Be a real leader

Alison Cameron (left) and team with a Moonwalker.

Taking a postgraduate course in Higher Education Leadership and Management can demonstrate real commitment to your career, says Alison Cameron.

Cameron works in Macquarie University’s Institute of Higher Education Research and Development (IHERD). From March 2006, those who have worked for two years or more in a tertiary institution will be able to enhance their leadership and management skills through a Masters, Diploma or Certificate in the Australian Centre for Educational Studies.

“Administrative and academic management positions in universities are increasingly becoming careers in their own right,” says Cameron. “These courses are professional development for people with that career path in mind.”

What is leadership?

If management focuses on getting the job done, leadership is about communicating a vision, and inspiring people to work together to achieve goals, Cameron says.

“A lot of these skills can be learnt. We’ll give people the theoretical insights, but consistently ask them to apply these back to their own workplace situation. They will be looking to develop their capacities.”

Who are the courses for?

The students she expects to benefit from the course will come from both academic and administrative areas. They will be at a level where they’re starting to have leadership responsibilities. They might have to lead a couple of projects or have staff report to them. The kinds of questions the courses will ask are: How is your work unit structured? Is it effective? How does it relate to our theories of organisational structure? How can you exercise leadership in your work unit, the university, and the higher education sector?

The courses

There are both core and elective units. Students will work together in intimate groups on real life projects. These might involve the development needs of staff in particular areas. Staff in a university’s international office, for instance, might want to map how their international students are progressing.

One of the most popular leadership exercises used in earlier courses, that will be included in the new ones, involves joining together as a team to build a Moonwalker. Once it’s built, the team has to race it against a rival group. This is an exercise in team and leadership dynamics for groups to participate in, then analyse.

As well as taking on projects relevant to their current workplace, students will also be encouraged to pursue anything for which they have a real passion.

Some elective units planned for the future include Innovation and Change in Educational Organisations and Quality Management in Education.

For further information, contact Professor Stephen Marshall, Executive Director at the Centre for Professional Development at stephen.marshall@vc.mq.edu.au or Alison Cameron at alison.cameron@mq.edu.au The IHERD website is at www.aces.mq.edu.au/iherd_home.asp

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