supporting career progression through academic mentorship

Supporting Career Progression Through Academic Mentorship (STREAM) Final report of the project Developing and implementing a leadership capacity building program for teaching and learning in nursing

Final Report 2014

University of Western Sydney (Lead institution)

Professor Elizabeth Halcomb (Project Leader)

Professor Sharon Andrew

Associate Professor Kath Peters

Associate Professor Yenna Salamonson

University of Technology, Sydney

Professor John Daly

Professor Debra Jackson

Dr Joanne Gray

Support for the production of this report has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.

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Supporting Career Progression Through Academic Mentorship (STREAM) Project 3

Acknowledgements Project Leader Professor Elizabeth Halcomb Adjunct Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney Professor of Primary Health Care, School of Nursing, Midwifery & Indigenous Health, University of Wollongong Project Team Professor Sharon Andrew Professor of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Social Care & Education, Anglia Ruskin University, England Professor John Daly Dean, Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney Dr Joanne Gray Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning), Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney Professor Debra Jackson Professor of Nursing, Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney Associate Professor Kath Peters Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney Associate Professor Yenna Salamonson Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney Project Officers Ms Lien Lombardo, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney

Dr Glenda MacDonald, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney

Ms Kylie Parker, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney

Dr Roslyn Weaver, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney


Reference Group

Professor Wendy Cross Head of School, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Monash University Professor Patricia Davidson Director of Centre for Cardiovascular and Chronic Care, Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney Professor Denise Dignam Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney Dr Betty Gill Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor Education (Health and Science), University of Western Sydney Associate Professor Cecily Hengstberger-Sims Deputy Dean, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney Dr Louise Hickman Director, Postgraduate Nursing Studies, Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney Mr Terry Mason Senior Lecturer, Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education, University of Western Sydney Professor Jane Phillips Professor of Palliative Care Nursing, Cunningham Centre for Palliative Care & School of Nursing, University of Notre Dame Professor Roger Watson Professor of Nursing, Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of Hull, UK Professor Ian Wilson Associate Dean (Learning & Teaching), Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong

External Evaluator

Associate Professor Leigh Wood Associate Dean, Learning and Teaching, Faculty of Business and Economics Macquarie University

Partner Institutions

School of Nursing & Midwifery, University of Western Sydney Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney


List of Acronyms ALTC Australian Learning & Teaching Council Ltd

ECNA Early Career Nurse Academic

OLT Australian Government Office of Learning & Teaching

SCORM Sharable Content Object Reference Model

SLQ Servant Leadership Questionnaire

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

STREAM Supporting career progression through academic mentorship project

UTS University of Technology, Sydney

UWS University of Western Sydney


Executive Summary The project Developing and implementing a leadership capacity building program for teaching and learning in nursing, was a two-year leadership project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) / Office of Learning & Teaching (OLT). It became known as the Supporting Career Progression Through Academic Mentorship (STREAM) project. This project developed and tested a leadership capacity building program that comprised of an ongoing mentoring program, four face-to-face workshops, two online modules and peer networking. The program was implemented across the nursing faculties of the two partner institutions, the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).

This project aimed to: • Facilitate the transition of early career nurse academics (ECNAs) from novice to confident

and effective academics.

• Design a model of leadership development to support ECNAs.

• Investigate the impact of a model of leadership development, involving peer learning networks, academic mentorship and online / facilitated workshops, in promoting scholarly engagement, enhancing self-efficacy, fostering job satisfaction and building leadership capacity across the areas of teaching/learning, governance and research.

Project outcomes included: • The development of a leadership capacity building program for ECNAs that has the potential

to be adapted for use in other discipline areas, particularly practice based disciplines.

• Improved self-confidence and self-reported effectiveness of ECNAs.

• The development of resources in the form of online modules to promote early career academics knowledge of and engagement with the topic areas of leadership principles and academic career development.

• Practice sharing and networking amongst ECNAs from both partner institutions.

• Positive feedback from ECNAs, academic mentors and reference group regarding the interventions that comprised the leadership development program.

• A review of the literature around career development in ECNAs.

• Increased capacity of ECNAs to manage their role as new academics and actively plan for their career development.

• Development of resources specifically aimed at building academic leadership capacity and supporting career development amongst ECNAs that could be adapted for use in other academic disciplines.

• Positive impact on the career development of both ECNA and academic mentors as indicated by increased ongoing participation in capacity building activities, such as enrolment in higher research degrees and ongoing mentoring.

• Raised awareness of the issues facing ECNAs and leadership capacity development needs.


• Dissemination of the project findings informally, at professional conferences and in the peer-reviewed literature.

Four key activities were undertaken as part of this program, namely; mentoring, face-to-face workshops, online modules and networking. Between April 2011 - February 2013, 26 ECNAs met with 17 mentors on over 80 occasions. Twenty-one ECNAs attended at least one face-to-face workshop and 19 ECNAs completed at least one online module.

This project also brought nurse academics from the two partner institutions together and enhanced the networking across Schools. This facilitated an increased appreciation of common challenges and issues faced by both ECNAs and mentors regardless of employing institution. Workshop evaluations and follow-up interview data suggest that leadership capacity was enhanced by the implementation of this project.

An external evaluation of the project was undertaken. This report concludes that this was an important and ambitious project that largely met its intended outcomes. It also highlights the challenge that the project faced in retaining academics in a longitudinal program given the existing time pressures on this group, stating that “the reality of time pressures on academics meant that many valuable opportunities were not taken up”. The evaluation further identifies that the project has the potential to inform universities in the development of policy for new academics.


Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 3

List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................................. 5

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................. 6

Tables and Figures ............................................................................................................................. 10

Tables ....................................................................................................................................... 10

Figures ...................................................................................................................................... 10

Chapter 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 11

Rationale for the project .......................................................................................................... 11

Nursing academia ..................................................................................................................... 13

Relationship to other ALTC funded work ................................................................................. 15

Aims of the project ................................................................................................................... 16

Project outcomes ..................................................................................................................... 16

Structure of the report ............................................................................................................. 17

Chapter 2 Approach & Methodology ................................................................................................ 18

Project approach ...................................................................................................................... 18

Servant leadership.................................................................................................................... 18

Mentoring ................................................................................................................................. 19

Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 20

Study sites ................................................................................................................................ 20

Participants............................................................................................................................... 20

Data collection ......................................................................................................................... 20

Project overview ...................................................................................................................... 20

Pre-program data collection .................................................................................................... 21

Workshops ............................................................................................................................... 22

Mentoring program .................................................................................................................. 24

Online modules ........................................................................................................................ 24

Post-program data collection ................................................................................................... 26

Data analysis ............................................................................................................................. 26


Chapter 3 Results ............................................................................................................................... 27

Participants............................................................................................................................... 27

Pre-study interviews ................................................................................................................ 28

360° feedback survey ............................................................................................................... 30

Workshop evaluations ............................................................................................................. 32

Workplace survey ..................................................................................................................... 36

Online modules ........................................................................................................................ 40

Post-study interviews ............................................................................................................... 41

Chapter 4 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 47

Overview .................................................................................................................................. 47

Summary of key findings .......................................................................................................... 47

Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 49

Factors facilitating success ....................................................................................................... 49

Challenges ................................................................................................................................ 50

Lessons for implementing future projects ............................................................................... 52

Lessons for leadership development of early career academics ............................................. 53

Policy recommendations for universities................................................................................. 54

Evaluation ................................................................................................................................. 54

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 54

References ......................................................................................................................................... 56

Appendices ........................................................................................................................................ 61

Appendix A. Pre-Intervention Interview Schedule ........................................................................... 61

Appendix B. 360 Survey Tool ............................................................................................................. 62

Appendix C. Mentoring Summary Form ............................................................................................ 65

Appendix D. Workshop Evaluation Form .......................................................................................... 66

Appendix E. Workplace Survey Tool .................................................................................................. 67

Appendix F. Post-Intervention Interview Schedule ........................................................................... 72

Appendix G. Sample Completion Certificate ..................................................................................... 73


Tables and Figures

Tables Table 1: Servant Leadership: Characteristics and definitions ........................................................... 19

Table 2: Leadership Program ............................................................................................................. 25

Table 3: Demographic Characteristics of ECNAs ............................................................................... 27

Table 4a: Workshop 1 evaluation ...................................................................................................... 32

Table 4b: Workshop 2 evaluation ...................................................................................................... 33

Table 4c: Workshop 3 evaluation ...................................................................................................... 34

Table 4d: Workshop 4 evaluation ...................................................................................................... 35

Table 5: Online module data ............................................................................................................. 40

Figures Figure 1: Leader/Manager Feedback Quadrant ................................................................................ 31

Figure 2: Mean Scores of SLQ dimensions ....................................................................................... 31

Figure 3: Time spent in workload ...................................................................................................... 36

Figure 4: Perceived value of current orientation program ............................................................... 37

Figure 5: Perceptions of work issues ................................................................................................. 38

Figure 7: Support received from senior staff in the last 12 months ................................................. 39

Figure 8: Activities with low mean confidence ................................................................................. 40


Chapter 1 Introduction The STREAM project explored the development and implementation of an academic leadership capacity building program for early career nurse academics (ECNAs). This project was conducted during 2011-3 across the School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney (UWS) and the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). This report presents the findings of this ALTC funded leadership project and provides an overview of the challenges in building academic leadership capacity within early career academics in practice disciplines like nursing and midwifery.

Rationale for the project

Academic leadership Effective leadership in the higher education sector has long been linked to learning and teaching excellence (Australian Learning and Teaching Council, 2010; Fullan & Scott, 2009). Leadership in any workplace is a vital factor in maintain job satisfaction and facilitating employee productivity (Shieh, Mills, & Waltz, 2001; Winter & Sarros, 2002). In the higher education sector, leadership is particularly important given the specialised nature of academia, the integration of various professions, the different roles within higher education, and the processes and expectations of academic leadership (Scott, Coates, & Anderson, 2008).

The combination of different professional groups in the higher education setting is one of the relatively unique aspects of academic leadership (Rowley & Sherman, 2003). Leaders may be working with and leading not only other academics but also administrative and research staff, as well as undergraduate, postgraduate and higher degree students (Rowley & Sherman, 2003). Balancing administrative and academic demands can be stressful, particularly for those with management responsibilities who also continue researching and teaching (Wolverton, Gmelch, Wolverton, & Sarros, 1999). The relative autonomy and self-governance of academic pursuits is vastly different to the constraints and limitations of administrative duties (Gmelch & Burns, 1993; Rowley & Sherman, 2003). Balancing these different aspects of the academic workload can be difficult, particularly when the boundaries between academic, teaching and research roles are increasingly eroded and less easily defined (Blackmore & Blackwell, 2006). Multiple role expectations and role ambiguity can lead to role strain, where staff “feel they carry an unreasonable burden, because they are required to be increasingly expert in teaching, research, administration and a range of other duties simultaneously” (Blackmore & Blackwell, 2006, p. 375). The complexities of leadership within higher education are compounded by the fact that academic leaders may often be in positions that they have not necessarily sought (Askling & Stensaker, 2002; Rowley & Sherman, 2003). While leaders in the administrative setting are more likely to have sought that position, academics usually seek employment because of their desire to undertake research or teach within their profession rather than in response to supervisory aspirations. Therefore, academic leaders may “end up in both managerial and leadership roles without ever having aspired to them” (Rowley & Sherman, 2003, p. 1058). This situation is further exacerbated in practice-based disciplines where staff often come from clinical rather than academic backgrounds and are expected to not only adapt to the academic environment but also to assume a leadership role within it (Gruppen, Frohna, Anderson, & Lowe, 2003).


