The Management Development Resources form part of the Advance HE membership benefits. These resources are available for members to download to use within their own institution.
Each Management Development Resource consists of an overall Facilitator Guide plus separate slides and handouts for each of the modules. This structure allows the user to tailor the slides and handouts to their own requirements.
Topic 1: Identity and becoming a manager
Duration: 2 hours
Why use this topic?
In higher education, being a manager may mean an individual experiences a conflict between their managerial role and their professional or academic background. People who achieve some clarity about this potential conflict may be better able to inhabit the manager role. Understanding the role of the manager and how it differs from one’s previous roles can also be helpful.
When would you use this topic?
Becoming clearer about their identity can help new managers cope better with the transition to management. Use this when discussing that transition or when supporting managers’ development of resilience.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this session, participants will:
- Have made connections between aspects of their personal and professional identity and their leadership role
- Understand the role of social identity in enabling leadership and followership in organisations
- Have been introduced to some thinking on followership style and the relationship between management and leadership
- Understand what their own institution expects of its leaders.
The session
Equipment and resources
Half a sheet of flipchart paper for each participant; coloured pens; (optional); collection of images (postcards, pictures from magazines).
Your institution’s leadership competency framework, grading criteria or generic job description for managers will also be needed for part of the discussion.
Hand-out 1.1.1: Social identity theory of leadership summarises Haslam et al (2011) and Bolden et al (2012)
Running the session
Module 1: Becoming a middle manager
Handouts to download:
Identity and becoming a manager
Hand-out 1.1.1: Social identity and leadership
Working with your values
Hand-out 1.2.1: Universal human values
Hand-out 1.2.2: Leadership scenarios
Hand-out 1.2.3: Tempered radicals
Common cause: values, purpose and leadership
Hand-out 1.3.1: Living our values
Hand-out 1.3.2: Higher education values
Hand-out 1.3.3: Paired walk briefing
Hand-out 1.3.4: Summary
Being caught in the middle
Hand-out 1.4.1: Middle manager scenarios
Hand-out 1.5.1: Developing resilience
The manager’s role in managing performance
Hand-out 1.6.1: Contextual analysis template
Hand-out 1.6.2: Performance management scenarios
Hand-out 1.6.3: Observer brief
Session Plan
Subject Notes
Professional Identities - Start time: 00:00 Duration: 25 mins Slides: 1-4
Ask participants to create a timeline of their life to date. They should include the personal as well as the professional, and try to represent high and low points.
Then participants pair up and and discuss similarities and differences in their early motivation and expectations, the extent to which their expectations have changed, and their experiences of influential figures in their professional lives. Five minutes each way.
Social identity theory - Start time: 00:25 Duration: 10 mins Slides: 5–9 Handout 1.1.1: Social identity theory of leadership
Run through the slides on social identity theory (Handout 1.1.1 expands on the slide content).
Connecting with own experience - Start time: 00:35 Duration: 15 mins Slide: 10
Ask paired participants to reflect on people who have influenced them. Would they regard any of these as leaders? If so, what type of leader? What earmarked them as a leader? Pairs identify specific examples of leader behaviour and identity. Prepare to feed back.
Managers’ and leaders’ identity and behaviour - Start time: 00:50 Duration: 40 mins Slides: 11-12
Invite each pair to feed back ideas about the characteristics of leaders, using aspects of the leader’s identity and how the leader used that identity, and their more generic behaviours. Collate characteristics on flipchart. Discuss. Encourage discussion of the relationship between management and leadership, (Slide 11) and followership (Slide 12). Bring in your institution’s generic job description or competency framework for managers here, if you have them.Slide: 13, if appropriate.
Personal reflection on the transition - Start time: 01:30 Duration: 30 mins Slide: 14
Personal reflection on own identity and the transition (approx. 10 minutes each). Conduct a go-round with any final thoughts.
Finish time: 02:00 Finish
References
The module draws on recent thinking about social identity theory and leadership, so being familiar with these concepts is important for this topic. It also touches on followership. The recommended reading below may be a useful starting point.
Baker, S. D. (2007). Followership: the theoretical foundation of a contemporary construct. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 14(1): 50–60.
Bolden, R., Gosling, J., O’Brien, A., Peters, K., Ryan, M. and Haslam, A. (2012). Academic Leadership: Changing conceptions, identities and experiences in UK higher education. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Haslam, A., Reicher, S. and Platow, M. J. (2011). The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, leadership and Power. Hove: Psychology Press.
Johnson, C. E. (2009). Introducing followership into the leadership classroom: An integrative approach. Journal of Leadership Education 8(2): 20–31.
Parker, M. (2004). Becoming manager, or, the werewolf looks anxiously in the mirror, checking for unusual facial hair. Management Learning 35(1): 45–59.
Management Development Resources MDR7: Module 1: Becoming a middle manager
Powerpoint slides to download:
- 1.1 Identity and transition
- 1.2 Working with your values
- 1.3 Common cause: values, purpose and leadership
- 1.4 Caught in the middle
- 1.5 Developing resilience
- 1.6 Leader's role in performance management