The Kardia Group

Choose opportunities based on their potential for satisfaction

• wherever you have an internal interest and investment in something that needs changing
• wherever you have evidence that change is possible and that the invested time and effort will result in action

Requirements for senior faculty leadership

• knowledge of the terrain
• an ability to take risks, step into tricky terrain, and “spend one’s reputation”
• the skills and security to weather administrative, collegial, and organizational resistance
• an ability to accurately diagnose and assess current challenges and resources
• strategic consideration of outcomes and choices that consistently reflect those priorities
• an awareness of your bottom lines regarding scholarship, health, and family priorities
• clarity about your own strengths and weaknesses
• an ability to o know what you think and believe regardless of popular or group opinion, to take a stand in the face of opposition, and to remain calm and clear, acting with civility, respect and courtesy, even in the face of emotional reactivity, disagreement, and high stakes discussions
• the willingness to understand the circumstances of others' experience, the skills to engage others in a shared endeavor, and the ability to identify commonalities between yourself and others, and among others in a group, in order to build and maintain group cohesion

Strategies of senior faculty leadership

• Initiate discussions that question prevailing assumptions about how things are ‘supposed to be’ in your department and discipline.
• Support the use of facts and data in discussions and decision-making processes.
• Seek out conversations with colleagues and students whose background and experience differ from your own.
• Challenge your own and other’s assumptions: what’s the worst that could happen?
• Be willing to publicly identify your own mistakes and contributions to shared problems.
• Develop cognitive complexity: “the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• Inject humor into discussion and debate.
• Convey confidence in your colleagues.
• Learn about the abilities, aspirations and ambitions of those you work with.
• Consider what survival strategies you used to get where you are today (e.g., being hard on yourself, not rocking the boat) and whether they are useful to your current goals.
• Give up some control, and encourage other senior colleagues to do the same.
• Confront (in yourself and others) behaviors that retain control: interrupting others, having the last word in meetings, rejecting new or unconventional ideas, etc.
• Empower those who have the best information.