Three Coaching Skills for Leaders and Mentors in Academic Medicine

Overview Many formal mentors and leaders in academic medical settings are asked to take on significant mentoring responsibilities in addition to their clinical work, teaching, research, and scholarship. To be a successful mentor requires you to create an empowering dynamic with your mentees and focus them on developing their careers and solving challenges. But those tasked with mentoring do not often receive any training on how to do so effectively. By incorporating coaching skills into your mentoring role, you can transform the relationship, create a safe environment for your mentees, and empower them to reflect and address their own barriers and obstacles. The best way to learn about coaching is to do it. In this workshop, you will use a guiding worksheet to practice three core coaching skills in pairs and have ample opportunities to ask questions and receive feedback. You will leave with a new mindset on mentoring and a powerful set of tools for: Asking powerful questions and listening actively Exploring a mentee’s barriers and obstacles Developing next steps and creating accountability Coaching has many applications in academic medicine in teaching and leadership. You will learn to recognize situations when coaching skills can be applied with powerful results.

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: Engaging in Dialogue About Race and Bias

Feelings of defensiveness and discomfort are common when engaging in conversations around race and bias. Even those who have done extensive reading on these emotionally-charged topics can find themselves fumbling if they haven’t yet reflected on how their own identities and biases impact the way they show up in the world—and in these difficult conversations. To get more comfortable engaging in these dialogues, we must first lean into the discomfort of individual reflection and actions that prepare us to enter them in an open and effective way. Join us for a two-hour virtual training where we will explore four key concepts and how they come into play during conversations around race and bias: You will be given a workbook of activities, tools, and resources to help you move beyond simply understanding the definitions of these key concepts and begin the hard work of making meaning of how they play out in your life and in any conversation you enter. With the aid of the workbook, you will leave with a plan to continue to strengthen your ability to effectively engage in conversations around race and bias.

Inclusive Communication: A Training for Higher Ed Leaders, Personal Development & Skill Building

Leaders have a powerful role to play in setting the tone for the organizational culture. They must therefore be very conscious of how they communicate: leadership comes with visibility, so a failure to communicate in ways that make others feel safe and understood will be noticed by their teams and peers alike, and will negatively impact the group’s sense of engagement and belonging.    Join us for an online workshop that will help you as a higher ed leader make your everyday communication with others more inclusive. Through a blend of presentation, group discussion, and scenario-based working time, we will explore the following questions:   Who is your audience and what are their needs? What is your role as a leader vis-à-vis the specific person or people you are addressing? How can you put your audience at ease and make them feel heard and seen in the way you are communicating? How can you communicate in ways that ensure that personhood and authenticity—for both yourself and those you are addressing—stay top of mind? You will leave the workshop better equipped to make your communication—both day-to-day and formal —more audience-centered, more inclusive, and more effective for the people you lead. 

Showing Vulnerability as a Leader

We’ve all heard as leaders that practicing vulnerability can enhance connection and enable trust-building with the people we most need to influence and engage. But the act of making yourself vulnerable—and knowing exactly when and how to do so—can be difficult and scary, and it’s easier said than done. Join us online for an interactive workshop that will help you practice vulnerability on a day-to-day basis, often in small and meaningful ways, as a leader. Through a mix of reflection, presentation, and group discussion, we’ll explore the following questions: WHAT: What is vulnerability and what is its role in leadership practice? WHEN: In what kinds of situations is vulnerability most beneficial and appropriate to share and when is it appropriate to set boundaries? HOW: What are some easy-to-implement practical strategies I can use to help me overcome my barriers with vulnerability? You will leave equipped with specific verbal and non-verbal strategies you can use to model and encourage vulnerability in your daily leadership practice.

Planning for a Successful Interim Leadership Role

s higher education faces immense change brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent impact on enrollment, budgets, and hiring, an increase in interim leadership positions is becoming the norm. How might taking on an interim leadership role impact your career? If you do decide to accept an interim position, how can you ensure your tenure is successful—for both the institution and for yourself? Join us for a two-hour virtual training where we will navigate these questions and provide you with a framework to use to plan for success during and after an interim opportunity. Through the lens of the framework, we will: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of taking on a specific interim opportunity—and how to determine if it is the right move in your career Provide you with a way to assess the institutional context and considerations of interim positions Learn key elements to consider—and things to know—before you say “yes” to taking on the role Lay out a clear plan to use once you are in the position to ensure success

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: Engaging in Dialogue About Race and Bias

