Manager or Leader - Which one are you?

"What's that?" I look up from my newspaper to answer my wife - hiding behind hers.

"That's the title of this article by Kevin Stoddart," she says "Manager or Leader - which one are you? Do you think they are mutually exclusive?"

"Hmmmm. Not mutually exclusive I guess, but I have to say that I have rarely seen someone who is really great in both aspects," I reply.

When she was finished with her paper, I clipped the article and took some time to read and reflect on it. While stopping short of saying you can only be one or the other, Stoddart does seem to suggest that being a good manager can restrict or substantially limit the degree to which you can be a strong leader. He states "Effective managers may excel in managing administrative requirements, ensuring the team follows process, maintaining system and structure, and working toward stated goals, without ever embodying the characteristics of a true leader." Moreover, he quotes Warren Bennis (from his work on Becoming a Leader) who suggests "The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it."

It got me to thinking about my own path to management and my aspirations of being both a good manager and a good leader. I believe that my promotion to management has been largely because I have demonstrated leadership capabilities in the past (and Stoddart suggests this is often the case), but if charismatic leadership is to be stymied by the nature of a career in management, is this really what I want? Can I be the administrator who leaves behind the rebellious reform advocate to enforce the corporate standard?

My leadership over the past few years has been demonstrated in a desire to serve others within work groups - to effect change and to celebrate collective and collaborative success. While leading the design aspects of our program review and renewal processes, I have also assisted others who have been asked to implement the developing framework, ensuring they have supporting data, process documentation, advice and best practices to follow as they lead their own review teams in the activities of program review. I have chaired a number of committees where I focused on group cohesion and collaboration rather than on the output. I also stepped up to the role of union representative - the first that Central Office has had in several years - to ensure that my colleagues and I had an appropriate voice in the work of our union local.

I have also worked as a supervisory manager in the past - most prominently in my first years in formal employment when I was trained as an operations manager in the banking sector. Managing a range of teams - from a small branch in rural Newfoundland to a very large urban branch in St. John's - I recognize that standards and administrative detail were the most critical aspects of my performance appraisal as a manager. But is there anything in my past where I can find examples of doing both, and doing them well?

Outside of the College environment, I have demonstrated leadership in my community, serving on a number of volunteer municipal boards, and as a volunteer crew lead on several Habitat for Humanity builds. As Chair for my community's Recreation Board, I was the direct contact for Board direction and governance to the Recreation Manager and his team. While this role was not directly considered supervisory in a formal sense, it was as close to the concept of the leader/manager as any I can explore as part of my experience. This interesting concept of the volunteer leader is described by Max De Pree in his book, Leading Without Power. A copy of that book was given to me by a former manager of mine, who may have been trying to tell me something.

Why are these memories important to my reflection now? The differences between the banking environment and the non-profit environments in which I have led others are critical aspects that I can apply to my current context. Banking, by nature, is a very formal affair - with standards being essential to the oversight that is necessary when you are working with other people's money - and with mission statements that speak to building public trust through compliance. Its long, staid history is only eclipsed by the military in terms of the formality of bureaucratic authority. In contrast, both the community boards and the volunteer associations I have served tend to be dynamic, informal, developmental, with a flatter hierarchy and more focus on collective and collaborative effort than on the application of top-down discipline.

So where does the College, my department, and my role fit into that spectrum and will that help me achieve the dual goals of effective management and inspirational leadership? While the college has great public scrutiny (not unlike a bank) the mission and vision are very inspirational and focused on reform, change, development and innovation. Accordingly the focus of middle managers in this institution is less on enforcing compliance to standards as to helping others establish and implement academic standards and processes that support a dynamic institution. The mission (discussed in my last post) and the always evolving Academic Plan direct all employees to consider how to innovate to continuously improve program quality and (through education) the quality of life of our citizens.

