In this short podcast [19:16 mins], I reflect on some of the themes from across the podcast discussions since Sept 2022 - themes around listening, leadership and stepping up to make a difference. I also conclude with a call to take some time now to reflect on and savour your 2022 and to think of your theme for 2023.

Full transcript: [Also downloadable as pdf]

00:05 Welcome to changing academic life. I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick. And this is a podcast series where academics and others share their stories, provide ideas and provoke discussions about what we can do it individually and collectively to change academic life for the better.

00:30 As 2022 draws to an end, I thought it would be useful just to step back and reflect on the different themes and the conversations we've heard in this series. So far. As I shared in the first short podcast in September 1, actually, this year, it's been a bit of a strange year, I think still trying to reconnect and get reestablished or to find new ways of being and working, and living and then in, in the ongoing situations that we're dealing with worldwide. So the podcast series only really started up again in September. And I think across the conversations that we've had, so far, there's some really interesting common themes around the power of good listening, the different ways of doing leadership and being leader, and how any of us can step up and be part of making a difference.

01:27 So we started off this series, listening to Oscar Trimboli, who's who's an expert on listening, and whose mission is to create 100 million deep listeners in the world. So he's not an academic, per se, but does draw on a lot of research based work to promote different ways of listening well. And just as a little sidebar, I was talking about this in a workshop, we're running around mentoring and mentioning about deep listening. And someone just had a little chuckle, because talking to a group of computer scientists, deep listening is DL, which is deep learning, you know, so that you can think of it as DL. But what I think Oscar really was good at just drawing attention to was the importance of just how we're present with people. And the importance of really listening deeply, so that we can also then ask great questions that aren't for our own understanding, but helping other people better understand and develop. And he also talked about or unpacked for us five different levels of listening. So different ways that we can really listen.

02:39 He also talked about us needing to communicate more in how we communicate. So for me, I think that thing of being really present with people and trying to listen well, and being more explicit in how we're communicating is a useful thing to pick up. And, and interestingly, that was something that Julie Kientz mentioned in her discussion as well about taking on a head of department role, where she talks about needing to be very explicit with people that she was working with, especially some of her students and that which hat she was wearing, or which hat they wanted her to wear an interaction. So I think that's a nice example of communicating how we communicate.

03:28 We also then, after Oscar heard from four different people, Julie Kientz, who stepped up and took on a head of department role, Darragh McCashin, who stepped up and was part of creating a COST network on how to promote better mental health amongst researchers. We had Stuart Reeves, who stepped up to become part of the University Senate as a way of trying to affect change in his local institution. And we had Aisling O'Kane who stepped up as a as an interim department head as well. And what I think is interesting about all of these people, you know, Aisling talks to talked about the fact that she wasn't, she always sort of associated these roles with the grey hairs, the lots of experience, and all of these people are relatively young, career wise. And yet all of them demonstrated that it is possible if we see something that needs to be done that we can step up and do it and we don't need to be senior.

04:44 So, you know, Darragh was talking about the, the stepping up and setting out sort of working with others on mental health initiatives as part of the cost network and touching upon issues of imposter. And for me the discussions of impostor wasn't just about the fact that it's dealing with impostor, which is perhaps a common experience that many of us share. But again, that that thread of the value of listening to each other, of sharing our own stories and hearing that we're not alone in dealing with these issues, and, and the power of that, and a lot of the interventions and events that they've held, we had Stuart who's talking about slow heart change working from the inside of institutions. And that the, you know, what must be frustrating at times, just because of how slow these institutions are to change. But if we want to see change, we've got to be part of it. And the way that he's learning to work within the bureaucratic structures of the University Senate to try to affect change, and to try to bring in the voices of other people that he works with. And so again, that theme of listening to what the other voices and concerns are, so that he could properly represent them.

06:17 And then Julie and Aisling, both taking on heads of department role, and dealing with the challenges of shifting from being appear to stepping into a different sort of role. And so there are a couple of interesting things, I think I heard across their discussions as well. And that is that there's no ideal way of doing leadership. You know, as we said, you don't have to be the grey experienced person, grey haired, experienced person. And what I liked about both of the ways that they navigated through their, their stepping into these roles was the way that they connected to what their own strengths were, and defining a modality of leadership that reflected who they were. So for Julie, that was really tapping into her strength around being a mentor and her love of mentoring, and how she could reinterpret that within a wider faculty context. And for Aisling, it was very much around how to bring forward those strengths that she brings into the research around engaging multiple voices and participatory design co design sort of processes, and how to bring similar participatory decision making to the faculty.

07:38 And it's interesting the both of them in different ways, talked about being reluctant sort of authority figures, and somehow having uneasy relationships to power because of the relative youth and having stepped from peer into leadership. And I think, both and in fact, all of them demonstrate really interesting examples of a way of exercising power that's around power with. And this goes back to some work of Mary Parker Follett, who studied organisations back in the 1940s, who first wrote about these notions of power over versus power with, and that's since been developed by lots of different authors to also include power to. So power over is often associated with the more grey had experienced, like it's the asymmetrical power relationships, it's very hierarchical command and control, the power to reflects that sense of the ability of the leader to have some influence. And this is an interesting concept. The power to because it can be it can play out in relation to power, I have the power to have power over. But it can also be, I have the power to help other people find their power.

