MOVING UP

Managing From the Middle

Five rules to help you, as a midlevel administrator, lead people over whom you have no real authority

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By DONALD R. BOOMGAARDEN

Shortly after I became an assistant vice president for academic affairs, I found myself at a boisterous faculty reception held immediately before our fall convocation. I was chatting happily with my new friends and colleagues, enjoying the crisp fall air, the colors of the changing leaves on the quad, the fantastic display of faculty regalia, and generally feeling quite good about myself. It had been a long road here; I had worked my way up the ladder at several universities, enjoyed great success as a teacher and scholar in music, and now I was poised for my administrative career. I had a wonderful boss, a nice office, and a brand new BlackBerry. I had arrived.

Just as I turned toward the wine table, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. It was my new boss. He wore an oddly serious expression on his face, and I was immediately nervous.

"Don, it's time to line up the faculty."

"What?" I asked. Part of my duties included handling academic ceremonies, but this particular event was run primarily by the student-services office, so I had assumed it would manage all aspects of the ceremony.

"You have to line them up. Now!" he whispered impatiently, before turning to resume his conversation with the dean of the business school.

Suddenly I was no longer relaxed. I looked out at several hundred faculty members and realized that it was my duty to get them organized and ready to march in the convocation. I started to ask small groups of them to move toward the walkway and line up in pairs. I circulated around the vast body of chatty scholars, pointing toward the goal and gently interrupting conversations as best I could.

No one took any notice of me at all. This continued for a few minutes, and I grew more and more agitated. It was my first big public job, and I was failing miserably.

Just as I had begun to go into full-panic mode, I caught the eye of the assistant vice president for academic affairs and diversity. She'd been at the university for years and had already helped me with several other problems shortly after my arrival. I looked at her with desperation in my eyes.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I've got to line them up, but nobody's listening to me!" I said, trying to control the tremor in my voice.

With an abrupt movement she turned to the entire group, pulled herself up to her full height, and in a very loud and confident voice, shouted, "LINE UP!"

There was a sudden drop in the volume of the conversations, wine glasses were hesitantly deposited on the small serving tables, and the faculty moved slowly but inexorably toward the walkway. I looked at her with awe.

"HURRY UP AND GET IN LINE!" she shouted again, even more loudly. The faculty members moved as one, and in a few moments were standing meekly at attention, ready to march forward. I was astonished. She looked back at me knowingly. "They just need direction," she said, and flashed a bright smile.

I learned two important lessons that day. First, it's OK to shout at the entire faculty if you do it with a smile. And second, I had absolutely no idea what I'd gotten myself into.

I think of that story often, because it describes so well an essential truth of middle management. I have many responsibilities, some of them quite serious, but I do not have direct authority over many of the people on whom I depend to complete my work. To succeed I need to do more than simply tell others what needs to be done. I must persuade, cajole, speak to the higher mission, implore, and yes, even beg or shout to accomplish the aims of the university.

Once I had gotten over the shock of that realization, I discovered that those who had hired me for the position had seen something in me that I was not aware I had, something that does not appear on a CV or crop up in a phone interview. Nor can it be found listed in the requirements for administrative positions. Some might call it the ability to lead, others might call it the capacity to manage from the middle. My wife calls it something else. When I told her about my experience with the convocation, she told me not to worry: "Don, you'll be great at this. You are a natural-born used-car salesman."

"You mean 'pre-owned,'" I replied.

Five years have passed since that day, and I have found that the image of the used-car salesman speaks more powerfully to me now than ever. My authority rests primarily in my ability to convince others that it is in their own best interest to help me. I work with faculty members, administrators, staff members, students, and outside constituents regularly. They are extremely busy already and do not give up their time easily, but gaining their support is absolutely essential to my work.

The job demands frequent self-examination and a keen interest in maintaining good relationships with everyone at the institution. Sadly, those were not tendencies I possessed when I first started. I have had to develop them in the fiery furnace of day-to-day experience.