Those who report to me, are all professionals and, as such, much closer to par with my own qualifications. In my employment interview, I stated that I didn't see much difference in what I was doing then (leading through service) and what I would be doing as a manager as far as my desire to support those colleagues was considered. Having said that, I also recognize that one of the guiding aspects of the evolution of this position, is a desire to remove the operational/administrative aspects from the Dean's role so that he could focus on academic leadership and setting vision and direction for the unit. Hopefully in assuming those aspects, I have not taken on the very role that would diminish my ability to lead through inspiration and example.

I find inspiration and comfort in this respect from De Pree's work - "Most successful organizations of the Information Age operate not as controlled collections of human resources, but as dynamic communities of free people. And in order to mobilize these communities, leaders must know how to lead without power, because free people follow willingly or not at all." The strategy I will have to apply to be effective in both will have to be about the judicious exercise of power and continuing definition as part of the collegial collective rather than being apart from or above it.

Environmental Scan Part II: the Dark Ages to the Enlightened Age

In my last post, I began an environmental scan, starting with NSCC as an institution; and in particular with the college's mission, vision and values as a lens through which I can evaluate best practices and to guide my own development and alignment with that mission. In this post, I would like to begin a scan of the department I work in - Academic Quality Assurance & Program Development - my contributions to its development and my new management role.

The Dark Ages - those of us who worked in this area of NSCC through the years just prior to the creation of the Academic Quality Assurance & Program Development division (AQA&PD), would understand what I mean by the dark ages. Overall leadership of Academic Services in general was less-than-stellar, but the area of curriculum management was particularly deficient. Alternating between periods of micromanagement and the wild, wild west, there was no consistency, alignment, or clarity of the departmental mission. Plenty of work was done - most of which was generally ignored by everyone, even those who sponsored major academic projects. Great ideas came...and went. Projects - when they didn't completely fail mid-course - resulted in recommendations, policies, processes and so on that were never acted on or implemented. Communications were non-existent and morale in the unit was accordingly dismal.

One abiding consistency was the understanding that curriculum consultants (who reported to School Deans) were responsible for maintaining the curriculum and bringing curriculum to an increasingly quality-driven level. For the most part, curriculum consultants and academic chairs ran the faculty working groups and that activity was focused on defining and capturing the curriculum - in particular the program and course outcomes. Meanwhile, Program Review and Renewal was generally ineffective and scarcely used, with the exception of those programs which had external review and accreditation. It was also considered a specialized function and so (for any major reviews outside of those accreditations) I was most often the one who conducted them.

The Enlightened Age - With the creation of a department of Academic Quality Assurance & Program Development in 2013, much of that experience has been erased and almost everything about the work of the curriculum consultant changed with the exception of the one constant noted above - that consultants are still responsible to facilitate the maintenance of curriculum and to elevate the quality of that documentation. Under the new structure, consultants are detached from direct reporting to Schools and are assigned to a Dean for the new department. Under his direction, Faculty Working Groups are given back to faculty; consultants become change champions and quality process specialists; the function of program review is distributed across all the consultants and this has resulted in the ability to get back to a rigorous and comprehensive calendar of reviews for all programs.

Of particular significance to this blog, the new Dean - recognizing the need to assign unit coordination to an operational manager - created the role for which I was successful in competition (Manager for Program Development). I believe that this is a significant opportunity for me to grow and contribute at a whole new level, and also for the department and the team to benefit from a structure in which the supporting and coordination functions I was providing previously (ad-hoc) now become a more significant part of my official role, while the Dean can spend more time and effort focusing on strategic and policy direction. Win-win!

In my next post, I will begin to go from looking backward to look inward - to my strengths and opportunities for growth - and outward to the expectations of the department and my team.I recently met with my mentor again and we are starting to move towards defining the possible outcomes of our mentorship. Future blog posts will present those outcomes in greater detail. Meanwhile, welcome to the age of enlightenment.

Environmental Scan

I'd like to treat this blog as a sort of ePortfolio journal - allowing a channel for reflection on this new role. As an institution, NSCC has some definite ideas about what portfolio learning is about, and the notion of the environmental scan is one important element. A suggested approach is to look backward, inward, outward, and then forward as an exploration of self and the development of a career or learning plan. I'll start my scan with a look at the development and status of the institution and the department within which I will be managing. 