Academic leadership can be defined various ways, incorporating formal or informal aspects of leading, but primarily covers three main areas:

1. “To describe the process of engaging people in change, leading them forwards, achieving voluntary followership, helping identify what most needs to be done and then helping make it happen;

2. To denote a particular set of qualities or capabilities. For example, being someone who is both aspirational and inspirational, a person who can motivate and enable others to act in ways that fulfil their potential and the aims of the university, someone who is future not just present oriented, who is a pathfinder, who can take a hard decision, can set a framework to make sense of what is happening or who is at the forefront;

3. As a collective noun to describe a particular group of people ‘in charge’ of a university or unit and who, ideally, work in a complementary and mutually reinforcing way to make things happen” (Scott, et al., 2008, p. 2).

Thus, higher education leadership is not limited to senior positions, such as departmental heads, deans, or chancellors. In the more informal sense, academic leadership is simply “the ability to influence others. It is a process, not a position” (Triolo, Pozehl, & Mahaffey, 1997, p. 149). Such an understanding of leadership means that all academic staff are expected to be leaders; to teach and influence students and also to participate in other areas of leadership such as curriculum design, committee membership, and internal and external task forces (Hitchcock, Bland, Hekelman, & Blumenthal, 1995; Triolo, et al., 1997). This is, then, a broad expectation that the academic role encompasses not only teaching, research and administrative duties, but also leadership, management, knowledge transfer and professional / community engagement (Blackmore & Blackwell, 2006). Thus, it is imperative for all academic staff to develop and refine their leadership skills throughout their career trajectory (Triolo, et al., 1997).

Despite the importance of leadership capacity amongst all academics, institutions can often fail to adequately prepare their staff for academic leadership (Shieh, et al., 2001; Wolverton, Ackerman, & Holt, 2005). When academic leadership is neglected or ignored, “confusion and lost opportunities” can result (Rowley & Sherman, 2003, p. 1058), as well as job dissatisfaction (Shieh, et al., 2001). Failing to develop academic leadership capacity can result in “under-prepared academic leaders who, in all probability, face dwindling resources, increased accountability and constant changes in student demographics and technology, [and who] run the risk of jeopardising departmental and institutional effectiveness” (Wolverton, et al., 2005, p. 228). Finally, the academic culture itself can mean that leadership responsibilities are not valued by either institution or staff, but that they are instead seen simply as duties to be discharged in addition to teaching and research commitments (Askling & Stensaker, 2002). If academic leadership is nurtured and developed, however, there are numerous positive outcomes. Leaders can inspire other academic staff, contribute to developing peers to greater capacity, communicate vision, and develop new strategies and new approaches to problem solving (Shieh, et al., 2001). Effective leadership in the education setting is collaborative, open, and values input from the group in problem solving (Ramsden, Prosser, Trigwell, & Martin, 2007). Ideally, the best academic staff and potential leaders are those who “are now and will continue to be not only good in their fields but also able to reach out, expand, and grow” (Oppelt, 1984, p. 39).


The quality of academic leadership, crucially, is linked to the quality of teaching and learning (Knight & Trowler, 2000; Martin, Trigwell, Prosser, & Ramsden, 2003; Massy, Wilger, & Colbeck, 1994; Ramsden, et al., 2007). Indeed, leadership has a direct relationship with teaching because of the influence of leaders on staff: “the practices of academic managers, and in particular heads of departments, are critical to the development of a collegial commitment to student learning” (Ramsden, et al., 2007, p. 154). Learning and teaching, therefore, rely on effective academic leadership.

Academic leadership has also been linked to research productivity among academics (Ramsden, 1998). In his examination of Australian academics, Ramsden (1998) concluded that staff research output was associated with both personal and structural factors. Factors related to academic leadership, such as the departmental climate, staff satisfaction and intrinsic motivation were all identified as contributing to higher publication outputs (Ramsden, 1998).

Importantly, many academic leadership skills can be taught (Doh, 2003). Programs that specifically aim to develop leadership capacity can address the problems that many academics face who are hired for their professional experience rather than teaching expertise. Workshops, mentoring, peer feedback, and skill development can promote academic success by supporting staff to develop their educational leadership and knowledge, confidence, leadership skills, and scholarly productivity (Gruppen, et al., 2003; Triolo, et al., 1997; Wingard, Garman, & Reznik, 2004). This project sought to develop and evaluate a model of leadership capacity development tailored to meet the needs of ECNAs, a group who have a somewhat non-traditional career trajectory and are often unprepared as they enter academia (McDermid, Peters, Jackson, & Daly, 2012).

Although there is increasing attention to studying and developing academic leadership, less research focuses on discipline-specific leadership (Kekäle, 1999). This is an oversight that needs to be addressed given that practice-based disciplines bring a unique set of considerations in academic leadership, where staff may come from clinical rather than educational and research backgrounds (McDermid, et al., 2012). There are obvious and significant challenges, therefore, in practice disciplines that require a level of clinical relevancy as well as teaching, research and administration. Thus, in practice-based disciplines such as nursing, academic leadership is a particularly important area to study and develop in order to optimise the effectiveness of academic units.

Nursing academia Nationally and internationally, nursing is facing an acute shortage of suitably qualified academic staff (McDermid, et al., 2012). Possession of doctoral qualifications, widely viewed as essential for a career as a nurse academic, inadequate numbers of nurse graduates from doctoral programs, coupled with pending retirements due to the ageing nursing workforce have contributed to the acuity of the current situation (Berlin & Sechrist, 2002; Henshaw, 2001; McDermid, et al., 2012). In a climate of workforce shortage, economic restraint, and growing student numbers, sessional academic staff are forming an increasing portion of the nurse academic workforce (Andrew, Halcomb, Jackson, Peters, & Salamonson, 2010; Brendtro & Hegge, 2000; Halcomb, Andrew, Peters, Salamonson, & Jackson, 2010).


Commonly in a practice discipline such as nursing, sessional teachers and new academic staff are drawn from those with expertise and high level skills within the clinical practice environment (Andrew, et al., 2010; Halcomb, et al., 2010). This is considered advantageous because not only does this environment provide a source of enthusiastic teachers, but these individuals are considered to bring current clinical practice credibility into the classroom (Andrew, et al., 2010; Halcomb, et al., 2010). However, in recruiting academic staff from the clinical environment, consideration needs to be given to the nature of academia – an environment very different to the clinical workplace (Cleary, Horsfall, & Jackson, 2011). While individual may have standing and credibility as ‘experts’ in the clinical fields from which they are drawn, they are usually positioned as ‘novices’ in the new and different academic work environment as they lack key skills in teaching and academic leadership (Andrew, et al., 2010; Halcomb, et al., 2010).

Extensive preliminary work was conducted by the project team to explore both the impact of sessional staff on learning and the workplace and the experiences of both being and working with sessional staff (Andrew, et al., 2010; Halcomb, et al., 2010; Jackson, Peters, Andrew, Salamonson, & Halcomb, 2011; Peters, Jackson, Halcomb, Andrew, & Salamonson, 2011; Salamonson, Halcomb, Andrew, Peters, & Jackson, 2010). These findings support earlier research showing that nurses taking on academic roles face considerable challenges in adapting to academic life (Anibas, Brenner, & Zorn, 2009; Kenny, Pontin, & Moore, 2004; Penn, 2008). These difficulties include a lack of familiarity with the theory and practices associated with teaching and learning, difficulties in understanding where their teaching stood in relation to the overall curriculum, and problems bridging the theory-practice gap (Andrew, et al., 2010). In addition, there is evidence that sessional staff identify more strongly with students than with their academic colleagues and this means that they can experience some difficulty in setting appropriate boundaries with students, as well as forming effective collegial relationships with academic colleagues (Andrew, et al., 2010).

From a professional development and career progression standpoint, there is evidence that sessional staff in particular are recruited largely without formal processes, and are simply used to fill the gaps in the teaching load of schools (Peters, et al., 2011). While permanent positions have more formal recruitment processes, anecdotally we know that the pool of applicants for permanent academic positions often largely consists of current sessional teaching staff. Thus, there are concerns that newly recruited academic nursing staff may be excluded from many of the benefits of academic life, have little idea how to build an academic career and are marginalised from full participation in academic life (Andrew, et al., 2010; Jackson, et al., 2011). This is of concern especially given that “developing a sense of relationship and community among co-workers is an important expectation of employees” (Shepherd, Nihill, Botto, & McCarthy, 2001, p. 845). Findings from our preliminary work (Andrew, et al., 2010; Halcomb, et al., 2010; Jackson, et al., 2011; Peters, et al., 2011; Salamonson, et al., 2010) support existing literature which highlights the imperative for developing leadership capacity in the teaching and learning environment (Jackson, 2008) and the need to create appropriate environments and working cultures within which leadership qualities can be nurtured in staff of all levels (Eddy et al., 2009). Our preliminary work extends understandings into the value of effective leadership in teaching and learning within the undergraduate nursing context, and clearly indicates the need for a leadership program to provide strategic direction, career development and professional mentoring for those sessional academic staff who are seeking to establish themselves in continuing academic positions (Andrew, et al., 2010; Halcomb, et al., 2010; Jackson, et al., 2011; Peters, et al., 2011; Salamonson, et al., 2010).


Given that the development of leadership capacity has been identified as a high priority for the nursing profession (Huber et al., 2000; Valiga & Grossman, 2007), the focus of this project was on developing a model to facilitate leadership development amongst ECNAs. ECNAs are defined for the purposes of this project as Level A or B (Associate Lecturer or Lecturer) academic staff employed permanently, on contract or on a sessional basis who either hold a PhD, are currently enrolled in a PhD program or who express an intention to enrol in a doctoral program in the near future.

Relationship to other ALTC funded work Previous work funded by the ALTC has explored academic leadership in several areas. For some projects, the scope has been broad and has surveyed academic leadership across multiple disciplines and settings. In their project on academic leadership capabilities, Scott et al. (2008) collected data from over 1000 academic leaders in Australian universities. This project identified that several factors are currently impacting on academic leadership. Significantly, they found that despite the approaching retirement of a sizeable number of academic leaders, there is a lack of adequately prepared potential leaders and a disjunction between how academic leaders are selected and developed, and the realities of their role. Given the number of significant changes within Australian higher education in the last two decades it was also identified that it is vital to develop academic leaders who can respond adequately and appropriately to this changing environment (Scott, et al., 2008). Specific change forces impacting on Australian higher education were identified as “decreased government funding, growing pressure to generate new income, balancing work and family life, managing the pressures for continuous change, having to deal with slow and unresponsive administrative processes, finding and retaining high-quality staff, and increased government reporting and scrutiny” (Scott, et al., 2008, p. xiii). To address this situation and manage change successfully, Scott, et al. (2008) suggest that effective academic leaders must display specific capabilities, namely: “not only possess up-to-date knowledge and skills on the area, they are also self-aware, decisive, committed, able to empathise with and influence a wide diversity of people, are cognitively flexible, and are particularly deft at diagnosis and strategy formation. [...] the more senior a leader becomes the more developed and integrated these capabilities have to be” (p. xv).

The recognition that academic leadership is vital to facilitate high quality teaching and learning and research productivity has prompted a number of other ALTC funded project. Some of these studies have focused on particular levels within academic leadership. For instance, one recent project developed a handbook for the purpose of supporting academic leadership for excellence in teaching and learning (McInnis, Ramsden, & Maconachie, 2012). Aimed at senior executives in higher education, such as those holding provost and chancellery positions, the handbook is intended to provide a resource for professional development by outlining principles of successful leadership (McInnis, et al., 2012). A similarly narrow focus was adopted in a project that explored academic leadership in the specific area of heads of schools (West & Vilkinas, 2011). This project comprised workshops to develop and support the leadership capacity of twenty-three heads of schools, and also data collection from surveys. The data showed the head of school role to be complex and wide-ranging in its scope, with implications for time management, as well as concerns about heavy workloads for both heads of schools and their staff, which has the potential to inhibit improvements in teaching and learning (West & Vilkinas, 2011).


In contrast to the studies on senior leadership, other work focuses on leadership at other levels, such early career academics (Lovasz, Dolnicar, & Vialle, 2012), or course coordinators (Bennett & Hempsall, 2010).

Taking a different approach, other projects have approached leadership capacity outside traditional formal roles and instead targeted communities of practice, that is, peer learning networks, both broadly (McDonald, Star, & Margetts, 2012) and more narrowly, such as the context of climate change studies (Davison, Pharo, & Warr, 2011).

Although many of these projects have considered the topic from a broad perspective across disciplines, other ALTC-funded work has taken a discipline-specific approach to researching leadership in the higher education setting. For example, a recent project aimed to develop leadership capacity in chemistry teaching to produce more student-centred teaching and innovative strategies for large classes (Bedgood et al., 2012), while another study investigated leadership in the context of early childhood education (Macfarlane, Cartmel, Nolan, Keevers, & Clark, 2011).

Although these previous ALTC-funded projects have considered various aspects of leadership in the academic setting, to date no research has taken this focus on academic leadership further by applying it to the practice-based discipline of nursing, with its specialised context of clinical and academic considerations. Furthermore, this project not only focuses on a specific practice discipline but also a particular group within that discipline, that is, early-career nursing academics. Therefore, this project builds on previous work and extends our understanding of academic leadership by contributing new knowledge based on the findings of this project on building leadership capacity in nursing.

Aims of the project The overarching aim of this project was to enhance leadership capacity within the discipline of nursing and midwifery by facilitating workforce development amongst ECNAs. The specific aims of the project were to:

a) Facilitate the transition of ECNAs from novice to confident and effective academics.

b) Design a model of leadership development to support ECNAs.

c) Investigate the impact of a model of leadership development, involving peer learning networks, academic mentorship and online / facilitated workshops, in promoting scholarly engagement, enhancing self-efficacy, fostering job satisfaction and building leadership capacity across the areas of teaching / learning, governance and research.

Project outcomes The outcomes of this project included: • The development of a leadership capacity building program for ECNAs that has the potential

to be adapted for use in other discipline areas, particularly practice based disciplines.

• Improved self-confidence and self-reported effectiveness of ECNAs. • Practice sharing and networking amongst ECNAs from both partner institutions.

• Increased capacity of ECNAs to manage their role as new academics and actively plan for their career development.


• A review of the literature around career development in ECNAs. • The development of resources in the form of online modules to promote early career

academics knowledge of and engagement with the topic areas of leadership principles and academic career development.

• Positive feedback from ECNAs, academic mentors and reference group regarding the interventions that comprised the leadership development program.

• Development of resources specifically aimed at building academic leadership capacity and supporting career development amongst ECNAs that could be adapted for use in other academic disciplines.

• Positive impact on the career development of both ECNA and academic mentors as indicated by increased ongoing participation in capacity building activities, such as enrolment in higher research degrees and ongoing mentoring.

• Raised awareness of the issues facing ECNAs and leadership capacity development needs.

• Dissemination of the project findings informally, at professional conferences and in the peer-reviewed literature.

Some of the outcomes identified in the initial project proposal were not achieved at the project completion. These outcomes and the rationale for not completing these are provided below. • Whilst the project initially sought to improve the confidence and effectiveness of ECNAs, this

was difficult to accurately measure, particularly given the small sample size. However, qualitative feedback from participants illustrates that mentors noticed an increase in the confidence of their mentees, and that mentees felt more confident. The mentees attributed their improved confidence to both their mentors and the self-development that occurred as part of the program participation.

• The project proposal identified that participation in activities that contribute to academic promotion: positive mentorship, scholarship activity partnership, e.g. writing for publications would be used to measure the impact of the program. At the conclusion of the project it was clear that several ECNAs had enrolled in PhD programs, developed ongoing research collaborations and submitted papers for publication in conjunction with their mentors. However, the relatively short time frame for the study and longer term nature of these activities did not allow for the outcomes to be accurately measured. For example, several ECNAs were reportedly working on papers for publication but these had not all been submitted or accepted at the time of writing this report.

Structure of the report Chapter one has provided an overview of the rationale for the project in terms of the current literature around academic leadership and leadership in nursing academia. It has also outlined the aims of the project and summarised the major project outcomes. Chapter Two will provide an overview of the project’s approach and methodology, including a description of the leadership program that was developed and delivered within this project, the resources developed and the evaluation and dissemination strategies used. The results of the evaluation activities will be presented in Chapter three. Finally, Chapter four will examine the barriers and facilitators to the program implementation, the implications of the findings and recommendations for the future.


Chapter 2 Approach & Methodology

Project approach There were three key phases in the implementation of the STREAM program:

• Phase One Pre-Intervention: refining the program, engaging ECNAs to participate and recruiting and training academic mentors.

• Phase Two Intervention: implementing the program across the two partner institutions.

• Phase Three Post-Intervention: collection of reflective data from ECNAs and mentors regarding the program and its outcomes.

Servant leadership In this project we drew on the framework of servant leadership. Servant leadership has been identified as the most appropriate framework for working collaboratively within the context of learning communities. This framework is underpinned by mentoring and modelling, flexibility, integrity and ethical practice (Jackson, 2008). Servant leadership is concerned about long term efficacy not just short term potential gains. The servant leader puts the needs of the constituents before the organisation, in order to facilitate the development of supportive workplace learning communities (Jackson, 2008; Stone, 2004). Thus, this is appropriate as a strategy to develop strong teamwork, mutually acceptable decision-making and ethical and caring behaviour which is compatible with the caring dimensions of clinical nursing (Spears, 2004). Servant leadership provided a resilient, effective and flexible leadership model to serve as a framework through which a leadership program to meet the project needs could be developed and delivered. Servant leaders are humane and nurturing leaders that facilitate personal and organisational transformation (Russell & Stone, 2002) and foster attainment of both individual and collective objectives (Jackson, 2008). Servant leadership is characterised by ten attributes (Table 1)(Spears, 2004) and leaders apply this mix of elements to foster the development of inclusive and supportive workplace learning communities. Workplace communities created with a servant leadership approach promote human connectedness through the creation of purposive respectful relationships that support and nurture newcomers to the workplace, as well as existing workers of all levels (Jackson, 2008). Learning communities can provide sessional academics with a means of ameliorating some of the difficulties associated with the transition into academic life, and create opportunities to support the initial and continuing development of the nursing academic workforce.


Table 1: Servant Leadership: Characteristics and definitions (Jackson, 2008, p. 28)

Characteristic Definition

Listening Able to attend intently and respectfully to what others have to say.

Empathy Able to understand other people’s circumstances.

Healing Able to recognize human vulnerability and know when and how to foster a healing process.

Awareness Able to read and interpret environmental cues.

Persuasion Able to influence other people without reliance on positional power or hierarchical authority.

Conceptualisation Able to promote creativity and be open to the possibilities of given situations.

Foresight Able to be politically astute, and foresee future directions and implications.

Stewardship Able to make purposeful short and long term contributions and leave a legacy for others to continue.

Growth Able to recognise and nurture the developmental needs of others.

Building community Able to develop a community framework within an organisation.

Mentoring While understandings on mentoring can vary (McCloughen, 2006), mentoring is widely recognized as an essential leadership skill that has benefits for both mentors and mentees (McCloughen, 2009, 2011). In addition to facilitating the development and motivating mentees, mentoring activities are also important for mentors personally and professionally as they learn, grow and become more effective in their own jobs (McCloughen, 2011). One early influential work that addressed the importance of mentoring in the workplace defined and explained mentors as exemplary successful individuals with qualities that others perceive as desirable and positive, and who they wish to model themselves on (Murray, 1991). A mentoring relationship can and should be a professionally and personally enriching experience for both mentor and mentee (McCloughen, 2009, 2011, 2010). Mentoring enables the mentor’s development of leadership and communication skills thereby contributing toward career advancement. The guidance and encouragement that mentoring can provide typically exceeds what a manager can deliver, and makes an important contribution to leadership development. Mentoring can also provide a great sense of personal satisfaction, knowing that one is helping someone else learn and grow professionally and personally (McCloughen, 2011). Certain skills are needed for effective mentorship because mentoring provides the mentee with a safe forum in which to discuss issues and explore solutions (McPherson, 2011). Thus, in order to be effective, the mentor requires skills to facilitate this personal exploration and growth of another. Furthermore, the relationship also provides an avenue for the mentee to envisage the sort of leader they themselves want to become and this is a significant factor in contributing to their leadership development. It was based on these ideals that the mentoring program for this project was devised.


Methodology We used a pragmatic mixed methods approach to evaluate this model. Mixed methods allowed us to gain deeper insight into the range of issues than would have been possible through the use of either a qualitative or quantitative approach in isolation (Andrew & Halcomb, 2009). Data were collected from published literature, interviews, surveys, diaries, email communications and field notes. Also embedded within the evaluation methods was the work of the external evaluator.

Study sites This project was undertaken within the School of Nursing & Midwifery, UWS and the Faculty of Health, UTS. These are the two largest providers of nursing and midwifery education in the Sydney metropolitan area. During the study period, the UWS employed 90 full-time equivalent academic staff and over 70 sessional staff to deliver its undergraduate program to approximately 3000 students. An additional 300 local and off-shore postgraduate and 50 higher degree research students were enrolled within the School. The UTS employed approximately 70 full-time equivalent academic staff and over 67 sessional staff to deliver its program to around 2300 undergraduate students. UTS also had approximately 400 postgraduate coursework and 140 higher degree research students were enrolled within the School.

Participants Academic staff employed in the nursing and midwifery faculties of the partner institutions were advised of the study via noticeboards and staff communication. Individuals thought to meet the inclusion criteria were sent a personalised letter advising them of the study and the opportunity for them to participate. For the purposes of this study, ECNAs were defined as Level A or B staff employed permanently, on contract or on a sessional basis who either hold a PhD, are currently enrolled in a PhD program or who expressed an intention to enrol in a PhD program.

Data collection Consistent with the mixed methods approach, a number of data collections were undertaken over the course of the project. The nature of each is described in detail below after the description of the activities that comprised the project. Human research ethics approval was gained from both the University of Western Sydney (Approval No. H8969) and University of Technology (Approval No. 2011-168R) Human Research Ethics Committees prior to the commencement of data collection.