With that in mind, I would like to offer a few suggestions to anyone who has moved into administration or otherwise assumed the responsibility of being a leader in an academic field.

I say anyone because I later discovered that even my boss, the provost, often relied on the same techniques I will describe. He once told me, after a particularly long day when he had been forced to use the power of his office in a difficult personnel issue, that although he had great authority, using it was something he regarded as a last resort: "When your arguments fail and you have to simply tell people what they must do, then you have not won. You have lost."

Rule 1: Everyone you work with is important. I mean that seriously. The connections you form with others are critical to your success. How do you form those connections? Talk to everyone, find time to make friends, open yourself up to others, show them who you are, and listen carefully to what they have to say.

That somewhat grumpy person in human resources or facilities may well come to your rescue some day; don't forget it. When you have even the slightest opportunity to show kindness, perform a small favor, or just listen to a complaint with understanding, seize it. Faculty members, for example, live in a hectic environment and often receive precious little recognition for their hard work. Be someone who supports and enjoys their successes. Go the extra mile to ensure that you are connected to people across the campus.

Rule 2: Be on a mission. Every day you will have to make decisions about small and large matters. You may not always have all the facts you need. But what you should have with you at all times is a vision of what you hold most dear, and, ideally, how it links up with your institution's goals and plans.

Confronted by daily events that challenge your abilities and patience, you may find it easy to forget that there is a higher mission in what you do. Remembering that higher mission, and keeping it a part of your daily interactions with others, will give life and joy to your work. It will make coming in on those especially tough days much, much easier.

Rule 3: Stop, look, and listen. I know we all learned that in third grade, but a day in the life of a middle manager is not that different from trying to cross a busy street with a heavy backpack filled with books and a slightly squashed peanut-butter sandwich. Before reacting to a problem, stop and think about where it falls on the priority list. Is it a serious problem? A temporary flare-up that will take care of itself? Something you could postpone and return to later when passions have cooled?

We are all familiar with the occasional mass e-mail message from an administrator or a faculty member that spins out of control with every angry forwarded message. Don't join the bandwagon. Stop and look at what is really going on, speak to the participants, and listen carefully. Try to defuse the situation as best you can, without bothering those further up on the chain of command. Your bosses will thank you, and you will also gain the trust of those embroiled in a seemingly endless cycle of increasingly catty messages.

The added benefit of this rule is that it can help you avoid making false assumptions or working with bad information — two things that can destroy your credibility.

Rule 4: It's not about you. May I indulge in another story? Because I am also a performing church musician, I have often been a part of large events, and sometimes they are nerve-racking. One Christmas before the children's Mass, I was feeling especially concerned. I had a demanding musical program, a church crowded with hundreds of parents and children, and a choir loft filled with middle-school musicians who were more interested in text-messaging than performing. As I wearily started to ascend the stairs to the choir loft, a Jesuit who was saying Mass noticed my worried expression.

"Don," he said, "remember, it's not about you or me."

For some reason that wry comment from an old, experienced priest made the rest of the day easy. I'd completely forgotten that the children and parents were there for Christmas, not for my music program. I remember that story every time I lead the faculty into the arena for commencement or give an address in a room crammed with parents and prospective students. We are a part of something much larger, and that simple truth can help to put what we do in perspective.

Rule 5: Be courageous. Cynics would say that courage is a quality you don't find often among middle managers, but I think it's essential. It is easy to become anxious and afraid, particularly since we do not have control over all aspects of a situation. We often must lead others over whom we actually have no real authority and who are skeptical about the worth of the ultimate task at hand. Sometimes the obstacles seem insurmountable.

But timidity, fear, and anxiety undermine what little authority we do have. When those moments arrive (and sometimes they arrive regularly), middle managers must realize that others are looking to us to be the calm in the storm. We have the courage within us, but we must remind ourselves in times of stress that it is there, waiting to be used if only we would summon it. Forget you have it, and you are lost.