Nurturing Tomorrow’s Academic Leaders

• To stay ahead of rapid changes in higher education, business schools need systems that allow them to identify, develop, and retain strong academic leaders.
• The Wisconsin School of Business recently piloted its five-month Leadership Academy, where current and emerging leaders can enhance their self-awareness, courage, and decision-making skills.
• Because the academy’s model could benefit other institutions, its creators are working to expand the leadership development program to other campuses. 

In the fast-paced world of higher education, the need for effective, adaptable, and insightful academic leaders has never been more critical. As Cole Clark puts it in an article in Deloitte Insights, if higher education institutions are to stay competitive, they must prioritize talent management strategies that allow them to develop and retain great leaders in their own workforces. 

Luckily, current and aspiring leaders on every campus are seeking opportunities to develop their skills, align their values with their professional objectives, manage rapid change, and understand the complex dynamics of leading teams. To serve these individuals, the Wisconsin School of Business (WSB) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has created its Leadership Academy.

The WSB Leadership Academy provides development opportunities to faculty and staff and prepares them to advance to senior positions at the school. As they work through the academy’s curriculum, participants develop a shared language, common values, and a critical toolkit that they can use to foster a thriving campus culture. 

Tailored for Impact 

The Leadership Academy is structured around the proprietary Higher Education Leadership Model developed by the WSB Center of Professional & Executive Development. Its five-month curriculum combines the theoretical components of effective leadership with deep personal reflection and practical application of leadership principles. Its content is delivered across four sequential modules: 

Starting With Self—This foundational module encourages leaders to engage in introspective examination. Its content lays the groundwork for personal growth and leadership development in four core competencies: self-confidence, integrity/trust, self-knowledge, and self-development. 

Leading with Courage—This section expands on the first module to explore the key competencies of strong leaders: managing conflict, listening, exhibiting managerial courage, and understanding others. 

Leading Through Relationships—Underlying this module is the idea that leadership is not a solo journey. Rather, it involves delicately balancing four interpersonal skills: directing others, managing and measuring work, building strong work relationships, and supporting change. 

Leading With Purpose—This final segment brings the content of the first three modules together. Here, participants look more broadly at the quality of their decisions, the importance of perspective, the nature of problem-solving, and the process of planning and coordinating around organizational goals to drive meaningful change. 

What sets the Leadership Academy apart is its commitment to fostering a community of practice. Our goal is to create a cohort of learners with a shared experience and language. This extends learning beyond the confines of the Leadership Academy to encourage ongoing dialogue within the cohort, as well as continued reflection and growth.

Participants leave the academy with not only new insights and skills, but also a network of peers dedicated to mutual success and advancement within their business schools. In fact, many participants in the pilot of the academy brought back key learnings to their teams.

Enhanced Learning Experience 

Within these modules, the academy’s approach to leadership development consists of several components:

Hybrid learning. Each module features a three-hour asynchronous self-paced learning section, followed by a dynamic three-and-half-hour in-person synchronous workshop. Hybrid delivery offers the best of both worlds: It allows participants to learn at their own pace, while still giving them opportunities to apply and deepen their knowledge through interactive face-to-face sessions with their peers. 

The Leadership Academy fosters a community of practice and provides a cohort of learners with a shared experience and language.

Coaching session. Each participant receives a leadership coaching session based on the Human Synergistics Life Styles Inventory assessment. This 360-degree evaluation approach includes the learners’ self-rating of their thinking styles, personal effectiveness, and satisfaction at work and home, as well as up to 12 ratings of their behavioral styles and effectiveness provided by their managers, peers, and direct reports. Certified coaches use these peer ratings to determine a focus area of development for each participant. 

Follow-up microlearning. We reinforce the academy learning material with “Knowledge Sparks”—asynchronous microlearning lessons that are sent to participants by email following each in-person workshop. These concise follow-ups revisit key competencies covered in each lesson to ensure the longevity of learning. Each taking three to five minutes to complete, these small lessons can be viewed on a computer, tablet, or mobile device.

Overall, this approach is structured, yet flexible enough to meet each participant’s individual needs. It ensures that participants not only engage with the material in each module, but also continue to reflect on and apply their learnings in real-world contexts long after the program concludes.  

Positive Outcomes

We piloted the WSB Leadership Academy this year with 27 director-level academic leaders who were nominated for the program from across the business school. When we surveyed these participants upon program completion, we were pleased with the responses we received:

• 93 percent agreed that they felt more prepared to discuss their leadership purpose and values, and that they understood the core tenets of emotional intelligence and servant leadership.
• 96 percent agreed the Leadership Academy had helped them gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a “courageous leader” and how to embody these qualities in their own behaviors. 
• 99 percent reported that they had an enhanced awareness of how they can effectively utilize management styles to coach teams and lead through change. 
• 100 percent recognized the value of leveraging System 1 and System 2 thinking, described by the late Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, for making decisions, broadening perspectives, and solving problems.

One participant emailed us to share appreciation for the program, specifically citing its quality. We view such statistics and comments as signals that the academy’s curriculum is having the impact that we intended: creating a pipeline of capable leadership for our school.

The Path Forward 

As business schools continue to evolve, we predict that they will increasingly need leaders who are equipped with technical knowledge and who embody a leadership mindset tailored to academic environments. These leaders will need self-awareness and courage; they’ll need strong relationship-building, decision-making, and purpose-driven leadership skills. We believe programs such as the Leadership Academy can instill these characteristics and competencies in those ready to become the leaders of tomorrow.  

Business schools will increasingly need leaders who have strong relationship-building, decision-making, and purpose-driven leadership skills.

With the support of WSB’s dean, Vallabh Sambamurthy, the Center of Professional & Executive Development will continue to offer the Leadership Academy to senior-level leaders in the business school (including all deans), as well as to emerging leaders on campus who are in line to receive promotions over the next 12 to 24 months.

We think that the greater AACSB business school community also might find this model valuable, especially since developing leaders, attracting and retaining talent, and building cohesive cultures continue to be challenges to most higher education institutions. For this reason, the center is working to expand this program to other schools and colleges, both within and outside the university. 

By emphasizing introspection and application, programs such as the WSB Leadership Academy will help shape the future of leadership both in business schools and across higher education. If you or your business school is interested in running a pilot at your institution and would like to learn more, please reach out to us for more information.