Project overview The STREAM program ran from April 2011 - February 2013. It comprised of a mentoring program, four face-to-face workshops, peer networking and two online modules. Each of these aspects of the program is described in detail below. It was intended that each ECNA would participate in each of the activities that comprised the program. However, this presented several challenges as discussed in Chapter 4 of this report. These activities sought to build academic leadership capacity by: a) familiarising participants with various leadership styles.

b) exploring and building key effectiveness skills including mentoring, communication and time management.


c) using mentoring as a strategy to facilitate communication and active planning of career development.

d) providing opportunities for ECNAs to network across institutions.

e) providing opportunities for gaining performance feedback and facilitating individuals to critically evaluate their performance and develop plans for personal development.

The project team were cognisant of the project aim of designing a program for ECNAs that could be adapted for use in other discipline areas. This was carefully considered in the development of project resources. To achieve this we developed each resource focussed on the academic issue (e.g. time management, mentoring) and then used examples from nursing academia to illustrate this in practice. We considered that to adapt the resource for alternative practice disciplines these examples could be substituted with similar examples from other disciplines.

Pre-program data collection To assess the participants and their leadership capacity at baseline data were collected via interview and survey as described below.

Pre-study interviews Once ECNAs were recruited to the study the project officer undertook a semi-structured interview to explore their understandings about leadership and areas in which they felt that they needed support to facilitate leadership capacity development. The interview schedule is provided in Appendix A. Interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim by a professional transcription service. Transcripts were checked by the interviewer to remove identifying data and then analysis was undertaken by members of the project team using a process of thematic analysis (Grbich, 2013).

360° feedback survey Both ECNAs and mentors participated in a 360° feedback process (Atwater, Brett, & Charles, 2007). In addition to undertaking a self-rating, each participant selected between 3 and 8 “others” from within their academic workplace to provide feedback about their leadership skills and behaviour. These “others” were identified by the participant and potentially included peers, supervisors, senior staff or junior staff working in the participants’ team. This survey was administered to provide participants with quantitative feedback about their leadership capacity which would inform their participation in the leadership development program. This 360° feedback tool was based on the Leader/Manager Framework developed by Farey (1993). This framework groups twenty identified leadership and management activities into a clockwise sequence, clustered into four quadrants: a) Task Leadership; b) People Leadership; c) People Management; and d) Task Management. The tool asks individuals to rate themselves, and peers to rate the participant, on a five point Likert scale. The response anchor points are: Do a lot less (-2); Do a bit less (-1); As now (0); Do a bit more (1); and Do a lot more (2). The 360° feedback tool has been used effectively in previous studies of academic leadership development, including previous ALTC funded projects (Vilkinas & Ladyshewsky, 2011).

A second part of this survey explored the servant leadership qualities of the ECNA. This was considered important to allow participants to explore their own leadership qualities, given that servant leadership was the framework underpinning this program. The Barbuto and Wheeler


(2006) 23-item servant leadership questionnaire (SLQ) was used. This tool has a 5-point Likert-type response format, from 1-Strongly Disagree to 5-Strongly Agree. The SLQ measures the five dimensions of servant leadership that are conceptually and empirically distinct: a) altruistic calling; b) emotional healing; c) wisdom; d) persuasive mapping; and e) organisational stewardship. Altruistic calling describes the deep-rooted desire to contribute positively to the lives of others, and emotional healing refers to a leader’s commitment to foster restoration and facilitates healing from any hardship or trauma. The third dimension, wisdom, refers to a leader’s ability to be observant as well as having a sense of anticipation of the external environment. The fourth dimension, persuasive mapping, describes the leader’s ability to articulate issues and conceptualise possibilities by sharing their thought processes, and the fifth and final dimension, organisational stewardship, refers to the extent to which leaders make positive contributions to the society through activities such as community development programs for the well-being of the community (Jenkins & Cutchens, 2011).

A copy of the survey tool is provided in Appendix B. The survey tool was hosted online by a research company. Raw survey data from the research company was sent to the project officer using Microsoft Excel program. Data were collated, de-identified and imported into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20 for analysis. In addition to the aggregated data analysis, each individual participant received a personalised report that provided their individual feedback compared to the aggregated feedback for the study cohort. Analysis of the aggregated reports informed the planning of the topic areas for the online modules and workshops to be included within the program.

Workshops

Workshop 1 Workshop 1 was a full-day event held once at UWS and once at UTS during July 2011. It was aimed at both mentees and mentors. The session was presented by an external mentoring expert, Emeritus Professor Ed Davis (McCarthy Mentoring). Professor Ed Davis is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Business and Economics at Macquarie University and Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney. Since his retirement from Macquarie University in 2008, Professor Davis has focused on executive coaching and mentoring with clients across a range of industries. This workshop provided an: • exploration of the definition of terms around mentoring. • exploration of the rationale for engaging in mentoring, exploring what is in it for mentors,

mentees and the organisation. • overview of the strategies which can best support mentoring for both mentees and mentors. • indication of the threats and obstacles to successful mentoring • understanding of program effectiveness measures.

Workshop 2 Workshop 2 was a full day even held at UWS Campbelltown campus in February 2012 by Mr Anthony Critchley (New Fangled Ideas). Anthony has formal qualifications in clinical psychology, project management, education and research. Currently Anthony provides coaching and training across Australia to managers and executives.


This workshop sought to: • identify strategies to improve personal influence and communication. • provide an opportunity to practice strategies to provide feedback to others. • identify individual communication styles that impact on communication with others. • identify strategies to work with peers and managers. • increase awareness of factors impacting on team performance. • improve team management skills. • build a personal action plan to implement training.

Workshop 3 Workshop 3 in the program series was presented by Mr Hugh Kearns (Thinkwell) at UTS Broadway in July 2012. Hugh Kearns is recognised internationally as a public speaker, educator and researcher. His areas of expertise include self-management, positive psychology, work-life balance, learning and creativity. Hugh lectures and researches at Flinders University in Adelaide. He is widely recognised for his ability to take the latest research in psychology and education and apply it to high-performing people and groups. The workshop focused on self-sabotage, developing research in your career, time management and work / life balance. This workshop provided practical strategies to allow participants to;

• take control of their time. • prioritise and plan. • avoid distractions. • balance competing demands. • manage email and paperwork. • work smarter.

Workshop 4 Workshop 4 was held at UWS Campbelltown Campus in December 2012. The themes for this workshop focused on Project Management and Career Development. The workshop provided participants tools and tips on managing their research projects and explored strategies for career development in academia. To support the academic progression theme, guest speaker Professor Janice Aldrich-Wright from the School of Science and Health was invited to speak to participants her experience in ‘Finding your way through the University maze’.

Workshop evaluations Following each workshop, participants completed a written evaluation of the activity. The survey tool was designed specifically for this project based on previous workshop evaluation tools utilised by project team members. These data were used to both evaluate the activity and inform the planning of future aspects of the program. A copy of the workshop evaluation form can be found in Appendix D. Workshop evaluation data were entered into SPSS Version 20 and analysed using descriptive statistics. In accordance with human research ethics guidelines, whilst participation in evaluation of each workshop was encouraged, workshop participants were free to choose whether or not they completed the workshop evaluation at each event. For various reasons some participants elected not to complete an evaluation.


Mentoring program The objective of the mentoring component of this program was to provide opportunity for the participants to be mentored by a more experienced nurse academic. The design of this program was based on a review of the mentoring literature related to both mentoring in academia and in nursing. The mentoring relationship created a safe and confidential environment where participants could discuss career development aspirations and develop strategies to meet these goals. The mentor supported the participant by providing guidance, acting as a sounding board and helping the ECNA to navigate the academic environment in areas of teaching, research and governance. Prior to commencing the mentoring relationship a workshop was held at each institution (See Workshop 1 above). As part of this workshop the roles and expectations of both the mentees and mentors was explored. Mentors were also offered individualised support from the experienced mentors who comprised the project team should they need additional support. Both participants and mentors were encouraged to meet on a regular basis, with the aim of monthly meetings. Where it was not possible to meet face to face, participants were encouraged to utilise alternative means of communication such as online discussion, Skype or telephone. Participants completed mentoring diaries after each meeting to document the frequency and nature of the meetings as well as to capture key themes discussed.

Mentoring diaries Each ECNA was asked to complete a mentoring encounter diary after each mentoring session and regularly send these records to the Project officer. This encounter form collected information about the date and duration of the meeting, the general topics discussed and issues that arose. It was also used to prompt reminders to ECNAs from the project team if they did not report meeting their mentor. A copy of the encounter form can be found in Appendix C. These data were entered into an Excel spread sheet and imported into SPSS Version 20 before being analysed using descriptive statistics.

Online modules A Blackboard learning site was established for the project. This site provided links to various resources, a list of program participants and their email contacts and the online modules. The online modules were developed by the project team and project officers with expert input and review from the reference group. Course content included plain text, peer reviewed literature, online resources, university policies, videos and online quizzes. Technical assistance was provided by UWS E-learning consultants to develop the modules using sharable content object reference model (SCORM). Participants were encouraged to discuss the issues raised by the online modules with their mentors during their mentoring sessions.

Online module 1 - Academic leadership The aim of this module was to define academic leadership and provide an introduction to contemporary leadership approaches. On completion of this module participants would be able to:

• articulate a definition of leadership. • discuss the characteristics of various leadership approaches. • relate leadership principles to the academic environment.


• demonstrate an understanding of the importance of leadership in the academic setting. • reflect upon the leadership attributes that they needed to develop, and what sort of leader

they wanted to become.

Online module 2 - Career development

The aim of this module was to provide a framework to assist participants to develop their career plan. The module focussed on four key areas:

• understanding self. • knowing the academic environment. • planning your career. • actioning - progressing your career.

Table 2: Leadership Program

Facilitated Workshops Web-based Activities Academic Mentoring

Key

Activ

ities

Expert course facilitators utilised to run face-to-face workshop

Web-based interactive learning activities used to build on and extend workshop content

Academic mentor and ECNA undertake mentoring relationship.

ECN

A Ac

tions

Attend workshop and participate in activities Completion of workshop evaluation

Access and use web-based interactive learning activities Completion of evaluation of online activities

Attendance at the mentoring workshop (Workshop 1) Participate in regular interactions with mentor Completion of evaluation

Men

tor

Actio

ns Attend workshop and

participate in activities Completion of workshop evaluation

Engage in online discussions with all participants.

Attendance at the mentoring workshop (Workshop 1) Participate in regular interactions with mentor / mentee Maintenance of encounter diary Completion of evaluation

Proj

ect T

eam

Ac

tions

Develop workshop activities Recruit workshop facilitators Collection of pre and post workshop data

Develop web-based interactive activities

Conduct mentoring workshop for both ECNAs and academic mentors. Support mentoring relationships as required Collection of pre and post intervention data

Mea

sure

s • Sociodemographic data • Academic history data • Online survey – self efficacy(26)

and servant leadership(27) • Qualitative data

• Monitor website hit rates • Online satisfaction survey

• Online survey • Mentor encounter diary • Qualitative data


Post-program data collection

Workplace survey Given the significant impact of work environment and perceived support upon self-efficacy ECNAs and mentors were asked to complete a survey about their work environment. Survey items were derived from a review of the literature and previous instruments, including the Lecturer self-efficacy questionnaire (Bellini, Abbuhl, Grisso, Lavizzo-Mourey, & Shea, 2001; Sharp, Hemmings, Kay, & Callinan, 2012). This final survey was delivered online via a research company. A copy of the survey tool can be found in Appendix E. Raw survey data from the research company was sent to the project officer using Microsoft Excel program. Data were collated, de-identified and imported into SPSS Version 20 for analysis using descriptive statistics.

