key: cord-029228-hgnch1ug
authors: Gigliotti, Ralph A.
title: Looking beyond COVID‐19: Crisis Leadership Implications for Chairs
date: 2020-06-30
journal: nan
DOI: 10.1002/dch.30330
sha: 
doc_id: 29228
cord_uid: hgnch1ug

nan

Looking beyond COVID-19: Crisis Leadership Implications for Chairs R A L P H A . G I G L I O T T I T he coronavirus crisis has seized our individual and collective attention over the last few months. Crises of all kinds, and especially the current pandemic, are challenging moments for academic leaders. In my research on crisis leadership in higher education, I define crises to be "events or situations of significant magnitude that threaten reputations, impact the lives of those involved in the institution, disrupt the ways in which the organization functions, have a cascading influence on leadership responsibilities and obligations across units/divisions, and require an immediate response from leaders" (Gigliotti 2019, 49) . The impact of the pandemic on all sectors, including colleges and universities, has been extensive. In short order, college and university campuses announced the transition to virtual instruction, restrictions on employee and student international travel, and new policies for working from home.

The unprecedented activities of recent months, coupled with the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming academic year, further complicate the work of department chairs and other academic administrators across our institutions. For chairs, the challenges posed by the pandemic are plentiful and include concerns related to undergraduate and graduate student enrollment; course registration, delivery, and quality; changes in faculty tenure and promotion processes; the ability to reappoint nontenured and adjunct faculty; the financial health of the department; and the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of one's colleagues and students.

Effective leadership during times of crisis requires a dual focus on triaging immediate needs while also making strategic decisions that serve the long-term interests of one's unit, department, or institution. As we make sense of the short-and long-term effects of the pandemic, what follows are considerations for effectively navigating the present crisis while also looking ahead to collectively advance department strategic priorities.

The role of the department chair is challenging enough in normal circumstances. Crises add much complexity to the work of academic leadership, due in part to the increasingly high stakes, the varying and at times competing expectations from one's primary stakeholders, and the real and perceived loss of control and influence.

The literature on this subject tends to emphasize the importance of certain characteristics for effective crisis leadership, including agility, clarity, compassion, honesty, preparation, resilience, trust, and transparency. Furthermore, as I acknowledge in my writing on this topic, crisis leadership involves more than simply saying the right message(s) to the right audience(s) to uphold the reputation of one's department or institution. Take the time to carefully consider your personal, departmental, and institutional values, and use these values as an anchor to inform the decisions you make as chair.

Treating this moment as a laboratory for leadership development, consider your response to the coronavirus pandemic. Using the following questions as a guide, engage in active self-reflection to assess the leadership lessons that will help you to navigate these increasingly complex roles:

• What has the pandemic taught you about leadership more generally and leadership within the context of higher education?

• In what ways do you feel best prepared or least prepared for managing this crisis and future crises that might impact your department?

• How would you rate your effectiveness in each of the crisis leadership competencies noted previously, and would your colleagues and students provide a similar assessment?

• In what areas would you hope to develop to more effectively lead in this current crisis and in any future crises?

Opportunity, innovation, and reinvention can be found in the aftermath of crisis.

In their characterization of organizational renewal, Ulmer, Sellnow, and Seeger (2009) describe the fresh sense of purpose and direction an organization or system discovers after it emerges from a crisis. Based on our experience at the Rutgers Center for Organizational Leadership, what follows are several strategies for engineering and advancing renewal efforts within one's academic department.

Facilitate an effective postmortem. Provide colleagues with an opportunity to reflect on the department's handling of various dimensions of the crisis. Through the use of a pre-session survey, encourage faculty and staff colleagues to offer honest insights into the strengths and areas for improvement, identify the major themes to emerge from the data, and use these themes to organize a constructive and meaningful discussion on the topic. Ideally, the learning that comes from this session can inform future approaches to dealing with departmental and institutional crises.

Recalibrate, review, and reassess strategic priorities. Determining a path forward after a disruption of this kind seems daunting. Consider leading your department in a review of the unit's mission, vision, and values; the strategic priorities that existed in place prior to the crisis; and the ways in which the crisis might impact the strategic direction of the department. Establish measurable goals and action plans that are collaborative and sensitive to personal and professional obligations.

Assess dimensions of organizational excellence. Using an available external framework, such as the Baldrige Excellence Framework or the Excellence in Higher Education adaptation of the Baldrige framework (Ruben 2020), engage in a systematic review of the department's strengths and areas for improvement, and explore needed changes that may result from the coronavirus crisis.

Honor the emotions and experiences of department stakeholders. Faculty, staff, and students have been affected in different ways by the pandemic, and there will be a need for collective healing in the aftermath of the crisis. In addition to advancing a shared strategic direction for the department, chairs can help advance the healing process by recognizing faculty and staff colleagues for going above and beyond one's job duties during the crisis, acknowledging students for their patience and persistence throughout this unprecedented period, demonstrating gratitude for individuals and offices across the institution who played an important role in the department's response to the crisis and ability to continue with core operations, and honoring those with a direct or indirect connection to the department who perished from COVID-19.

Unlike past crises, the coronavirus pandemic is unique in its ability to so quickly and dramatically impact all colleges and universities. It is a deeply troubling and disorienting moment for higher education, yet there is also much for us to be proud of during this time. Higher education is not typically recognized for agility and speed, yet the immediate and what some have characterized as heroic response by our institutions is most impressive. (2019), it is in the darkness and chaos of crisis where values-based leadership becomes most critical, most visible, and most desired. This is a moment of reckoning for higher education. Looking ahead, we will undoubtedly see many changes across our institutions, and the crisis could provide a valuable opportunity to reimagine, reinvent, and renew our work in higher education, all the while remaining sensitive to the needs of students, faculty, and staff. ▲ 

T R E Y G U I N N C OVID-19 is top of mind, front and center, and continues to drive most conversations in the media, (virtual) workspace, and among family, friends, and communities across the globe. In addition to the actual health crisis and associated compromises to well-being, the upheaval to business as usual continues to be tremendous. Colleges and universities everywhere are not immune but instead play a central role in all this. Students being displaced and learning environments being in transition are part of the evidence suggesting that higher education is feeling a bit upside down.

While many of our colleagues are eager to return to normal, I pray that we don't. Let us not waste this crisis. A rubber band stretched is designed to return to its original form, but we can be different and do better. As we are being pulled and stretched in this season, may we "return" having learned valuable lessons and having grown into something better.

Institutions of higher education have much to learn from what's happening. Similarly, individual members, meaning you and me, all have growth areas that will be exposed and can be maximized for the future. While some people I love are battling the virus, most are not-we are battling the related challenges. Most leaders I speak to recognize that this crisis will reveal institutional shortcomings as well as expose leaders' strengths (and weaknesses). One of my favorite questions to ask my colleagues, clients, students, family, friends, and neighbors during this crisis is: "What are you learning about yourself during all this?" Just ponder for a moment. What are you learning about yourself during this time? And what are you learning as a chair? Wrestling with questions like these allows us to get beyond the mind-set of managing amid crisis and into the mind-set of leading through one. What would you like this crisis to reveal about you and your leadership?

In early March, when the coronavirus was starting to escalate in the United States, I talked with my core group about how to manage and lead during the upheaval that would surely come. I noted three key areas-managing department communication during crisis, leading and advancing our learning community during crisis, and modeling compassion for self and others during crisis. In this article, I will share just a bit about all three.

Crisis Leadership in Higher Education: Theory and Practice

Departmental and Institutional Renewal in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Applying the Excellence in Higher Education Framework

Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity