The Leadership Dynamic for Distance Education: Keys for Success

How well do you listen as a distance education manager? Distance learning managers and “techies” are passionate about their work; the problem is that faculty want them to listen to their concerns and understand the demands placed on most faculty in today’s university. Advocate, yes, but next time you visit a department, listen just a little bit more closely.

Distance education can not only empower academic units, it can empower student success and institutional success. Distance education leaders often underestimate the potential impact their leadership can have on the educational process and environment. Technology, in and of itself, is not distance education. People are distance education and people must be empowered and shown the possibilities. Who have you empowered recently on your campus? How did you do this?

Advocacy of anything must be managed. Distance education managers often forget that patience and small steps are essential components of the larger advocacy process. A related issue is what is it you are advocating for in the first place? If it is that technology will solve all the challenges of the academy, you may want to pause and reflect on this. Instructional technologies, first and foremost, should be sound instructional tools that make teaching and learning challenging, reflective and, yes, fun. Academic excellence and innovation must go together.

Decision making is essentially choosing from among alternatives, and often this is not an either-or proposition, but a synthesis of available alternatives. Which programs have the greatest success potential for distance delivery? What college has the most receptive faculty to using instructional technologies? Like any unit, distance education managers have to prioritize how they spend their time and energy. Moreover, many decisions must be viewed contextually: where does the institution stand on distance delivery? Are institutional resources available for a major programmatic initiative?

It is true that many faculties on campuses across the country have elevated their computer skills to email, period. As a distance education manager, you are not just an advocate, you are an educator, and faculty, staff, administrators, and students expect you to be able to articulate essential information about distance delivery, programs, student services, and the continuum of related distance learning services. Your familiarity and expertise are powerful tools, provided you do not assume everyone else knows and believes everything you do about distance education. For example, the research over the past 15 years clearly has shown equivalent academic achievement by campus and distance learners. However, faculty, legislators, provosts, and deans do not believe it; you have to educate them and show them the data.

Who are your partners, on campus and off? Do you explore ways to help them, not just ask them for their help? Building your campus linkages and partners is probably one of the most important responsibilities of effective distance educate managers. Remember that they have an agenda just like you, but theirs may be very different. You cannot spend too much time nurturing these relationships and collaborations if you wish to expand the distance education base on your campus.

You do not have infinite resources at your disposal. You have to develop a strategy for resource-sharing with your key partners on campus. You also need to share your expertise personally with faculty, administrators, students, and staff. Just because you are the organizational leader, do not delegate the need for you to be visible on campus to your subordinates.

You may be perplexed how honor relates to your leadership role. Actually, it is a quintessential responsibility of all distance education managers. First, you have to honor the academic process and respect the processes and procedures in place. To be sure, many of these may need to be changed, but approaching them from a critical-only standpoint will get you nowhere, particularly with faculty, governing bodies, and administration. Second, you have to honor those people around you: staff, students, faculty, and fellow managers across the campus. Honor is essentially showing respect to all those around you, embracing different viewpoints, and certainly embracing diversity of thinking, process, and innovation.

Distance education managers must personify personal integrity as well as professional integrity in promoting and supporting distance learning that enhances teaching and learning that reflects positively on the institution and its academic units. Do faculty trust you? Do faculty believe you understand their challenges? Have you earned their respect? There is no greater compliment to any professional than to have one’s peers say “he (or she) has integrity.” What does integrity mean to you, what are its attributes, and who are your role models on campus who personify personal and professional integrity? This human quality is also a major reflection on your organization by your peers.

Dwight David Eisenhower once said that “the plan is nothing, planning is everything.” General Eisenhower was referring to the adaptations to the main plan that had to take place on D-Day, June 6, 1944. His comment is not an exercise in semantics. Planning never stops and you as a distance education manager must engage your unit in planning—short-term and long-term on a continual basis. How does your plan fit with the academic colleges and the institution strategic plan? What are your contingencies? In other words, what if a major program initiative fails; where do you go next? What do you downsize if funding you were counting on does not happen? You should be thinking about these options in advance and how you and your organization will respond.

L = Listen

E = Empower

A = Advocate

D = Decide

E = Educate

R = Reciprocate

S = Share

H = Honor

I = Integrity

P = Plan