Post-study interviews To explore the impact of the program and the experiences of both ECNAs and Mentors, semi-structured interviews were conducted following the completion of the program. The interview schedule for these interviews is provided in Appendix F. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim by a professional transcription service. Transcripts were checked by the interviewers to remove identifying data and then analysis was undertaken by the Project team using a process of thematic analysis (Grbich, 2013).

Data analysis A combination of software applications were used to manage and analyse the data. Quantitative data from the surveys, workshop evaluations and mentoring diaries was imported or entered into SPSS. Given the small sample size and nature of the data, data was summarised using descriptive statistics such as means, range and standard deviations. Qualitative interview data was transcribed and imported into NVivo before being analysed using a process of thematic analysis. Consistent with the philosophy of mixed methods research, findings from the various data collections were integrated to provide a more comprehensive picture than would have emerged from a single data collection (Andrew & Halcomb, 2009).


Chapter 3 Results

Participants At the commencement of the study 28 ECNAs and 21 mentors were recruited to participate. Of the ECNAs, 18 (64%) were employed at UWS and the remaining 10 (36%) were employed at UTS. The demographic characteristics of the participating ECNAs are outlined in Table 3. Twelve (57%) mentors were employed at UWS and the remaining 9 (43%) were employed at UTS. Over the course of the project 2 ECNAs and 2 mentors ceased employment with the participating university and discontinued their participation in the program.

Table 3: Demographic Characteristics of ECNAs

Characteristics n (%) Age

Up to 39 years 8 (34.8) 40 years or more 15 (65.2) Gender (Female) 20 (87.0) Level of academic appointment Level A (Associate Lecturer) 4 (17.4) Level B (Lecturer) 16 (69.6) Other 3 (13.0) Employment status Continuing staff 15 (65.3) Fixed term contract 5 (21.7) Casual / Sessional contract 3 (13.0) Highest nursing qualification Up to Bachelor degree (including Honours) 4 (17.4) Master’s degree 11 (47.8) Doctorate 8 (34.8) Highest teaching qualification

No formal qualifications 1 (4.3) Certificate IV Workplace Training 3 (13.1) UG degree in teaching 2 (8.7) Master of Education/Higher Education 4 (17.4) Doctorate/PhD 1 (4.3) Not stated 12 (52.2)

Previous employment by another university Not previously employed by another university 14 (60.9) Permanent staff 6 (22.2) Sessional Teacher/Clinical Facilitator 2 (8.7) Short term contract 1 (4.3)

Average duration since obtaining qualification as a nurse or midwife (SD), years 19.1 (7.7)


Pre-study interviews

Understandings about leadership The pre-study interviews revealed participants’ understandings about leadership and what they perceived as essential qualities for those in academic leadership positions. Participants considered that leaders required good listening and communication skills, needed to be approachable, motivational, organised, supportive, available, and generous with their time. Further, participants perceived that academic leaders needed to be experts in their field, good role models and have realistic expectations of their team. Reflecting on past experiences of good leadership, participants articulated the following:

But as much as anything it was about personality… being very kind of motivational and inspiring... that’s what I look for in a leader.

Leadership is about inspiring me to want to do things rather than just simply being told to do them because I have to.

I think being - certainly seeing their success and knowing the way they got there and, so that openness I think is something. Them being generous of their time and generous of spirit I would say and wanting to help and help and support people through taking the same path, not sort of standing there going: I’m the leader, you follow me, sort of wanting people to join them and showing them how to develop themselves.

As for someone that I’ve worked with with leadership skills, they’ve pretty much had excellent communication skills. They’ve been a very organised person, they’ve been very supportive. Also I think a leader should be a supportive person, approachable as well, someone who is approachable that you’re not going to feel intimidated by whatever your query may be.

So to me that’s what a leader is and they need to be likeable and pretty much remember that we’re all human beings and we’re adults and we want to achieve. They need to be able to respect the people coming up and motivate them and things like that.

Okay, approachable, definitely someone who’s going to have an open door policy is helpful.

Opportunities for development Throughout the pre-study interviews it became obvious that participants were aware that they needed to achieve in several key areas in order to progress their academic careers. Largely focussed on promotion criteria, participants were identified these key areas as research, teaching and governance / administration. Despite articulating these specific areas, participants acknowledged that they required further information to fully understand the necessary skills required to demonstrate proficiency / expertise in each area. Further, participants recognised that they required support from various senior faculty to facilitate their development of these crucial skills.


Participants identified teaching skills as being integral to their career development. Some participants had been given an opportunity to develop their teaching skills through formal short courses. Those who were supported in further study to gain educational qualifications perceived this as a useful exercise.

So the program’s been - I’ve found it was onerous in terms of the amount of work that you needed to do, but in the end I found it to be very worthwhile. The opportunities that I was able to be get out of it have been… I think it really got me to think about aligning my teaching and learning with my learning outcomes. Which was something that - constructively aligning teaching and learning with learning outcomes and then being that facilitator or guide for the students. Rather than filling them with facts and thinking that you need to get every single bit of information into them, that’s not the purpose of our role here as an academic. So I found that program to be very, very insightful and very helpful for me in particular.

The support has been very good. I can’t complain, it was definitely worthwhile, the [teaching course]. Because I didn’t have a teaching certificate, so for me to understand the whole teaching side of things was good. So from a teacher perspective I think I’m well supported.

Perceived benefits of leadership program Although just embarking on the program, participants overwhelmingly expressed that the opportunity to participate in formal mentoring was the most significant benefit of the program. Although some participants had limited knowledge regarding mentor/mentee relationships, they stated they required a higher degree of mentoring than they were currently receiving, and many expressed the need for more than one mentor. Among the most valued aspects of having a mentor was the fact that they were able to choose who they wanted in this relationship.

People were assigned a mentor and I kind of found the whole notion a little bit strange, because I always kind of felt the mentor was someone that you chose.

I just found the self-selected mentors, the go to people, I find my go to people and they have been really fantastic.

Multiple other benefits associated with being involved in the program were articulated by participants;

I think people wanting you to develop your own, yourself professionally is helpful. When you see that people are wanting you to develop you think: Okay, obviously I’m worth developing in this organisation, so that builds your confidence and it builds your desire to do well, I think.

From senior people. How they’ve navigated the pathway. What roles they took on. How they managed, after the PhD’s done, another research project. Things like that. I think that would be useful. You go, okay so they’ve done that. Okay, and that’s how they’ve got here. I think that would be something useful.


Although participants showed some understanding of what was required to progress in their career, they also displayed a lack of confidence/reluctance to take control of this themselves. Through the project, they were looking forward to being guided by their mentors.

When everybody's busy doing other things, trying to meet up with deadlines here and there, there is not much opportunity for that [research] which is very important for people's promotion. That's what I think. Where do I go from here? What am I going to do with the PhD that I've got in my hand? What is the next step? So, I'm looking forward to somebody that I will be able to relate to - you get me - which I will be able to relate to in a collegial friendly manner. I will know that the person is there for me, at least to listen to all my stupid questions and perhaps guide me on a wiser path away from my stupid questions.

I’d like a How to Start Research. Do you know somewhere that I can go - click on the internet and there’s a big thing that says, okay you’re going to be doing this, this is how you’re going to be doing - because like I’ve got some ideas about what I would like to do, but I don’t know how to actually go about it - what type of research we’re talking about, what would be appropriate for what I’m looking at. You know, so I’d like a how to. I’ve looked at loads of research books and things but what you want is not really there, though. They talk a lot and they say a lot of things but they don’t give you the nuts and bolts of it. That’s what I’d like to - that’s what I would want - is the nuts and bolts of how to start it, what to do, what’s going to be appropriate for what, that type of thing. And the processes involved, yeah.

360° feedback survey Twenty-three ECNAs (82.1%) and 21 mentors (100%) completed the 360° feedback survey. ECNA’s had between 0 and 8 peers complete the tool (Mean 3.52) while mentors had between 3 and 7 peers complete the tool (Mean 4.43). Overall ratings of both self and peer respondents of the ECNAs indicated that they needed to do more of all aspects of the four quadrants of leadership/management activities. However, compared to peer ratings, there were bigger gaps in the self-ratings between ‘what should be’ (i.e. As now) and ‘Do more’ (Figure 1). These gaps were particularly large in the ‘Task Leadership’ quadrant and the ‘Task Management’ quadrant. This finding could be an indication of the lack of opportunity or direct experience in the Leadership/Management role, for example, monitoring and reviewing the performance of others, participating in the decision-making process of the resources and infrastructure for the organisation.


Figure 1: Leader/Manager Feedback Quadrant

Servant leadership qualities of the ECNAs were assessed using the SLQ (2006). The 23-item SLQ administered to the ECNAs in this study has a 5-point Likert-type response format, from 1 Strongly Disagree to 5 Strongly Agree. The SLQ measures the five dimensions of servant leadership that are conceptually and empirically distinct. Figure 2 presents the mean scores of each of the SLQ dimensions. Of these five dimensions, the ‘Organisational stewardship’ was rated by the ECNAs as most important attribute (mean: 4.20) in an ideal leader. Figure 2: Mean Scores of SLQ dimensions

00.5

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

5

Altruistic calling Emotionalhealing

Wisdom Persuasivemapping

Organisationalstewardship

Stro

ngly

disa

gree

(1) -

Str

ongl

y ag

ree

(5)


Workshop evaluations Participant evaluations were undertaken following each of the workshops. As previously indicated, human research ethical principles dictated that participants should be free to choose whether or not they completed the evaluations. Therefore, evaluation response rates do not accurately describe workshop attendance. Given that several ECNAs were on maternity leave over the course of the project it was not always possible for them to attend the workshops. The workshop evaluations demonstrate that participants were largely satisfied with the content and conduct of these events (Table 4). In particular, participants reported that they appreciated the opportunity to participate in workshops conducted by experts in the various topics, rather than the workshops be conducted by known academic colleagues. Using external presenters was seen as important in providing new perspectives and fresh insights, as well as creating a safe environment for participants to express ideas or concerns.

Table 4a: Workshop 1 evaluation

Workshop 1 Stro

ngly

Disa

gree

Disa

gree

Neut

ral /

Unde

cided

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

Agre

e

n % n % n % n % n % The workshop enabled me to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities that I face as an Academic. -- -- -- -- 3 10.0 21 70.0 6 20.0

I identified strategies for collaboration and networking with my colleagues that are likely to enrich my work and enable me to support others.