NSCC is the second-youngest provincial public secondary institution in Canada - formed in the mid-nineties from the aggregation of a network of vocational training institutions across the province of Nova Scotia. The College's first president, Ray Ivany (1995-2005) - now president of Acadia University - recently addressed NSCC's College Leadership Forum providing a rich history lesson on the College's birth and formative years. He recounted that the objective in those first few years was simply to change public perception of adult vocational training from the "Trades School" to the modern Community College. He reinforced the critical connection that NSCC continues to hold with Industry and Community. He also reiterated the contention that he and the other members of last year's One Nova Scotia commission presented in their momentous report "Now or Never: An Urgent Call to Action for Nova Scotians" - that NSCC will be disproportionately called upon to contribute to the initiatives that will turn the Nova Scotia economy around. "This", he said, "is the very validation of the College's mission statement - Building Nova Scotia's economy and quality of life through education and innovation."

Fast forward twenty years from NSCCs initiation: the College is quickly growing up, and hitting maturity at a time when the Province desperately needs it's help to avoid an economic collapse (at least according to Mr. Ivany's commission report). NSCCs plan at the beginning of this century was to leapfrog the rest of the national post-secondary marketplace by adopting best practices of those more established colleges while avoiding all the attendant pitfalls they have experienced. The journey has not been quite that straightforward for NSCC and there are many who still don't get behind the idea of access programming on one hand and innovative applied research on the other. Ray Ivany suggests we stay that unique course and not waiver or give in to those who see "the university as the mature form of a college".

His speech reminded me of a conversation I had with him in 2005. I asked Ray if he thought that NSCC could fully adopt Terry O'Banion's concept of The Learning Centred College. He replied "Stephen, O'Banion doesn't it have it all right - no one has it all right - and even if he did, NSCC must use it's own vision, values, and mission as a lens through which it will interpret those best practices".

My first learning activity as a new manager in this department will be to print out the college's Mission, Vision and Values statements and post it up on my desk so that I can be reminded of what we are trying to achieve, to give context to my part in that mission, and to provide a lens through which I might interpret best practices in management.  

Next post, I will examine the history of the department of Academic Quality Assurance & Program Development, and reflect on my contributions to date in its evolution. 

In the beginning

Me? Manager Apprentice? Again? It's not that I haven't been a manager before - it's just that it has been a while since I was last a manager in a large institution like this. Some may think an apprenticeship nearing retirement (the golden years are just around the corner!) would seem to be a bit of an odd thing to do. But I have always believed that you CAN teach an old dog new tricks - and this old dog will always be a learner.

So the intent of this blog is to provide an opportunity to reflect on what's new, exciting, challenging about becoming a manager at this time (of my own life and the life of this institution), and in this place. I have a mentor - we'll call him Kevin -  an experienced manager who has also been in this institution a long time...longer than me, in fact. Although he was assigned to me, I could not have picked a better one because Kevin is one of those managers that many would choose to model themselves on as a leader, colleague, and educator. Add to this the fact he is a genuinely enjoyable person to be around and it's an ideal match for me*. We are going to meet regularly to track my development as a new manager and from those meetings and my experiences, this blog will capture some of my thoughts about this evolving role.

Writing - and blogging - is probably the only way I find to reflect and to organize my thoughts into a cohesive narrative. I'm prone to rambling, to jumping from one idea to another - but writing in a reflective manner like this forces me to organize, prioritize, categorize, and to try to tell a story that others can follow. So this is the beginning of the tale and in future blogs, I will develop that story, and through the next year will track my journey as Manager for Program Development. In the coming weeks, I will look at the evolution and current state of this institution and this department, the (somewhat evolving) role that I have been asked to take on, my strengths (and opportunities) as a manager, and the work I must undertake to become the best I can be in this role. It's a story I am delighted to be telling...


* Kevin was kind enough to arrange for my new office signage shown above - you should note that Kevin was formerly in this office (and holding this prestigious "title"), which is positioned directly across from the lunch room.