Higher education has long promoted its most accomplished faculty into leadership roles under the tacit assumption that brilliance in an academic discipline directly translates into competence at leading others. It is a seductive theory, and one of the most persistent and pernicious reasons why many academic leaders struggle.
In the Season 1 finale of Coaching in Higher Education, I sat down with Dr. Dorine Lawrence-Hughes, principal consultant and coach at Brazen Communication, to explore what happens when faculty transition into administrative leadership. Interestingly, what emerged was not primarily a conversation about leadership skills gaps, although those are real and require redress. At its core, it was a conversation about identity and what happens when the professional self-image and associated competencies that carried someone through a faculty career are no longer sufficient for the role they now hold.
This gap is exactly why faculty leadership development needs a fundamentally different approach.
The Identity Challenge Institutions Are Ignoring
Faculty members are, by design, highly individualized contributors. Teaching, research, and service reward self-direction, disciplinary expertise, and the independent intellectual authority that peer recognition affirms. The professional identity formed through that process is deep and durable.
However, when faculty are elevated to become a department chair, assistant dean, or associate dean, that identity often does not serve them well. And as Dorine noted in our conversation, higher education’s porous academic leadership structure makes this especially complicated.
For instance, a department chair may serve three years in that role and then return to the faculty ranks, while the people they lead eventually remain their colleagues in governance and collaborators in research. Many new faculty leaders are genuinely caught off guard when they are tasked with interacting with their peers as an administrator and, technically, their supervisor — something we often refer to as “going over to the dark side.”
Why Leadership Development Mustn’t Stop at Management
Granted, most institutional onboarding for new academic leaders – provided they even exist – do a decent job of covering the operational layer reasonably well: budget management, HR processes, faculty contracts. But this is management preparation and not leadership development. And the difference matters, as I have explained elsewhere.
Leadership is a true discipline that requires cultivating a personal philosophy, developing systems awareness, and building the relational capacity to move people toward something better than the status quo. These things do not transfer through a half-day workshop.
As Dorine reminded me, many faculty may also enter administrative roles as the “voluntold,” that is, nominated because the position needs filling and not because an intentional developmental pathway for this particular faculty member has led them there. The challenge for coaches who engage clients under these circumstances will be to help them build clarity about why not only their role but the people they now lead matter.
The Bench Question
Another major takeaway from my conversation with Dorine is what she calls the bench question: who is helping you? Or, in other words, who is truly there to support and root for you? The answer can reveal a great deal about the client, because faculty who cannot name anyone whom they trust to be on their bench are likely still operating from a contributor mindset, where relying on others feels more like a liability rather than a leadership asset.
I have found that building a genuine support network, such as writing groups, peer leadership cohorts, a trusted dean, or a coach, is frequently a foundational coaching goal before anything more visible can take hold.
As both Dorine and I advocate for layered coaching ecosystems over isolated interventions, the most effective faculty leadership development in higher education combines group professional development, peer coaching cohorts, and sustained one-on-one coaching across an extended arc — and not a single event that leaves participants feeling warm and fuzzy but ultimately uncertain about how to apply what they just heard.
The Coaching Opportunity
For executive coaches and organizational development advisors working in higher education, faculty-to-leader transitions are among the richest and most under-served areas of practice.
The clients who arrive at these engagements are high-achieving people who have not yet recognized that the competences behind their academic success need to be retooled and reoriented, not simply extended, to serve their new role. Supporting that reorientation — patiently, systemically, and with genuine investment in their development — is exactly where our work has its greatest impact.
If you are working with institutions on faculty leadership development and want to explore more integrated, sustainable approaches, please check out my professional coaching and advisory services. Together, we can devise developmental strategies well beyond the one-off workshop.
You can find this and all other Coaching in Higher Education podcast episodes on:
| 
| 
| 
|
Frequently Asked Questions About Faculty Leadership Development
Why does faculty leadership development need to go beyond skills training?
Most onboarding for new academic leaders focuses on things like budgets and HR, the basics of operations, but that’s management training, not leadership development.” Real leadership requires cultivating a personal philosophy and the relational capacity to move people forward, which a workshop alone can’t build.
What is the “identity challenge” in faculty leadership transitions?
Faculty develop a strong professional identity based on individual expertise and independent intellectual authority. When they move into administrative roles like department chair or dean, that same identity often doesn’t serve them well, especially since many return to the faculty ranks after their term ends.
What is the “bench question” and why does it matter for new leaders?
The bench question is who is really there to support and root for a leader. Many faculty members who are unable to name anyone on their bench still operate from the contributor mindset, with dependence on others as a liability, not a leadership strength.
What does “voluntold” mean in the context of faculty leadership?
It describes faculty who take on administrative roles because a position needs filling, not because of an intentional developmental pathway. Coaches working with these clients need to help them find clarity about why the role, and the people they now lead, matter.
What does effective faculty leadership development actually look like?
The most effective approach layers group professional development, peer coaching cohorts, and sustained one-on-one coaching over an extended period, rather than relying on a single workshop that leaves people uncertain how to apply what they learned.