-- -- 2 6.7 8 26.7 17 56.7 3 10.0

Practical strategies were identified that will enable me to develop further in my role. -- -- 3 10.0 8 26.7 16 53.3 3 10.0

Presentation and Structure There was adequate time for discussion and exchange. -- -- -- -- -- -- 19 63.3 11 36.7 The workshop was logically structured. 1 3.3 -- -- 1 3.3 21 70.0 7 23.3 Facilitation supported achieving workshop outcomes. -- -- 1 3.3 2 6.7 21 70.0 5 16.7 Organisation Location of venue and facilities were adequate. -- -- 1 3.3 3 10.0 16 53.3 10 33.3 Room set up, audio and visual aids were appropriate. -- -- 1 3.3 2 6.7 18 60.0 9 30.0 Follow-up Action I intend to follow up with colleagues present today following the workshop. -- -- 2 6.7 5 16.7 18 60.0 5 16.7

Transfer I will use what I have learnt after the workshop. -- -- 1 3.3 2 6.7 21 70.0 6 20.0 My attitudes or beliefs have changed. 1 3.3 2 6.7 14 46.7 13 43.3 -- --

Most helpful content: • Clarification of mentoring role and outcomes • External facilitator • Group work and discussions and their impact on building relationships


• Meeting other participants • Opportunity to reflect on perceptions of mentoring

Least helpful content: • Mentoring overview was too slow / covered what was already known

Ideas to apply: • Establishing relationship with mentor • Preparation for first meeting with mentee / mentor • Reflection on own performance • Communication skills

Table 4b: Workshop 2 evaluation

Workshop 2 Stro

ngly

Disa

gree

Disa

gree

Neut

ral /

Unde

cided

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

Agre

e

n % n % n % n % n % The workshop enabled me to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities that I face as an Academic. 1 7.7 -- -- 1 7.7 9 69.2 2 15.4


1 7.7 -- -- 2 15.4 7 53.8 3 23.1

Practical strategies were identified that will enable me to develop further in my role. 1 7.7 -- -- -- -- 7 53.8 5 38.5

Presentation and Structure There was adequate time for discussion and exchange. 1 7.7 -- -- -- -- 7 53.8 5 38.5 The workshop was logically structured. 1 7.7 -- -- 2 15.4 6 46.2 4 30.8 Facilitation supported achieving workshop outcomes. 1 7.7 -- -- -- -- 5 38.5 7 53.8 Organisation Location of venue and facilities were adequate. 1 7.7 -- -- 1 7.7 7 53.8 4 30.8 Room set up, audio and visual aids were appropriate. 1 7.7 -- -- 4 30.8 4 30.8 4 30.8 Follow-up Action I intend to follow up with colleagues present today following the workshop. -- -- -- -- 5 38.5 6 46.2 2 15.4

Transfer I will use what I have learnt after the workshop. 1 7.7 -- -- -- -- 5 38.5 7 53.8 My attitudes or beliefs have changed. -- -- 2 15.4 1 7.7 7 53.8 3 23.1

Most helpful content: • “Everything” • External facilitator • Interactive activities and group work • Practice of communication strategies • Networking


Ideas to apply: • Time management • GROW framework • Understanding others perspectives to improve communication

Table 4c: Workshop 3 evaluation

Workshop 3 St

rong

ly Di

sagr

ee

Disa

gree

Neut

ral /

Unde

cided

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

Agre

e

n % n % n % n % n % The workshop enabled me to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities that I face as an Academic. -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 41.7 7 58.3


-- -- -- -- 2 16.7 5 41.7 5 14.7

Practical strategies were identified that will enable me to develop further in my role. -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 41.7 7 58.3

Presentation and Structure There was adequate time for discussion and exchange. -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 41.7 7 58.3 The workshop was logically structured. -- -- -- -- -- -- 2 16.7 10 83.3 Facilitation supported achieving workshop outcomes. -- -- -- -- -- -- 3 25.0 9 75.0 Organisation Location of venue and facilities were adequate. -- -- -- -- 1 8.3 4 33.3 7 58.3 Room set up, audio and visual aids were appropriate. -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 41.7 7 58.3 Follow-up Action I intend to follow up with colleagues present today following the workshop. -- -- -- -- 5 41.7 3 25.0 4 33.3

Transfer I will use what I have learnt after the workshop. -- -- -- -- -- -- 6 46.2 6 46.2 My attitudes or beliefs have changed. -- -- -- -- 2 15.4 6 46.2 4 30.8

Most helpful content:

• External facilitator • Practical strategies for time management • Understanding that academics face similar challenges

Ideas to apply:

• Time management and productivity strategies – saying No, managing emails and setting boundaries


Table 4d: Workshop 4 evaluation

Workshop 4 St

rong

ly Di

sagr

ee

Disa

gree

Neut

ral /

Unde

cided

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

Agre

e

n % n % n % n % n % The workshop enabled me to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities that I face as an Academic. -- -- -- -- 1 12.5 6 75.0 1 12.5


-- -- -- -- 5 62.5 2 25.0 1 12.5

Practical strategies were identified that will enable me to develop further in my role. -- -- -- -- 2 25.0 3 37.5 2 25.0

Presentation and Structure There was adequate time for discussion and exchange. -- -- -- -- -- -- 6 75.0 2 25.0 The workshop was logically structured. -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 62.5 3 37.5 Facilitation supported achieving workshop outcomes. -- -- -- -- -- -- 6 75.0 2 25.0 Organisation Location of venue and facilities were adequate. -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 62.5 3 37.5 Room set up, audio and visual aids were appropriate. -- -- -- -- -- -- 5 62.5 3 37.5 Follow-up Action I intend to follow up with colleagues present today following the workshop. -- -- -- -- 3 37.5 3 37.5 2 25.0

Transfer I will use what I have learnt after the workshop. -- -- -- -- -- 6 75.0 2 25.0 My attitudes or beliefs have changed. -- 1 12.5 5 62.5 1 12.5 1 12.5

Most helpful content:

• Career planning strategies • Time to think about career planning • Project planning

Least helpful content:

• Career planning Ideas to apply:

• Revision of CV • reflect on values in career planning • SWOT analysis for career / promotion planning • project management principles


Workplace survey Twenty three ECNAs (82.1%) completed the workplace survey. The demographic characteristics of participants are provided in Table 3.

Time spent in each category of academic work Figure 2 demonstrates the proportion of workload the ECNAs perceived that they spent in the three aspects of academic work. Approximately half of their workload was spent in teaching (49%), less than one-third in research (29%), and around 22% in administration and governance.

Figure 3: Time spent in workload

Orientation to academic work Participants were asked to describe the nature of the orientation that they received when commencing at their current institution in relation to teaching, research and administration / governance. Just over half of the participants (n=15; 65.2%) reported that they had received a formal orientation to academia at their institution. The mean perceived usefulness of the orientation received was highest for teaching (mean 2.4; SD 1.97), and less for both research (mean 1.4; SD 0.90) and governance (mean 1.3; SD 1.34). However, as can be seen from Figure 4, participants largely perceived the orientation that they had received as being of limited value.

Research 29%

Governance 22%

Teaching 49%


Figure 4: Perceived value of current orientation program

Satisfaction with academic work Participants were also asked to rate their work satisfaction with each aspect of academic work on a 10-point Likert scale from 1 strongly dissatisfied to 10 completely satisfied. The satisfaction rating for the Teaching category was the highest (mean 7.52; SD 1.50), followed by Governance (mean 6.13; SD 2.28), and finally Research (mean 6.04; SD 1.80). Somewhat surprisingly, overall job satisfaction was rated more highly than satisfaction with any of the individual aspects of academic work (mean 7.57; SD 1.44).

Importance of each category of academic work Participants were asked to rate the perceived importance of each aspect of academic work on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 very unimportant to 5 very important. Research was rated the most important (mean 4.61; SD 0.58), followed by Teaching (mean 4.35; SD 0.89), and then Governance (mean 4.00; SD 0.85). It is somewhat surprising that research was rated as the most important area, particularly given that the least amount of workload was spent on this. However, it may be that research was seen as important to this group because it was this area in which they lacked expertise and needed to build skills and track record for career advancement.

Perceived workplace issues Using findings from Belini (2001) that reported work issues of academics from other settings, ECNAs were asked to assess how well each of the 21 statements described their attitude towards their academic workplace. The top three items with 70% of participants indicating their agreement to these statements were related to: too much time pressures, too much academic work, and difficulty balancing family/home and work responsibilities. Interestingly, inadequate colleague support/collaboration (12%) and lack of collegial trust (17%) had the lowest levels of agreement, indicating that these were perceived as a minor issue for most of the participating ECNAs (Figure 5).

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Teaching Research Governance

% E

CNAs

Not useful at all Not very useful Neutral Somewhat useful Very useful


83%

70%

70%

61%

52%

39%

30%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Career development

Research management

Writing for publication

Computer & software skills

Leadership skills

Time management

Development of teaching aids

Figure 5: Perceptions of work issues

Areas of interest in seeking support and guidance The majority of ECNAs (n=19; 83%) indicated that they were interested in obtaining support or guidance in the broad area of career development, and more than two-thirds (n=16; 70%) were interested in obtaining support in research-related skills (research management and writing for publication). Interestingly, although time pressure was indicated as the top work issue (Figure 5), only 39% (n=9) indicated that they felt that they needed support in the area of time management (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Areas of interest in seeking support and guidance


96%

87%

87%

78%

70%

70%

70%

65%

61%

52%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Treat you well as a colleague

Allow you autonomy to make decisions

Advise you about career development

Provide positive feedback

Give constructive criticism

Suggest activities to enhance your visibility

Critique your work

Advise you about promotion issues

Advise you about leadership opportunities

Promote your activities

Support from senior staff outside the mentoring program Participants were asked about the kinds of support provided by senior staff at their institution over the previous year outside of this project. As can be seen from Figure 7 (below), most participants felt that senior staff treated them well as colleagues, provided advice about career development (95.7%), allowed autonomy to make decisions (87%) and provided positive feedback (78.3%). Fewer participants had experienced senior staff actively facilitating their development through activities such as critiquing their work, providing constructive criticism (69.6%), providing advice about promotion (65.2%) and leadership opportunities (60.9%) or promoting their activities (52.2%).

Figure 7: Support received from senior staff in the last 12 months

Confidence in work activities The ECNAs rated their levels of confidence in performing key academic-related tasks using a 10-point Likert scale from ‘Not at all confident’ (0) to ‘Completely confident’ (9). Of the 57 tasks, 23 (40%) were related to research, 22 (39%) related to the planning and delivery of teaching and 12 (21%) related to engagement and governance activities.

Of these 57 items, 14 items (61%) had an average rating of below 5 points, indicating that most participants were not confident in this activity (Figure 8). Of these 14 items, 9 (64%) were related to research, while the remaining 5 (36%) were related to governance. None of the 14 items with a mean score below 5 were teaching-related activities, suggesting that ECNAs were confident in carrying out the teaching component of their academic work.


3.09

3.13

3.35

3.65

3.78

3.91

4.00

4.00

4.22

4.57

4.74

4.74

4.83

4.96

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Applying for research grants

Chairing academic meetings

Preparing a research budget

Supervising students research projects

Applying for study leave

Leading reserch projects

Liasing with external agencies about research

Working with research assistants

Answering public enquiries

Providing performance feedback to colleagues

Participatin in university wide committees

Conductin pilot studies

Designing research

Analysing research results

Figure 8: Activities with low mean confidence

Online modules Online modules were made available to all participants to access over a period of 8 months. Participants were invited to access and complete these modules via email and were encouraged to engage verbally by their mentors and at project events. A total of 19 participants completed at least one of the two online modules. Table 5: Online module data

No. of participants completed

Academic Leadership module 16 (57.1%) Career Development module 16 (57.1%) Average total hours in spent in module

Academic Leadership module 1 hr 52 minutes Career Development module 1 hr 41 minutes

Average no. of times module accessed per participant Academic Leadership module 3.19 Career Development module 3.81

Average hours spent on website per participant* 8.49 hours

*Other activities on Stream website included participant information, other development resources and ECNA biographies. Average hours include time spent on online modules and other activities


Post-study interviews Post-intervention interviews were undertaken approximately 6 weeks after conclusion of the intervention. This time frame was chosen to allow participants enough time to reflect on their experiences. Participants were interviewed separately; qualitative interviews were guided by a list of topic areas and a series of broad questions (Appendix F). In total interviews were undertaken with 17 ECNAs and 16 mentors. Data saturation was confirmed in both the ECNA and Mentor interview groups. Interviews lasted for between 29 and 68 minutes. These interviews generated a large and rich dataset that provides insight to a range of issues around the implementation of this Project. The complexity of these data means that it requires further comprehensive analysis prior to the publication of findings. Such analysis will be undertaken by the Project team following the submission of this report.

