Leadership for Academic Units: A Performance Improvement Model for Department Chairs, Deans, and Academic Vice Presidents (and those who aspire to be)

Introduction

The preceding chapters discussed a detailed and integrated approach to improving the performance of an academic unit. In Chapter 5 we presented a model to help us implement specific performance improvement ideas that could have come from virtually any source including strategic planning, SWOT analysis, and needs assessments. In subsequent chapters, we discussed how to define long-term results for an academic unit and how to translate these long-term results into yearly results. Achieving the yearly goals requires that the academic units be engaged in a continuous improvement cycle fueled by the lessons-learned exercises at the end of each year. This continuous improvement cycle will generate a stream of ideas that will need to be ...