Why Don't We Teach Faculty How to Lead?
A thoughtful comment on a recent post asked a simple question:
“Any thoughts on why we are reluctant to teach faculty what they would need to know?”
The question stopped me for a moment because it gets at something deeper than the topic of the original article.
In my previous post, I argued that faculty status alone does not necessarily prepare someone to lead. Being an excellent scholar, researcher, or teacher does not automatically translate into effective leadership. The skills required are different.
But perhaps the more important question is this: if we know leadership requires a different set of skills, why do we do so little to prepare faculty members for leadership roles?
Higher education has long relied on a fairly predictable career progression. Faculty members earn advanced degrees, develop expertise in their disciplines, conduct research, teach students, and contribute through service. Along the way, some are asked to become department chairs, program directors, associate deans, deans, or other academic leaders.
Yet very few faculty members receive formal preparation for the responsibilities they are about to assume.
Most doctoral programs do not teach budgeting. They do not teach personnel management, strategic planning, organizational communication, conflict resolution, performance management, hiring practices, or change leadership. These topics are rarely part of the curriculum, despite becoming central responsibilities for many academic leaders.
Instead, leadership preparation is often left to chance.
Part of the reason may be that universities have historically rewarded expertise above all else. Academic culture places tremendous value on disciplinary knowledge. The assumption, whether stated or unstated, is that those who have demonstrated excellence in their field will naturally emerge as capable leaders.
Sometimes that happens.
Often, however, leadership requires an entirely different set of competencies.
Knowing how to conduct groundbreaking research is not the same as managing a difficult personnel situation. Publishing influential scholarship is not the same as leading organizational change. Teaching a course effectively is not the same as building consensus among competing stakeholders.
The skill sets overlap in some areas, but they are far from identical.
Another reason leadership preparation receives limited attention is that higher education has traditionally relied on apprenticeship. Future leaders are expected to learn by serving on committees, participating in governance, and observing those already in leadership positions.
There is certainly value in experience and observation. Many important lessons are learned through service.
The challenge is that observation is inconsistent. Some faculty members work closely with strong leaders and gain valuable insight. Others observe ineffective leadership or have limited exposure to decision-making processes. As a result, leadership development becomes highly uneven and largely dependent on circumstance.
There may also be a cultural component at play.
Faculty members are trained to value independence, intellectual freedom, and shared governance. Those are important strengths of the academy. Yet leadership development can sometimes be viewed with skepticism, as though it belongs more to the corporate world than the academic one.
The result is that leadership preparation is often treated as optional rather than essential.
To be fair, many institutions do offer leadership development opportunities. Leadership academies, department chair workshops, mentoring programs, and executive education experiences exist across higher education.
These programs provide meaningful value, and many participants benefit greatly from them.
The challenge is that they often arrive late in the process. In many cases, faculty members are not offered leadership development until they have already accepted a leadership position. Others self-select into these programs after deciding they want to become leaders. Still others never participate at all because opportunities are limited, voluntary, or unavailable at their institution.
By contrast, we do not wait until someone is assigned to teach a course before introducing them to the fundamentals of teaching. We recognize preparation as part of professional development. Leadership is rarely treated with the same level of intentionality.
Another common argument is that leadership cannot be taught.
There is some truth to that. No workshop can fully prepare someone for every challenge they will face. Judgment, emotional intelligence, resilience, and interpersonal effectiveness are developed over time through experience.
But this argument creates a false choice.
The fact that leadership cannot be learned entirely in a classroom does not mean it cannot be developed. We would never argue that because teaching requires experience, faculty should receive no preparation in pedagogy. We would never argue that because research expertise develops over time, doctoral students should receive no research training.
Experience matters. Preparation matters too.
The strongest leaders typically benefit from both.
Others argue that not all faculty members aspire to leadership positions, making broad leadership development unnecessary.
That is also true.
Not every faculty member wants to become a chair, dean, or administrator. Nor should they.
However, institutions are generally quite good at identifying future research talent, teaching talent, and disciplinary expertise. There is no reason they cannot also identify faculty members with leadership potential and provide pathways for development before leadership opportunities arise.
The consequences of failing to do so become visible when faculty members move into administrative roles.
New department chairs may find themselves navigating complex personnel issues with little training. Program directors may suddenly become responsible for budgets they have never managed before. Deans may inherit organizational challenges that require sophisticated leadership and communication skills developed nowhere in their academic careers.
Many eventually succeed. Academic leaders are often intelligent, capable, and highly motivated individuals.
But too many are forced to learn through trial and error.
That approach carries costs.
Organizations lose momentum. Employees become frustrated. Leaders experience burnout. Time and energy are spent solving preventable problems that could have been addressed through preparation and development.
The solution is not to transform faculty members into corporate executives. Nor is it to suggest that every faculty member aspires to administrative leadership.
Rather, institutions should recognize leadership as a professional competency worthy of development.
Future academic leaders would benefit from structured learning opportunities focused on communication, conflict resolution, strategic planning, personnel supervision, resource management, decision-making, and organizational change. These skills do not replace disciplinary expertise. They complement it.
What makes this particularly puzzling is that universities routinely invest in research development, technology training, compliance education, accreditation preparation, and countless other professional development activities. We recognize that expertise requires continual growth.
Leadership should be no different.
The modern university is a complex organization. Leading within that environment requires knowledge and skills that extend beyond disciplinary expertise. If institutions want effective leaders, they should be intentional about developing them.
We would never expect a faculty member to teach without preparation in their discipline. Yet we routinely ask faculty to lead complex organizations with little preparation at all. Perhaps the real question is not whether faculty can become effective leaders. It’s why we continue to assume they should have to figure it out on their own.