:33.120]and I am going to wow you with my literature review
- [00:36:35.490]and look at all my tables,
- [00:36:37.710]but ultimately at the end of the day, guy.
- [00:36:40.500]Yeah.
- [00:36:41.700]You're going to engage with me
- [00:36:43.530]in the revision of a program wide lesson plan template
- [00:36:46.950]in whatever form that is,
- [00:36:48.240]because you care about the fact that our teacher candidates
- [00:36:52.756]are best prepared to enact instruction in classrooms
- [00:36:56.670]after they leave us.
- [00:36:58.429]Yeah.
- [00:37:00.120]Am I persuading you.
- [00:37:01.145]A little bit?
- [00:37:02.370]I'm actually persuaded.
- [00:37:03.685]The lesson plan thing, (Nick laughing)
- [00:37:04.950]I'm a 100% with you.
- [00:37:07.181]Yes!
- [00:37:08.960]But that's part of that conversation
- [00:37:12.449]that I think has to happen over time.
- [00:37:15.138]And so before we move to kind of summarize
- [00:37:21.900]and. Before we wrap it up
- [00:37:23.760]in a big nice bow. Yeah.
- [00:37:25.246]Which is your job, by the way.
- [00:37:26.850]I've noticed. Oh, nice.
- [00:37:28.201]Yeah. Okay.
- [00:37:29.220]Just preempting this.
- [00:37:31.470]But, well, let's talk about simple opportunities
- [00:37:35.070]for graduate students to actually, we talked about observe,
- [00:37:39.056]but to actually act in these small roles of leadership.
- [00:37:43.440]What are some of the opportunities you think about?
- [00:37:45.780]Let me think about that.
- [00:37:47.040]So one of the most formative leadership
- [00:37:51.383]experiences I had as a grad student at Indiana
- [00:37:55.080]was within my coursework,
- [00:37:57.943]within the coursework that I taught, let me say that.
- [00:38:03.337]Yeah, that's better.
- [00:38:05.838]I was not given free reign.
- [00:38:07.857]Yeah. Of course.
- [00:38:09.116]And I worked in this weird but wonderful space
- [00:38:12.630]where I was shared,
- [00:38:14.844]my literacy course was shared by special ed,
- [00:38:18.181]but also regular L.ed majors.
- [00:38:21.332]And so I had two kind of departments to navigate,
- [00:38:28.530]I was very much like an Emily Fisher in that way.
- [00:38:31.410]And I was very clearly given like,
- [00:38:36.060]okay, this is what has to be here.
- [00:38:37.588]Yeah. But this is
- [00:38:38.910]where you can play. Mm-hmm.
- [00:38:40.714]And I was given that permission to play.
- [00:38:43.592]And the thing that was so brilliant about that
- [00:38:47.128]on their behalf was, okay, how are you playing
- [00:38:51.026]and what are you noticing
- [00:38:52.950]in terms of student learning in your coursework?
- [00:38:56.430]Because we've noticed there's some different things,
- [00:38:59.310]like students in your class do things differently
- [00:39:02.550]and think about things differently than these other classes.
- [00:39:07.071]How could you package that and share that?
- [00:39:10.500]Like are there things that you are doing
- [00:39:12.909]that we could implement in these other courses?
- [00:39:18.657]And that empowerment. Mm-hmm.
- [00:39:21.761]Like, one, there's the ability to like think through
- [00:39:25.260]what are the things that I have some control over.
- [00:39:27.750]Yeah.
- [00:39:28.583]And what are some things that I can be playing with
- [00:39:30.570]in terms of increasing my student outcomes,
- [00:39:34.200]et cetera, et cetera within coursework,
- [00:39:35.820]if you have that opportunity,
- [00:39:36.720]or if you are working on a research project,
- [00:39:38.910]what are some things that you yourself can.
- [00:39:41.490]Yeah. Take on
- [00:39:42.798]and think through with that leadership.
- [00:39:47.244]And if you are,
- [00:39:49.800]because I've now quite a few graduate students
- [00:39:52.500]who are working with me on different projects,
- [00:39:55.560]if you don't get an opportunity to lead anything,
- [00:39:58.967]try to find something that you would like to lead
- [00:40:01.740]and go to your faculty member, a principal investigator,
- [00:40:06.570]whatever it may be, and say,
- [00:40:07.957]"Hey, I'd like to have this experience.
- [00:40:10.289]Is there an opportunity for me to do?"
- [00:40:12.840]And here's a suggestion,
- [00:40:13.920]come with a suggestion of something you could do.
- [00:40:16.251]I've had a lot of graduate students, for example,
- [00:40:18.931]lead a research project,
- [00:40:20.490]an element of the research project and lead the analysis
- [00:40:27.120]and work with a team.
- [00:40:29.010]So it's not just you that is doing the analysis,
- [00:40:31.350]but there's a group of three or four,
- [00:40:32.640]but you are setting the tone.
- [00:40:34.110]That's a great opportunity.
- [00:40:35.700]And if you are working with teachers
- [00:40:39.060]and you're going out to schools, it's an opportunity.
