Dealing with demands for change
With the U.S. presidential election ambling forward, I’ve been thinking a lot about leaders, and what it takes to be one. Since I’m in a leadership position myself, I’ve been reflecting a lot about why leadership is hard and what kinds of skills and personalities it takes to lead. Below are some personal thoughts about my own leadership position and one of the many factors that makes it hard: emotion.
When I was a child, I wasn’t much of an activist. I saw plenty of things that were wrong in my little worlds, and sometimes wanted to ask for change, but I had such a fear of authority, I rarely felt any agency to ask for it. But even more than that, I genuinely trusted authority to fix things. I figured that they already knew the problem, that they’d get to it eventually, and that I should just be patient.
Of course, as I entered adulthood, it became pretty clear that authority rarely knew what it was doing. It was just getting by, barely capable of maintaining things the way they were. Leaders were definitely aware of some problems, but it was just so much easier to explain away the problems than to make the change. I began to see authority as incompetent and paralyzed. I didn’t let myself become cynical, but I did learn to avoid depending on authority to fix problems for me. Instead, I found ways to navigate my way through fragile, flawed systems.
Now, after having been in a minor leadership position for 3 years (I oversee the popular Informatics major at the University of Washington), I see authority differently once again. I’m lucky to be surrounded by capable, passionate leaders, such as my Dean Anind Dey and UW President Ana Mari Cauce. I’m at an institution highly committed to change. I’m surrounded by students, staff, and faculty who want change. And I myself am committed, invested, and positioned to make change, at least within my little corner of the university.
But despite all of these prime conditions for change, change is still hard. I’ve written before about why change is hard, reflecting on the need for both capacity for change (e.g., time, desire) and opportunity for change (e.g., timing, positionality). But lately I’ve been pondering another necessary resource: the emotional capacity for leaders to enact change.
Emotion is on my mind because I’m currently drowning in demands for change. I have hundreds of undergraduates writing me about issues with instructors, concerns about grading policies, injustices in our admissions process, clarity about course planning, and needs for resources. I have an ambitious Dean who, like me, wants to drive growth in Informatics to improve access and invest in K-12 outreach to diversify who discovers Informatics. I have wonderful Ph.D. students who want improvements in our lab culture and procedures. I have teaching assistants who need clarity and guidance about their roles. And I have faculty colleagues, who understandably want changes to curriculum and policy to better support their interests, teaching, and work/life balance.
I’ve asked for these demands. In fact, I’ve worked hard to create an environment in which people feel safe to make them. Nearly all of the demands are reasonable. I’m positioned to make progress on all of them. I don’t really have the capacity to achieve of all them at once, but I can make progress on what I deem to be the most important ones.
But on some days, both the volume of demands for change, and the real suffering I see behind those demands for change, is emotionally exhausting. It’s not that it has to be; it’s entirely possible to be a coldly rational administrator that just focuses on execution. But ever since I was young, I’ve I’ve always been compulsively conscientious, and obsessive about organization. I feel every single one of those requests and I know that they are right. I see the struggles each structural barrier causes and I compulsively ponder it until I find a way to remove it. The result is that I take on a bit of each students’ pain myself.
I manage this burden by staying organized. I take in requests. I put them in a massive Trello board of problems and opportunities. I plan for changes. I project manage changes. I follow up, I verify, I delegate. I advocate to faculty colleagues and committees. There’s something about the very slow burn of managing academic change that keeps some of that emotional burden manageable, both because of its pace, and because there’s always a little bit of progress.
But I find that the same slow burn also leaves space for guilt. I know that the changes I make won’t come in time to help the students who are asking. They’ll be stuck here an extra quarter or an extra year and have to drop out because of an unjust policy I can’t fix. They’ll fail to get into our major not because they lack merit, but because I can’t find the resources to teach them. They’ll feel excluded because I can’t get a colleague to be a more inclusive teacher. They’ll feel lost because I can’t get our processes organized enough to meet their needs. The weight of all of this suffering sits upon me, and I know that it will never get lighter, no matter how fast I improve things, because there is always more to improve.
What’s worse is that I know this burden weighs down everyone that implements decisions as well. Our academic and career advisors see these same struggles, but more frequently and first-hand, and have even less power to fix it. Our faculty see this struggles after class and in office hours, and can’t see why we can’t fix things. Departments across campus, struggling with the shifting demands away from arts and humanities to our major, can only put one name and face to the devastating trend, and it’s mine.
When I do succeed in making change, it’s often a thankless experience. My colleagues rarely celebrate my wins, except for the ones who’ve been in similar roles, and understand the burden. The students often respond with “finally,” not “thank you.” Sometimes, I’ll get a thank you note in my mailbox from an anonymous student about me fixing a policy or resource problem. They’ll tell me how it changed their life, and thank me for fix it. I want to know their name, their story, and how their life is different. I want to know the stories of the other hundred students that didn’t think to write. Instead, I imagine them thanking me, which is sustaining enough.
Some of this would be easier if leadership positions weren’t so isolating, especially in academia. Most of my colleagues in my school can’t relate. Those in my same position overseeing other programs can, however, and we make the most of our limited time together. I find myself seeking out other leaders on campus in the same roles, seeing if they’re isolated too, and looking to connect. Our university president saw these gaps and started some workshops to support academic leaders like department chairs and deans. Even those brief opportunities to connect were hugely valuable. But they’re not enough to alleviate that burden.
Since most of you reading this probably aren’t in leadership positions, I imagine you thinking, sarcastically “Poor Amy, she has the burden of power. Toughen up and do something with it! At least you can.” But really, I think that’s just me saying that to myself. That’s what I need to hear from myself to keep myself moving forward. And it’s true: for a million different reasons, I’m the one who ended up in this position, responsible. If I don’t toughen up and do something, who will?
On the whole, leadership is worth it. It’s exhausting, and challenging, and mostly thankless, but I’d rather make change and be emotionally exhausted than be on the sidelines, advocating. That, and I’ve only been doing it for 3 years. Surely I’ll find a way to not exhaust myself emotionally, while still caring deeply about the students I serve. Meanwhile, I’ll give myself ample time in the evenings and weekends to be deeply selfish, restoring those emotional fuels for the next big day of service.
