HBR: A Survival Guide for Leaders

Heifetz and Linsky lay out several steps leaders can take to protect themselves from the vagaries of leadership. As is typical of these articles, they lay their idea out in several steps:

• Managing your environment
• Operate in and above the fray
• Court the uncommitted
• Cook the conflict
• Place the work where it belongs
• Manage yourself
• Anchor yourself

Again, while I thought the article had some interesting ideas, the authors seemed to over-simplify. There wasn't enough description of each of these steps--only on brief example that one is assured will look different in different contexts. Still, I suppose there is something to learn. 

I think it is important to note that being a leader can be dangerous. I've also noticed that in American culture, especially, it is a place of constant attack. Leaders are made to be criticized. Chinese people don't think like this. They still have some respect for the position, although they may be cynical enough in their own way. Is it any wonder we struggle to have good leaders? This article reminded me of your president who was asked to leave Baylor and our erstwhile president at FHSU. What would you say were the steps in this article that the Baylor president neglected? I think the FHSU president failed to court the uncommitted or to place work where it belonged. At some point, people who didn't warm to her vision were discarded from her calculations and she began to work around them. She really couldn't afford to do that, so maybe she also let the power go to her head and didn't manage herself well enough. 

I am working on some "change initiatives" right now. Another way to put that is that I am part of several committees here at Sias, and I am working within at least two of them to try to get administrators to address some long-standing problems here at Sias. They are the kind of working and living conditions faculty would never put up with in the State, but actually, compared to a lot of Chinese universities, Sias treats its foreign faculty pretty well. A lot of people struggle with the fact that they don't work in an American environment, though, especially when they work for an American university. While they talk about how these things would never be excused in America, though, I sometimes wonder if that is the reason American universities have such budget troubles: their faculty are just so entitled. 

It's quite the tug of war, and I wonder where to put my weight. I don't just want to advocate for the issues that I think are important. I want to be fairly representing issues that others care more about. An example is air filters. If the faculty were perfectly honest, they would admit that they can afford to buy their own air filters on the salaries that FHSU gives them. We don't have rent or very high living expenses and we are making American salaries (although not high by American standards). A good quality air filter for our apartment costs about $150. We can afford it, but we shouldn't have to pay for it, the argument goes... and then it just become this huge power struggle and I think, "Well administration can't be blamed for not taking our requests seriously when we just try to get and get and get." A lot of faculty just assume that the administration is withholding from them on principal so that the only wise course of action is to take them for all they are worth--so little trust! 

And lack of trust is what brought down our former president, I think. She stopped trusting people to be able to help her. She dismissed the things they cared about. She made arrangements to exclude them from her plans. I wonder why the authors of these articles don't talk more about trust.

Social Justice

On the other side of the issue, I wonder when social advocacy in the name of social justice just becomes a matter of greed: a matter of taking "the man" for all we can get whether we need it or not because we are entitled to our "fair share"? I get weary of that side of the social justice issue. It makes the Chinese system of knowing your place and working to create a harmonious society seem rather attractive. 

I realize that this blog entry is late. The reason that it is late is that I and the leader of STRC (Sias Teachers' Representative Committee) have undertaken to survey the faculty on living conditions in Peter Hall (our place of residence). I got so caught up with launching it yesterday that I forgot to work on this post. I'm sorry. Here, in case you are curious, are the questions that we are asking the teachers:

1. Do you have a hot water heater? (mostly yes so far)
2. If you do not have a hot water heater, approximately how many days have you had hot water in the last three weeks? (average: 7 days)
3. Approximately how often do you eat in the dining room during the week? (average: 2 times a day)
4. In the last three weeks, how often have you come down to a meal only to leave again because the dining hall had run out of certain dishes? (average: 1-2 times a week)
5. How often in the last three weeks have you taken food from the dining room that you do not intend to eat immediately? (about half admit to taking food on occasion)
6. Have you ever had mold related issues in your apartment? (more than half) If yes, have they been resolved? How long did it take housing staff to resolve mold issues? (mostly resolved)
7. Do you have unresolved repair issues? How long have you had these issues? (nothing major)
8. Do your air conditioners work? (about half do)
9. Does your hall water dispenser work? (about half)
10. Please briefly name any other issues that you are aware of in your apartment. (Most add something)

I wrote the questions quite quickly, and I expect it isn't the best research protocol ever, but I am very interested in what the tallies will be when we get in all the results. There are some issues that appear bigger than they are because the few people who have them are so vocal. This way, maybe we can get a more exact picture of what is going on. I will try to update.