Mentee interview findings Mentees found that participation in the leadership program had multiple benefits. These included being better able to recognise opportunities for development. Rather than seeing something as simply being ‘more work’, there was a sense that openings brought with them opportunities for professional growth and development.

Where there is a unit-coordinator role I just did it. So when that came along I saw that as an opportunity. I put my hand up for it. I put in my expression of interest, that sort of thing. So just seeking opportunities and following through.

Through their narratives participants showed they had been able to reflect on and identify their individual areas of strength and weakness. Time management was raised as an issue for most of the participants, and through the program they revealed enhanced understanding and insight into this aspect of themselves.

I have a diary, I factor in time for research, time for preparing academic stuff for teaching. So it's just a timetable - just a spread sheet and I try and stick with it as much as I possibly can. But obviously things come up and that's when the time schedule goes a bit off… I think what I'm starting to do is actually filter through what I say yes to as a time management strategy. But sometimes I do see things that I think are really good but right now maybe it's just going to be an extra burden on my plate, so I do prioritise. So when I do look at my timelines, I prioritise. I also make sure now, which I never used to do, is that if I do set something for an hour that - like, if I do have a meeting that runs for an hour that it finishes at an hour, it doesn't finish at an hour-and-a-half. I try and keep to the timelines. It's just developing strategies around how I can end sessions or conversations, so I don't fall way behind.


Those participants who had recognised a need to better manage their time were able to apply the skills learned through participating in the program, to enhance time management.

I work better in the mornings so I come into work quite early because I don't work very well in the afternoons. I think to have good time management you actually need to be really super organised. I think in academia it's really easy to get distracted.

In addition to developing insight into their challenges around time management, participants were able to describe the strategies they had developed to mitigate their challenges

I'm starting to only check my emails in the morning and then not checking them until the following morning. So it doesn’t actually distract me from my work.

The insight gained allowed the participants to ensure the strategies they adopted were appropriate and effectively met their needs.

I tend to work really good with deadlines even though I might leave it until the last minute but if there's a deadline - if I don't have a deadline I procrastinate but if I have a deadline it's really good. So I'll make some deadlines for myself. I diarise everything and as I said I make a list and prioritise and there are always going to be some things that are going to come up that needs to be done yesterday. So I try when I make my deadlines, I don't make - if something is due on the Wednesday I try and bring the deadline for myself forward so that in case anything does turn up that needs to be done in a hurry I still have time.

One of the benefits participants perceived was the idea of forward planning, and taking a considered and strategic approach to optimally manage the demands on them.

I always like to think at least one or two weeks ahead so I know what's going on in two weeks. So I don't like things, often, just creeping up on me or forgetting about things. So I like to like, for example, today semester has already started, we're in week two, I need week four content done so I've just done that. So I'm always two weeks ahead in case things come up.

Participants expressed a growing understanding that they did have considerable autonomy in their work. The initial interviews had suggested a sense that they had to take things on that they may have been reluctant to embrace. However, these post-intervention interviews highlighted the understanding that they could decline some things and participants described the factors that formed their decision making around involvement in activities.


I look at what's involved, the time expected. I don't want to commit to something if I'm thinking it's only going to be a small commitment but in the end it's going to be a huge commitment. So I need to know exactly what they expect of me, if I'm being involved in a project, because I'd want to give it 100 per cent, so I don't want to go in half-heartedly. Yeah, the time - what they want to achieve or what the goals are of the project and the impact, the long term impact of the project in a way.

Similarly, other participants, while not recognised strategies as time management, had reflected on how to best use their time to achieve the best possible outcomes.

I think it's just getting the job done. I don't think there's even any time management strategy. I do find that I do like to be here in the office so for me working from home is a distraction because there's always something that I could be doing better... Because the washing needs to be done or something needs to be done or before you know it the kids are home from school and you've achieved maybe an hour or two to work. Whereas if I come into the office yes my travel's included but I can get a good six, seven hours of work time. So for me coming to the office is probably the best thing for managing my time.

Mentees acknowledged the program enhanced their self-confidence and some perceived this gave them greater control over their workloads. Through being discriminating in what they took on, participants not only gained more of a sense of autonomy in their daily working lives, but that they were better able to meet their personal and professional goals.

I think it [the program] has given me more confidence and it has actually inspired me to continue in my studies.

Because I think I've probably learned some of those too from her [mentor], from modelling the way that she is and the way she manages her workload. One of the things also is that she's been really helpful in building my confidence to say no that I can't - I'm sorry, I can't help you with that; my workload is full.

I think - look one of the main [benefits of the program] is that point of having a lot more confidence in what it is that I'm doing.

The importance of relationships was highlighted with participants coming to recognise the real value of strong positive relationships with colleagues, and the role colleagues could play in providing assistance, encouragement and support on a day-to-day basis.

Well, yeah, I think if you didn't have good relationships with people that you're working with, yeah, well they're going to be less likely to help you or guide you.


The importance of relationships and how they could assist in personal development and professional enhancement came through strongly for the participants, and these relationships included mentor, collegial and peer relationships. Participants felt that the program had assisted them in extending their professional networks.

I think the mentoring was fantastic and I've really developed a really good relationship with my mentor and they've offered me a lot of different opportunities. … I think is fantastic to be able to access this person and have some advice and it's a really nice network of people that are quite collegial and who I have a great relationship with.

Participants developed greater understandings of the role and the potential role of a mentor in their careers. The strategy of handing autonomy to the mentees and allowing them to select a mentor to work with was very successful and participants voiced their appreciation of that aspect. Indeed, some participants suggested that had they not been able to select their own mentor, they would have opted out of the program.

I wouldn't have accepted being appointed one (mentor). I probably then would have said look, I don't think I'll continue with the project. That was not how I would like to see it go.

Perhaps because they had selected their mentors themselves, most participants were very happy with their choices and felt they were a good match with that person, given their interests and stage of career.

My mentor has been really helpful to me. You said I didn't need to mention one particular person, but I chose her and I chose her because I like her qualities; I admire her qualities and her experience. I know that she communicates in a way that would be beneficial for me.

Participants were able to provide a quite detailed rationale for their choices and this showed the care they took in making their selection of mentor.

I selected my mentors well and not through the advice of anyone else. It was based on my own initiative to pick this person and I think it was really based on they're quite an excellent write and really excel in that area. They publish really widely but I know from local knowledge that they're really respected as a teacher and a researcher.

Participants described having more formed ideas about the nature of leadership and what is required to be an effective leader. It was pleasing to note that many participants were able to identify positive leadership attributes in themselves, and could see themselves as future leaders.

I think probably the greatest strength for me has been developing my role as a team leader…that’s probably my greatest strength I would say.


The act of choosing mentors and also reflecting on their own leadership attributes and potential had made them see the importance of reputation, and of gathering evidence to support claims of expertise.

It’s about how you - I can’t think of how to describe this - it’s how you develop your role in a way that has almost like evidence to support what you’re doing. I think that’s the thing that I’ve got most out of the relationship, that’s it’s all about evidence and reputation kind of comes and goes. What you need is the evidence to support that. If your reputation’s going to be sustained, it’s got to have evidence to support it.

Mentor interview findings Overall mentors were positive about their involvement in the program. They enjoyed the opportunity of being able to work with and support the development of younger, aspirational colleagues.

Overall in terms of the experience it has been a very positive experience. Both of them were aspiring, I suppose, junior academics who really want to make some sort of difference for both in the academic career. So it has been positive in terms of me and I think it's been quite positive for them as well.

Mentors were motivated by the desire to be a positive presence for colleagues and to share the wisdom they had acquired throughout their careers, and the extensive knowledge of the university system.

I see a mentor as a guide, I guess as a shepherd or a facilitator, someone who's guiding. So in the context of this project, I see that the mentor was - in a project looking at nurse academics, someone who's mentoring in relation to - I guess it's primarily about career progression if that's what the mentee is interested in, and how to facilitate that.

Some mentors did not see that there was anything in mentoring for them; rather that all the benefit was one way, toward the mentee.

I see mentoring mainly is for them. I don't see it, it's primary for me. I think you mentor because - I was seeing mentoring as more an altruistic thing that you go into that because you want people to have a - I suppose a more efficient, better positive experience in the academic career in this case academic mentoring. Then what I've been through and basically, they have a more positive experience, a more hopefully truncated and not going through so many detours in terms of the academy journey, that they can fast track that they don't have to go through that detour that perhaps I've been through. So supporting them both in terms of all areas that I can support them in.


However, there were clear benefits for some mentors in the area of shared publication and other opportunities. mentors described their perceptions of benefits to their mentees and these benefits included, increased confidence and certainty of what was needed to advance their careers and the benefits associated with having a professional confidante.

What she got out of it was a greater awareness of what she's going to have to do if she is planning rip ahead in her career. The second person, major benefit, I think just being someone to listen to her to be honest. I don't think it was necessarily a mentor. I think it was just someone who didn't know her, didn't know her at all and someone who just was a willing ear.

While overall the experiences were positive, difficulties were experienced by some of the mentors and these included mentees with an unrealistic expectation of what a mentor could do and what their role was. For others, there were some boundary issues, and this highlights the need for clear boundaries in these relationships.


Chapter 4 Conclusions

Overview This chapter highlights the key findings of the project and explores the strengths and limitations of the program. Chapter 5 also identifies and discusses the factors that facilitated or were barriers to the conduct of the project. A discussion of the implications of the findings for nursing academia and the higher education sector is also provided as are recommendations for the future.

Summary of key findings From this project is can be concluded that ECNAs;

• have a non-traditional academic career trajectory, whereby they have often worked in the clinical setting following their baccalaureate education and may not have undertaken formal post-graduate study. In particular, they often have limited research training.

• face significant challenges in entering academia as they frequently have not completed a higher degree and, as a result of their time in the clinical workforce, are at a life stage where they have significant personal responsibilities.

• come from a fairly structured environment in the clinical workplace, with a clear hierarchy, into a less structured environment in academia. This can create a need for the development of key skills in time management, autonomous working and self-management.

• do not feel that current orientation and support programs are adequate to facilitate their effective transition into academia.

• struggle to balance the need to spend time on professional development and capacity building activities with the competing demands on their time.

• tend to focus on development opportunities that relate to promotion criteria rather than skill development in the craft of academia.

• need the support of their line managers and academic peers to integrate professional development into their workload.

• value time to reflect on their personal career goals and input from peers and mentors in supporting their professional development.

From the development and implementation of this leadership program it can be concluded that;

• early career academics from practice disciplines, such as nursing, may need additional support compared to academics from other disciplines to build leadership capacity within academia.

• formal mentoring programs should be readily available to early career academics and participation in such programs adequately recognised by employing institutions and line managers.


• strategies to promote engagement of academics in leadership capacity building activities need to be evaluated. These strategies may include; ways to recognise participation (e.g. workload time, certification, credit towards qualification) and alignment of completion with probation and/or promotion criteria.

