Self-Awareness as Your Superpower: A Certificate Program for Department Chairs (July Cohort)

This event has ended.

Self-Awareness as Your Superpower: A Certificate Program for Department Chairs (July Cohort)

This event has ended.


Did You Know? Growing in self-awareness is one of the best ways you can strengthen your relationships with others.

Overview

Self-awareness lies at the heart of effective leadership. A self-aware department chair understands why they lead the way they do because they study their own attitudes, behaviors, and motives. However, the most effective department chairs also practice “other-awareness,” which means that they study the impact of their attitudes, behaviors, and motives on others. And this can be your superpower, because it increases your effectiveness in developing meaningful relationships with your stakeholders, including your dean, faculty, staff, and students. 

Join us for a four-week certificate program designed to help you build your self-awareness superpower.  Throughout this course, you’ll explore:   

  • What self-awareness is, and why it’s important to spend time evaluating and understanding your leadership style. 
  • What your leadership style looks like in both normal and stressful situations, and how you can adapt your style to meet the needs of different people and circumstances.  
  • The inherent balancing acts of being a department chair and leader in higher ed—and how you can choose how you “show up” in your own leadership. 

As a final activity, you will create a personalized definition of leadership—something that communicates who you are as a leader—and you’ll discuss with your peers how you can apply it to a current leadership challenge you’re facing now.   

Who should attend?

We welcome any and all current and aspiring department chairs and program directors to participate in this course. If you’re looking to gain confidence in your ability to be an authentic and effective leader, this program is for you!

Agenda

Week 1 – Develop Your Leadership Superpower: A Focus on Self-Awareness 
Starting: July 8, 2024  
Format: On-demand videos and self-guided activities / Approximate Time Commitment: 2 hours 
You’ll begin the course by exploring four common archetypes of self-awareness, and you’ll use this framework to reflect on how you approach your own self-awareness, as well as the ways you can deepen your practice of self-awareness.

 


 

Week 2 – Understand Your Leadership Style: The Five Paths to LeadershipSM Assessment
Starting: July 15, 2024 | Live Session: July 18, 2024 (1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET) 
Format: On-demand videos, self-guided activities, and live discussion / Approximate Time Commitment: 4 hours 
To deepen your understanding of your strengths and gaps, you’ll complete the Five Paths to Leadership℠ Assessment. This tool examines five forms of intelligence, including intellectual, emotional, intuitive, action, and reflective—as well as how you can achieve greater balance among those five forms. Its purpose is to help you understand how your natural leadership style shows up in both normal and stressful situations, as well as how you can adapt your leadership approach to different situations and people as needed, thus enhancing your leadership effectiveness. Through videos and live discussion, you’ll discover how your results can guide your work as department chair.

 


 

Week 3 – Embrace Your Leadership: The Balancing Acts of Academic Leadership
Starting: July 22, 2024  
Format: On-demand videos and self-guided activities / Approximate Time Commitment: 2 hours 
Leadership requires the constant evaluation of a series of trade-offs. For instance, you may ask yourself questions like, “Do I lead as a faculty member or as a department head?” “Do I focus on the immediate or the long-term?” “Am I a colleague or a supervisor?” How you choose your position is largely dependent on your natural leadership style and how well you understand the impact of your leadership on others. You’ll also be introduced to the “balancing act” or “seesaw” as a framing device that will help you to navigate these inherent trade-offs.

 


 

Week 4 – Define and Refine Your Leadership Style: Revisiting Self-Awareness 
Starting: July 29, 2024 | Live Session: August 1, 2024 (1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET) 
Format: On-demand videos, self-guided activities, and live discussion / Approximate Time Commitment: 3-4 hours 
Here, you’ll bring together everything you’ve learned and create a personal definition of leadership that reflects your understanding of your leadership and how it impacts others. Through discussion with your peers, you’ll also identify ways you can apply that definition to a current leadership challenge to help you determine the best way to move forward.

See Full Program Details

Learn more about the program, how it works and who it was designed for.