- [00:40:41.250]Again, going back to that coaching thing,
- [00:40:43.329]there's an opportunity there,
- [00:40:45.646]there are opportunities with graduate students associations
- [00:40:49.975]and other student organizations, committees.
- [00:40:52.950]There are opportunities out there
- [00:40:54.840]to serve the people we work with,
- [00:40:57.330]but also to have an experience with leadership that,
- [00:41:00.954]again, will not take over your life.
- [00:41:03.060]And I've seen a lot of students do that.
- [00:41:05.100]If there's a student journal that works,
- [00:41:08.031]help organize, create, lead those,
- [00:41:13.307]our university has a student publication
- [00:41:18.960]that's a great opportunity.
- [00:41:20.100]Help run a conference. Yeah.
- [00:41:21.363]But also think through non-systemic ways to do that.
- [00:41:23.880]Right.
- [00:41:24.882]So like, let's say that you've identified a need
- [00:41:27.000]amongst your fellow grad students around,
- [00:41:28.920]oh, we wanna know more about this.
- [00:41:32.280]So like in grad school,
- [00:41:34.851]my friend Anne had a like reading club
- [00:41:38.880]that she started a round action research.
- [00:41:41.670]Yeah.
- [00:41:43.278]That we were then enacting in our coursework.
- [00:41:44.888]And that was a really powerful example of she saw a problem,
- [00:41:50.340]she took some leadership, she pulled us together,
- [00:41:53.400]that had nothing to do with our program.
- [00:41:55.200]Yeah, yeah.
- [00:41:56.033]But it's an opportunity.
- [00:41:56.866]It's an opportunity,
- [00:41:58.416]and it was something that she could then talk about.
- [00:41:59.880]Yeah. Later on.
- [00:42:00.713]So.
- [00:42:01.890]And that's what I wanna end with, I think,
- [00:42:04.359]and that is, doing all the work is great,
- [00:42:07.350]but you have to find a way to make it clear on your CV
- [00:42:10.650]and even more so in your letter,
- [00:42:12.510]because that's the place where you can flesh it out
- [00:42:14.610]and actually give it enough
- [00:42:16.860]that the people reading it on the other side will go,
- [00:42:19.237]"Oh, here are some leadership skills."
- [00:42:21.540]And you have to understand,
- [00:42:23.100]when we are looking at people applying for jobs,
- [00:42:25.770]we understand that if you just graduated from a program,
- [00:42:28.770]you had limited opportunities for leadership.
- [00:42:31.140]You were not dean, you were not department chair.
- [00:42:34.380]Right, but you didn't have a dearth
- [00:42:35.960]of opportunities to lead as well.
- [00:42:36.971]Yes, but we wanna see something.
- [00:42:38.910]And so that notion of like,
- [00:42:41.520]it doesn't have to be something structural,
- [00:42:43.830]it could be something that you, yourself created.
- [00:42:46.620]Mm-hmm.
- [00:42:47.453]But being able to point to specific instances
- [00:42:50.070]where you yourself have enacted practices
- [00:42:54.030]where you've engaged in clear, honest, kind conversation,
- [00:42:58.797]where you have built and led part of a team,
- [00:43:02.340]whether that's an official institutional team
- [00:43:05.670]or it's a group of your fellow grad students
- [00:43:08.070]and you are all reading a particular book
- [00:43:10.530]to make sense of something
- [00:43:11.363]that's not covered in your coursework.
- [00:43:13.270]Or, and you are able to think through about,
- [00:43:17.130]you're able to think about how you're adapting those skills
- [00:43:20.108]for a variety of different contexts.
- [00:43:23.430]Like that's what we're looking for.
- [00:43:25.260]Yeah. We're not looking for like,
- [00:43:27.820]leadership I tend to think about as kind of like a,
- [00:43:31.005]it's like air we breathe, right?
- [00:43:33.180]Like it's not the content, it's the stuff,
- [00:43:35.340]like it's kind of invisible,
- [00:43:37.050]but being able to point to particular practices
- [00:43:39.540]is going to be helpful.
- [00:43:40.831]And as institutions continue to respond to current climate,
- [00:43:46.839]both literally and figuratively.
- [00:43:49.435]I think we're gonna see more of this
- [00:43:53.070]kind of stuff popping up. Yeah.
- [00:43:54.990]In job ads.
- [00:43:56.130]So hopefully, hopefully.
- [00:43:59.760]This is it.
- [00:44:00.593]We've provided something of value as you know,
- [00:44:04.577]what to avoid.
- [00:44:06.442]And what to do. What to run into, you know.
- [00:44:10.080]So,
- [00:44:11.760]yeah.
- [00:44:12.780]Oh, also, we're out of practice, season two.
- [00:44:16.500]I'm Nick Esby,
- [00:44:17.556]associate professor of elementary literacy education
- [00:44:21.090]here at UNL.
- [00:44:22.386]And this has been Guy (indistinct),
- [00:44:25.380]full professor of everything.
- [00:44:27.527](Guy laughing) (upbeat ambient music)
- [00:44:29.910]Not quite everything, but quite a few things.
- [00:44:32.130]And we are both not that kind of doctor
- [00:44:34.530]and very out of practice.
- [00:44:36.240]We'll see you next time.
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