Leading as a Department Chair
Upcoming Cohorts
June 8 – August 28, 2026
August 31 – December 4, 2026
Lead with clarity, confidence, and intention in one of higher education’s most complex leadership roles.
Overview
Department Chairs hold a unique and pivotal position in any academic institution, sitting at the intersection of faculty and administration. They are not just managers; they’re expected to be academic leaders who can navigate a complex and ever-changing higher ed landscape. However, many Chairs step into this role without formal leadership training, leaving them unprepared for the challenges of balancing competing interests, managing resources, and navigating the tension between being faculty and being a leader.
This self-directed program provides Chairs with a way to focus on your role as a leader. Whether you are new to your role, aspiring or tapped to become a Chair, or you’ve been a Chair for many years, this program will help you develop a deeper sense of who you are as a leader, deliver and receive feedback in a professional way, manage conflict effectively, delegate with the intention to build leadership capacity of faculty and staff in your department and create intentionally designed meetings to improve the quality of the overall experience.
Who Will Benefit
New and seasoned Chairs, program directors, and anyone leading an academic department will benefit most from this program. Additionally, those seeking a Chair role will find this helpful.
How it Works
This program takes place over the course of 3 months and involves asynchronous components. By registering for a cohort, you’ll gain access to
- Five self-paced courses to build your expertise in areas like delegation, feedback, and conflict.
- Prompts sent to your email and reflection activities to help you develop your leadership skills.
Asynchronous Courses
This program includes registration for five asynchronous courses.
Self-Awareness for Department Chairs
This course invites Chairs to pause and reflect on how their values, habits, and leadership patterns shape their departments. Through real-world examples and the Five Paths to Leadership® framework, you’ll explore your strengths, awareness gaps, and stress responses and how these influence relationships, decision-making, and culture. The course emphasizes self-awareness as a leadership superpower, equipping you to lead with greater clarity, adaptability, and intention. You’ll leave with practical tools and reflective practices you can immediately apply in your day-to-day leadership.
A Feedback Model that Fuels Leadership for Department Chairs
As a Department Chair, you play a pivotal role in shaping a culture of growth, accountability, and trust within your units—but delivering meaningful feedback can be challenging, especially when navigating complex peer relationships and institutional expectations. This course equips you with practical strategies to give and receive feedback confidently and effectively, moving beyond traditional annual evaluations to create ongoing, development-focused conversations. You’ll learn how to approach feedback with clarity, empathy, and professionalism, ensuring that it strengthens relationships rather than creating tension.
Leading Through Conflict: A Department Chair’s Guide
This course helps Department Chairs to understand why conflict is a normal and unavoidable part of academic leadership—especially given the tensions of leading peers, balancing faculty and administrative expectations, and working within resource constraints. The course walks you through the major types of conflict you are likely to encounter, including task, relationship, values-based, process, and status conflicts, so that you can respond with greater clarity and confidence. It also reframes conflict as a valuable source of information, teaching you to look beneath surface positions to uncover the interests and needs driving difficult situations. Through practical frameworks and reflection, you’ll build skills in diagnosing conflict by examining factors such as self-awareness, trust, communication style, and collaboration tendencies.
The Power of Delegation as Department Chair
This course invites Department Chairs to use delegation as a strategic leadership tool to empower your team, manage your own workload more effectively, and create more sustainable leadership practices. By entrusting others with meaningful responsibilities, you can focus on advancing departmental goals, reducing burnout, and modeling trust in your faculty and staff. Ultimately, this approach strengthens the department and institution by fostering a culture of growth, innovation, and leadership development.
Designing Effective Meetings: Your Guide as a Department Chair
This course equips Department Chairs with practical tools to transform meetings from routine obligations into purposeful, productive experiences. You’ll learn to design intentional agendas, build psychological safety, and use facilitation strategies that ensure all voices are heard. The course also introduces decision-making models and the Five Paths to Leadership® framework to help you adapt your approach to different team dynamics. You’ll leave with a reflective practice for continuously improving how they lead meetings that move their departments forward.
Over the course of the program, we’ll invite you to complete the courses you want, and we’ll provide some guidance and additional activities to accompany your learning. Once your program has ended, you’ll retain access to the courses to return to for a refresher.
Hurry! The Next Cohort Starts June 8, 2026.
Create a Cohort Experience with Your Department Chairs
Looking to provide a more structured and impactful leadership experience for your Department Chairs? With your Academic Impressions membership, you can create a cohort-based learning journey that goes beyond individual development to foster meaningful connection and collaboration. Through our signature course for Department Chairs, participants don’t just learn—they learn together. This shared experience helps to build a strong peer network, addressing the isolation that often comes with the role while creating space for ongoing support and idea exchange. Your membership also includes facilitated guides for in-person sessions, allowing your institution to extend online learning into real-time application. These sessions are designed to deepen engagement, encourage reflection, and translate insights into action. In addition, Department Chairs gain access to our online newsletter and Sophia, their online AI coach, who is available 24/7 to help them navigate challenges, make decisions, and lead with confidence. Ready to elevate leadership across your school or institution? Contact us to learn more about building a cohort experience tailored to your Department Chairs.
Make Your Learning Stick
Being a Department Chair can feel lonely and isolating, and coaching can help to address that challenge. Coaches hold the space for you to be vulnerable, explore where you’ve been successful and where you’ve missed the mark, and grow as a leader. Pairing this program with coaching is the best way to apply what you’ve learned immediately! Reach out to us to learn more or to be referred to our Coaching team here.
Choose from 2 Options:
June 8 – August 28, 2026
August 31 – December 4, 2026
Questions About the Program?
Academic Impressions partners with colleges and universities to collaboratively create training for Department Chairs and academic leaders at all levels. These trainings allow you to build your own cohort and adjust our resources to your institution’s unique needs. They can be delivered on your campus by our experts or by your team. Contact us to learn more!
Rabia Khan Harvey, M.Ed., MSHR
Senior Learning & Development Manager, Academic Impressions
Learn More about Rabia Khan Harvey, M.Ed., MSHR