Influencing your Provost and other senior leaders is a key function of your role as academic dean.  It’s your responsibility to provide input and perspective on decisions that will shape your unit—as well as the entire institution. As leadership transitions become more commonplace in higher education, it becomes more difficult to know how to effectively influence “up.” Not only are you learning how to navigate newfound relationships, you’re also responding to emerging strategic plans and changing unit-level priorities. Some days, it may feel like everything is a moving target. In this environment, where everyone is experiencing a higher level of stress, and where attention is split in so many different directions, it can feel difficult to know how to develop trust and credibility with your senior leaders. 

Join us online and learn how you can better engage with, support, and influence senior leaders such as your Provost. Using the Five Paths to Leadership℠ as our framework, you’ll learn how to: 

• Recognize your senior leaders’ natural communication and engagement preferences. 

• Identify the natural tensions and synergies that exist in your relationship based on shared or differing perspectives on what makes for effective collaboration. 

• Customize your approach to communication and collaboration so that you can marry the unique gifts and talents that each of you contributes to your relationship.   

This workshop will give you an opportunity to reflect on an existing relationship you have with a senior leader, and we’ll then share tips and strategies you can apply to that relationship to nurture trust. We’ve also designed this training to include significant time for small-group breakouts, so that you can seek advice from your peers. 

Your Provost has chosen to invest in you as dean. Return the favor and attend this event so that you can invest in your relationship with them.