This course focuses on the strategies and interpersonal competencies required for effective academic leadership and management. Using relevant theories and models - applied to the academic context - the course explores the challenges of academic management/leadership, and the key skills required to meet these challenges. The central aim is to provide an opportunity for participants to extend their repertoire of skills and strategies, and strengthen their management/leadership practices.

Depending upon the interests of participants, topics may include: self-leadership and self-management; managing time and workload; emotional intelligence; understanding others; effective communication; managing performance; leadership, power and influence; negotiation and conflict resolution; dealing with ‘difficult’ people; leading groups and teams; successful collaborations; fostering an enabling culture; and leading and managing change.

On completion of this course students will:

• be able to describe theories underpinning leadership approaches, distinguish management from leadership, and appreciate the way in which the academic workplace affects leadership and management practice
• be aware of the range of tasks and skills required for an academic leader and manager
• have developed skills of self relection that will enable them to target their own skills for development
• have practised a number of leadership and management skills with feedback on those skills offered by the course convenors who are experienced and practising academic managers

Assessment will be based on a leadership portfolio, comprising:

• completed exercises from each week's course notes using course concepts to analyse and assess experience and practice;
• reflections on each week's readings and class discussions; 
• an interview-based analysis of the approach of an academic leader/manager; 
• action learning reviews analysing and assessing critical incidents in participants' current or past practice; 
• a critical examination of participants' past and current leadership/management practice, and of the ideas, assumptions, models, etc, implicit in that practice, including an assessment of participants' current competencies, and a plan for the further development of their competencies; and 
• other material which, in the view of the course participant, documents the way in which they have been:
• expanding their understanding of academic leadership and management; 
• critiquing their practice, and critiquing and clarifying the thinking behind their practice;
• developing ideas about ways of changing their thinking and practice; and 
• implementing changes in thinking and practice.
  

Assessment will be determined as satisfactory/unsatisfactory. The leadership portfolio can be resubmitted if necessary.

Contact: 10 sessions of 1.5 hour plus at least one 3-hour workshop. Weekly readings and assessment will take 4 - 8 hours per week outside class time

Paul Ramsden (1998), Learning to Lead in Higher Education, London and New York: Routledge.

Staff Development Scholarship Scheme

The Vice Chancellor is encouraging eligible staff to undertake the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education or the Master of Higher Education, by making this course (and the total program) available at no cost to eligible applicants through the Staff Development Scholarship Scheme (i.e. HECS-HELP/tuition fees are waived) http://www.anu.edu.au/sas/admission/sds/index.php