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Leading in the Middle: Conversations and Dialogic Leadership in Higher Education

Kauffman, Janine R
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1458908710

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Bowling Green State University, Leadership Studies.
Higher education leaders face many challenges and uncertainties that require people to interact and work together for the common good. Unfortunately, many of these interactions involve people thinking alone, defending own views, and functioning in a telling mode. Conversely, when meaningful dialogue occurs, people become engaged in ways that enhance awareness and understanding. This phenomenological study focuses on the experience of the mid-level academic leader who bridges the desires of faculty and the needs of administrators, while aiming to build a culture within the department that engages people in collegial ways. This study helps address the gap in higher education mid-level leadership research identifying the value of a dialogic way of leading that emphasizes listening, respecting, and a genuine valuing of people, building on the premise that dialogic leadership promotes collaboration and collegiality (Easley, 2008). Data were collected through in-depth interviews of eight mid-level leaders at a small, private, liberal arts university, resulting in the four emergent themes of (1) conversational landscape: engaging important conversations, (2) creating the environment: valuing people, (3) dialogic leadership: listening and respect, foundational qualities, and (4) mid-level leadership: more than paperwork, leadership matters; and an overarching statement of the mid-level leader experience. Without explicitly naming the importance of a dialogic way of leading, the overarching statement for this study identified these mid-level academic leaders as engaging in meaningful conversations and important issues when they felt listened to, respected, and valued. Although not always getting it right, they humbly attempted to lead in a way that genuinely respected and valued people, as they listened to all voices—not just those who supported their way of thinking—asked questions in search of deeper levels of understanding, embraced difference and ambiguity of not knowing where things would end up, and suspended their own ideas and certainties to allow room for collective wisdom to emerge for the common good. The findings of this study suggest that dialogic leadership requires a valuing of people—where there is careful listening, respect for others, space for voices to be genuine, and suspension of one’s own biases, perceptions, and certainties.
Paul Johnson, PhD (Advisor)
Jean Gerard, PhD (Committee Member)
Patrick Pauken, PhD (Committee Member)
Judy Jackson May, PhD (Committee Member)
Thomas Stuckey, PhD (Committee Member)
145 p.
Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration
dialogue; dialogic leadership; higher education; Theory U; phenomenology; mid-level leader; conversation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kauffman, J. R. (2016). Leading in the Middle: Conversations and Dialogic Leadership in Higher Education [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1458908710

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kauffman, Janine. Leading in the Middle: Conversations and Dialogic Leadership in Higher Education . 2016. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1458908710.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kauffman, Janine. "Leading in the Middle: Conversations and Dialogic Leadership in Higher Education ." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1458908710

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1458908710
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© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.