Instructor Dr. Sandra MilesVice President, Student AffairsChief Diversity & Inclusion OfficerFlagler College Course Highlights 1hr, 42m of video instruction Downloadable resources Course Details Released 2/23/2021 Feelings of defensiveness and discomfort are common when engaging in conversations around race and bias. Even those who have done extensive reading on these emotionally-charged topics can find themselves fumbling if they haven’t yet reflected on how their own identities and biases impact the way they show up in the world—and in these difficult conversations. To get more comfortable engaging in these dialogues, we must first lean into the discomfort of individual reflection and actions that prepare us to enter them in an open and effective way. Join us for a two-hour virtual training where we will explore four key concepts and how they come into play during conversations around race and bias: Sources of Bias Intersectionality Triggers of Bias Unpacking Bias You will be given a workbook of activities, tools, and resources to help you move beyond simply understanding the definitions of these key concepts and begin the hard work of making meaning of how they play out in your life and in any conversation you enter. With the aid of the workbook, you […]

Conflict Management

Instructor Jeanne A.K. Hey, Ph.D.Dean EmeritaUniversity of New England Course Highlights 1 hr, 31 mins of video instruction Downloadable resources Course Details Released 3/23/2021 In this workshop, you will learn strategies to help you manage and resolve a variety of conflicts within your department and institution. You will be introduced to practical tools that can be used to address conflict in its earliest stages before it becomes a formal dispute. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to resolving conflicts. That’s why our expert instructor will present numerous scenarios and discuss the use of framing, facilitation, and other dispute resolution tools to help you: Improve and sustain a healthy working environment Build rapport among colleagues Increase faculty and staff morale We Want to Hear From You! Please take a few minutes to fill out a short survey letting us know about your experience with this course.

Building Academic Leadership Development Programs on Your Campus

Academic leaders are typically expert scholars in their fields but don’t learn core leadership skills when they move into their leadership positions. They rarely get formal training on ways to be simultaneously self-aware, emotionally intelligent, savvy about navigating systems and hierarchies, as well as effective at financial management, public speaking, crisis management, and conflict resolution. To support the health and climate of their departments and, in turn, institutions, academic leaders need to intentionally develop these crucial skills. Join us online with Jennie S. Knight, Ph.D., to hear how the University of Virginia has developed their successful Leadership in Academic Matters program (LAM) that draws on cross-campus collaborations and addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion. You will leave with solid ideas for how to approach your academic leadership programs that create an inclusive, equitable climate in which staff, faculty, and students can thrive.

Inclusive Leadership: Understand Your Intersecting Identities to Better Serve Others

In research, it is not uncommon to interrogate your own positionality in relation to who you are researching to avoid bias. As leaders, however, we’re often focused on the long-term strategy and health of the organization and ignore the important practice of understanding who we are in relation to who we lead. When you understand where your social and political position of power comes from and how it can influence your leadership in productive and counterproductive ways, you are able to align the values of different groups across the organization and operate as a truly inclusive leader. Join us online for a three-hour training where you’ll explore how your social identities–including age, gender, race, sexual orientation, and others–shape your position of power or privilege as an inclusive leader. You’ll begin by taking a quick assessment to help you understand your social identities and how they connect to your leadership. Then you’ll discuss the challenges and opportunities those power dynamics present in the workplace with your peers. We also invite you to come to this training prepared to discuss a specific leadership challenge you are facing. Explore with fellow attendees how your position of power and social identities might help you […]

Strategies for Successfully Supporting an Interim Leader

Change is the one constant in higher education. And now — in the face of a global pandemic, massive budget cuts, enrollment declines, and hiring freezes — change is more prevalent than ever before. As colleges and universities respond to unprecedented levels of uncertainty and top talent for leadership positions are in high demand across the country, the need to fill positions internally with interim leaders is on the rise. But conceiving of and properly supporting interim positions is not as straightforward as one might imagine. In order to truly set your incoming interim up for success, you must be intentional in how you craft the position, the staffing decisions you make around it, and the way the transition is planned.  Join us for a two-hour virtual training where we will explore how to effectively navigate interim leadership opportunities from an organizational perspective. Through a combination of lecture, discussion, and group activities, we will: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using interim positions as opposed to immediately opening a search or pursuing another avenue to fill a vacancy Learn key considerations to keep in mind and challenges to expect throughout an interim appointment Demonstrate how you can better ensure successful transition at the organizational level and for interim leaders