09:03 And that points to more of the power with and that's how you that the ability of the leader to actively promote people to work together to act together and to empower them to be part of decision making. And I think all of them have talked about different ways of engaging with people that really illustrate specific examples of power with Julie talked about the importance of being open and communicative and doing it in a timely way. And, you know, and also recognising the power to because she also talked about in your recognising that when you're in a position of leadership, and you see something some situation or some that needs dealing with or some people come to you with some concerns you actually have power to do something about it. And Aisling similarly talked about, one of the motivations for her stepping into the department head role was seeing that there were changes that were needed because of the rapid recent growth of the department and the current challenges of the context that we're in. And recognising that there was something she could do about it and wanting to make a difference.

10:27 Now, we also saw different people talk about the different trade offs and costs of doing this. So there, I think it's worth pointing out that there are trade offs and costs in not doing anything, which is the status quo, or other people exercising power, taking things in directions that you may not want to see things go in. Some of the costs were around research time. And yeah, the amount of time to really sort of focus on that. They're also impacts on family life as well, in some ways. And again, they have different ways of navigating and negotiating this.

11:07 Some other themes that I think we've seen is around the permission, that to give ourselves not to be perfect, to learn, to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. As Julie said, The recognising that we're not always going to get it right, and asking for advice. And as Aisling so beautifully illustrated, also sort of recognising what could have been done differently or better, and acknowledging that. So I think there's lots of encouragement in the discussions that we've heard about, any one of us can step up and be part of making a difference.

11:53 And I think also recognising that it's always going to be in situations of change and challenges. That what we've seen in the last couple of years, maybe a little bit more exaggerated, if you like, and more shared global experience in terms of challenges. But if you even think back to Stuart's early days being on the picket line, there were challenges then that they were responding to. So I think that it's situation normal, that there always going to be challenges and complex issues to deal with.

12:33 The other thing that I think we've heard across all of the discussions as well, and whether is about the complex structures that we need to engage with, and that the anything that we're dealing with here is multi level. So Darragh talked about needing to have both top down and bottom up approaches, Stuart talked about the really complex management structures. Both Julie and Aisling talked about the way they had to engage, you know, top down and bottom up and across as well. And the ways in which, when and how those sorts of interactions were important for effecting change. And through all of that, again, was that thread of the importance of listening to people.

13:21 What I also heard across the discussions was the importance of support and connection and collegiality, whether it was connecting with other heads of department, whether it was connecting with other people within the group for support, you know, for and Darragh talking, for example, about the importance of connecting with other people in the lab and just sharing and peers and just sharing. We also heard as part of this, the importance of empathy. Both Julie and Aisling mentioned that in particular, when it comes to leadership.

13:56 So let's be encouraged by what they've said. About Darragh talking about the value in putting ourselves out there. The call from Julie to try out leadership and really, that being a way of being able to amplify the impact and having bigger impacts that can be better for all. The encouragement of Aisling to create better workplaces for all of them that she benefits from as well as everyone else. Of Stuart recognising the great power that there is through collective action. So how can you and I step up within our individual contexts? What are the opportunities right now where we can listen better? To understand the concerns and the issues? And where we can connect to our values and strengths, and work out how we can best make a contribution to having an impact in our local contexts?

15:04 And Julie's decision framework that she had that was more talking about her research, I think can also be useful here. So I and I would sort of riff off her decision framework as she talked about, will I have fun doing it? Will I learn something from it? Am I uniquely qualified to do it? And I'd sort of unpack that mi uniquely qualified to do it to think about what are the unique strengths that I can bring to this right now, you know, and then your unique passions. So I look forward to bringing more conversations in 2023.

15:46

And just to end on a slightly different note, can I encourage you just to take some time to reflect back on your 2022 on what you achieved, what you've enjoyed, what you've survived? And take a little bit of time just to pat yourself on the back as well. Because I think that one of the things that Darragh talked about was with the imposter, we often don't sit with our achievements very long. We're always looking for the next thing. Yes, we've accomplished this. And what's the next thing is we're immediately jumping to that because there's always something more.

16:29 So, in closing, I just like to encourage us all to take to gift ourselves, five minutes, 10 minutes just to sit and reflect on what we're proud of this year. And it could be achievements could be things like, you know, the usual publications or grants. But it could just be that we made it to the end of the year, that we're relatively saying that we're, that we're healthy enough. It could be valuing and being grateful for the social connections that we have for the supports we have. It could be the gratitude for reconnecting to that to what's important to us and getting better perspective, given all the challenges that we've had in the last couple of years. So taking some time just to stop and reflect and celebrate, and savour and I'll point to a previous related work that I did around just taking time to savour.

17:34 So may you enjoy your time at the in this in these dying minutes of 2022 to savour and reflect on what you have achieved. And looking forward to 2023. And towards this I'll also put a link in the on the web page to another related work podcast that was called my year of being bold. That actually talked about the value of deciding on some theme that's going to set you up for your new year to describe your new year in terms of some overall connection to your why. What do you want this year to be for you? So all the best. And thank you for listening with me for this year.

18:25 [Outro]

19:17 End

Related links& podcasts:

Mary Parker Follett - power over, power with

And a recent paper reviewing some of the literature on power over, to, with:

Pamela Pansardi & Marianna Bindi (2021) The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with, Journal of Political Power, 14:1, 51-71, DOI: 10.1080/2158379X.2021.1877001

RW9 Progress and praise [23:27 mins] - the discussion on savouring in particular starts at 18:46 mins.

RW1 My year of being bold [10:11 mins] - your theme for 2023?