Positive Academic Leadership

In Positive Academic Leadership, Jeffrey Buller offers new insights and practical tools, as well as language and tactics, for fostering a more effective approach to leadership. With acumen and a dash of humor, he shows leaders how they can take the focus off the negative and change what they say, their perspectives, and their strategies. This more constructive leadership style plays to the strengths of leaders rather than to the weaknesses of their institutions. Offering time-tested and fresh ideas for becoming the type of leader who acts as a coach, counselor, and conductor for faculty, staff, and students, Buller demonstrates how positive leadership can become a day-to-day practice. With its down-to-earth style, the book draws on the most current research on positive leadership in neuroscience, psychology, management, organizational behavior, and other disciplines and translates their lessons into readable and accessible recommendations. It then makes these recommendations come to life by providing real-world examples that illustrate how to implement positive leadership strategies in all spheres of the leader’s activities and institution. Positive Academic Leadership is a wise guide for transforming any leader’s attitude about inevitable daily crises into manageable challenges that are based on a philosophy of accepting the environment and situation but working to make things better.

About the Author ix Introduction xi PART ONE Exploring Positive Academic Leadership 1 What Positive Leadership Means 3 2 Alternative Approaches to Academic Leadership 25 3 Applying the Positive Leadership Model to Higher Education 43 PART TWO Positive Approaches for Yourself 4 Positive Language 67 5 Positive Perspectives 83 6 Positive Strategies 101 PART THREE Positive Approaches for Faculty, Staff, and Students 7 The Academic Leader as Coach 123 8 The Academic Leader as Counselor 143 9 The Academic Leader as Conductor 161 PART FOUR Positive Approaches for Higher Education as a Whole 10 Positive Administration Throughout the Institution 183 11 The Crisis Industry and How Positive Leaders Should Respond to It 205 12 Playing to Our Strengths 227 Index 249