• a key challenge underpinning capacity building of ECNAs was their “busyness”. All academics need to engage in critical reflection around how they manage their workload both on a day-to-day basis and in terms of their career trajectory. In addition to individual capacity building around time management and personal productivity, teams need to actively and regularly explore strategies for streamlining work practices.

• the mentoring program was highly valued by most ECNAs. However, despite this positive feedback, it was challenging for mentee-mentor pairs to meet regularly.

• given the historical lack of formal mentoring in nursing academia, further and ongoing development of nurse academic mentors is required to optimise their role as academic mentors for ECNAs.

• the face-to-face workshops were well received by those who attended. Bringing individuals at a similar career stage together to focus on leadership development issues with an external facilitator was highly valued. However, a number of participants did not attend despite identifying skill deficits that were the focus of the workshop.

• the planning of online modules for career development needs to incorporate active strategies to promote engagement. For example; use of content as a discussion point for mentoring sessions.

• there is a need for nursing academia and individual academics to consider how they define success as an academic. It was identified that there is a need to recognise and take pride in achievements at all levels and in all areas of academia, rather than focussing on promotion and academic grade. It should be recognised that individuals can be leaders at all levels of academia. It was postulated that this phenomenon may have stemmed from the reductions in wage faced by some nurses in the move from clinical expert to new academic.

• high quality, regular appraisals that provide informed and constructive critique of individual performance would assist individuals to develop and maintain a development plan that would facilitate leadership capacity building.

• the opportunity for ECNAs to formally develop mentoring relationships with experienced academics contributed to an increase in participation in higher degree study, submission of papers for publication and engagement in targeted professional development activities.


Limitations There are several limitations of this project, namely;

• as the online modules were being delivered to staff across two universities it was difficult to find a common platform on which to deliver this content. At the time of the study, both groups of staff accessed their professional development activities via their institutions’ human resources portal. It was not possible for these two systems to either share a module or provide access for non-staff. As it was possible for UTS staff to be given guest access, we provided the modules on a UWS Blackboard learning site. There was some feedback from staff that they did not engage fully because hosting the module on this type of site made it appear like a student resource rather than a professional development activity for staff.

• there was a relatively small number of ECNAs who participated in the program. Whilst the program involved 28 ECNAs this represented the majority of those who met the inclusion criteria at the two participating institutions at the time of recruitment. During the course of the program four ECNAs took periods of maternity leave and a further two participants left the participating institutions. This had variable impact on their involvement in the remainder of the program.

• following the funding of this project one of the participating institutions required some staff to complete a compulsory teaching and learning foundations course. This added to some participants competing demands and reduced their engagement in this non-compulsory program.

• whilst the project aimed to produce resources that could be adapted for use in other discipline areas, evaluating the adaption and implementation of the resources in other disciplines was beyond the scope of this project. Therefore, whilst the acceptability and feasibility of the program was evaluated in the context of nursing academia, further research is required to evaluate its implementation across disciplines.

Factors facilitating success A number of factors facilitated the successful implementation of the project. These were;

a) Support of senior staff The support of the project by the Deans and Senior Staff of each School provided credibility to the Project and facilitated its acceptance by both mentors and ECNAs.

b) Expertise of workshop facilitators It was important for the workshop facilitators to be experts in their area and be experienced in delivering materials to academics to promote engagement of the participant group and optimise their learning. Having an external expert also created a safe environment which allowed participants to engage more freely as the facilitator had no previous or ongoing relationship with them.


c) Recognition of participation Many of the participants in this project sought to use their participation as evidence for performance evaluations or employment / promotion applications. To this end a Certificate was provided as evidence of the specific activities completed by each participant (Appendix G). This certificate was highly valued by participants.

d) Geographical proximity of partner institutions The relatively close geographical proximity of the partner institutions meant that linkages could be made across institutions. For example, some ECNAs had mentors from the other institution and workshops 2-4 were held as combined events for all participants. This added a dimension to capacity building that would not have been available if distant institutions were involved.

e) Reference group This project had several enthusiastic reference group members who provided invaluable insight into the project and its implementation. Of particular assistance were those members who brought expertise from outside the disciplines of nursing and midwifery who could offer the project team a different perspective of the issues being faced and juxtapose this on their experience in other disciplines to highlight similarities and differences. Whilst no comparative data was collected, input from a broad range of disciplines provides context for the overall piece of work.

Challenges The implementation of this project raised several challenges for the Project team, namely;

a) Inclusion of midwives The initial application for funding of this project was made in response to a discipline specific call for funding and so we referred to “nursing” as the discipline of interest. Upon the commencement of recruitment it became apparent that this language excluded the many midwives who were employed in the partner institutions. Once this issue was recognised, care was taken to adapt the language used in project materials to be more inclusive of midwifery as well as nurse academics.

b) Competing priorities The ECNAs, mentors and Project team were all very busy academics who constantly had competing demands for their time. Despite attempts to schedule face-to-face events well in advance and during periods of teaching breaks, the busyness of participants impacted on their engagement and attendance. There was also an element of individual readiness to engage in this kind of capacity building project that impacted on participation. Whilst it was intended at the outset of the program that ECNAs would participate in each of the activities, their engagement and attendance was variable for a range of reasons. These reasons included; maternity leave (4 participants), leaving the participating institution during the study (2 participants) and general schedule clashes / busyness.


c) Project team issues Three project team members changed employers during the life of the project, one to the other partner institution and two to non-partner institutions, one located overseas. This had a significant impact on the dynamics of the project team and increased the difficulty in managing the project. In particular, the time zone differences made scheduling team meetings more complex. Additionally, the busy schedules of project team members made it difficult for members to attend project functions. It was also difficult to delegate roles when team members had changed work and personal circumstances, numerous competing priorities and periods of illness.

d) Project staff issues Following delays in initial recruitment of a Project Manager, the individual initially recruited was offered a full-time teaching contract by one of the partner institutions mid-way through the project. This led to a period without project support staff before new project staff could be recruited. This represented a significant challenge in terms of maintaining momentum in the project and promoting continued engagement of project participants. Even with funding available to support this position it was challenging to recruit appropriately skilled staff for a fixed term appointment. A significant amount of the Project Leaders time was required to facilitate the recruitment process. Greater administrative and human resources support from the administering institution would have greatly reduced this burden.

e) Lack of skills in online module development The project team recognised early on that, despite having expertise in curriculum development and planning of learning modules, they lacked sufficient IT expertise to develop their written module outlines into interactive online activities. Several attempts to link with external institutions to engage with their IT expertise were unsuccessful. It was fortuitous timing that UWS engaged staff within their Teaching Development Unit with the requisite IT skills at around this time. This led the project team to work closely with these staff to develop a very positive collaborative working relationship that facilitated the design and delivery of the modules.

f) Working with an evaluator Members of the project team were all experienced nurse researchers, however, they had limited experience in working with an external evaluator prior to this project. During the course of the project we have found the relationship with the evaluator challenging. There has been some confusion as to the evaluators’ role within the overall project and difficulties in maintaining regular contact, as the evaluator has been on periods of leave during the life of the project.

g) Reference group issues This project had a large reference group that brought together a range of experts from both across Australia and internationally. Many of these individuals had senior academic roles. Whilst this had the potential to significantly inform the project, it also provided a challenge for the Project team. In particular, it was difficult for all Reference Group members to


attend face-to-face meetings or participate in teleconferences. To mitigate this issue additional consultation was undertaken via group and individual email and individual telephone calls to key experts. Future projects should consider the size of the reference group required and the potential to include key experts who hold less senior positions and may have more time to actively contribute to the project.

h) Peer observation of teaching An initial component of the model for this project was peer observation of teaching. Whilst we attempted to implement this within the program as it was delivered, it was not successfully implemented. This occurred for several reasons. Firstly, a significant proportion of participants had just completed or were undertaking a compulsory teaching and learning course within their University. This course included a peer-observation component. As these individual had recently undertaken or were about to undertake this activity they were reluctant to repeat it within such a short time. Secondly, delays in the project timeline as a result of project staff recruitment meant that the timing of this activity coincided with mid semester break and extended student clinical placements. This significantly reduced the days of teaching available for participants to engage in peer observation. As so few participants completed this activity and submitted their reflections it has not been included in this report.

i) Peer networking Within the initial project proposal formal peer networking across institutions was a proposed activity. There were mixed feelings about this from participants. Whilst some participants were enthusiastic about building their professional network, others were reluctant to engage with participants from the partner institution. Most ECNAs participated in the first step of this activity by updating their biography on their university webpage and providing the link to be shared with other participating ECNAs. These links were accompanied by keywords that identified relevant clinical and teaching interests for each participant. Unfortunately the release of this list coincided with periods of sick leave of the project officer. Although some ECNAs made contact with each other, they were reluctant to report this information back to the project team and so the extent of this contact and impact was impossible to measure.

Lessons for implementing future projects Experience in developing and implementing this discipline specific leadership capacity building program has led to several key lessons that can inform future projects. These lessons are; 1. Attracting and retaining suitably qualified project staff for a relatively short, fixed-term

contract is difficult. Support from experts in staff recruitment has the potential to significantly reduce the administrative burden related to recruitment on the Project Leader.

2. The objectivity of using an external body to administer the online surveys was an important strategy to reduce perceived coercion and facilitate participation, particularly given the close relationship between the project team and some participants.


3. Strategies need to be developed to promote engagement of all project team members throughout the life of the project. When an individual’s circumstances change, open discussions need to be held to discuss the implications of these changes on the individuals’ role in the project and to adjust the responsibilities of other team members.

4. Whilst the content of some of the workshops could have feasibly been delivered by members of the project team or staff at participating institutions, engaging external “experts” to deliver these sessions was highly valued by participants.

5. The reference group provided a unique insight into the project from outside the discipline. As a discipline specific project the project team were all nurses or midwives. Consultation with members of the reference group who were not nurses or midwives provided a useful insight into the work that might otherwise have been missed.

6. In order to engage and retain participants in an academic leadership program, it is necessary to;

a) demonstrate convincing benefits for the individual to the individual.

b) maintain prominent exposure of the program in the workplace.

c) demonstrate recognition of the value of the program at a School / Faculty and University level.

d) have project champions who are recognised leaders that will actively advocate for the project across its life.

e) have regular face-to-face contact between participants and project team members.

f) provide participants with regular updates about the project, its progress and their roles via email or electronic newsletter.

g) provide participants with a detailed record of their participation that can be used as evidence of professional development.

Lessons for leadership development of early career academics Experience in the development and implementation of the leadership program for ENCAs in this study has led to several important lessons for future capacity building in this group. These lessons are as follows; 1. Nurses and midwives, and likely others from practice based disciplines, often enter

academia from clinical practice without a doctorate or formal research training. They are often at a life stage where they have complex personal (e.g. mortgage) and family commitments (e.g. young children) that make concurrent higher degree study challenging. The clinical practice environment in disciplines such as nursing is also often fairly structured. Moving from the clinical environment into academia may, therefore present significant challenges for the ECNA (McDermid, et al., 2012). Understanding how these challenges differ from those facing new academics from other non-practice disciplines may assist in developing programs to better meet the needs of ECNAs.


2. Given the historical lack of formal capacity building programs around academic leadership in disciplines such as nursing, future programs need to explicitly focus on developing leadership and mentoring capacity amongst established academics in order to embed sustainable support for ECNAs.

3. Given the time-poor nature of the target group and the competing priorities that they face, careful consideration needs to be given to the strategies to promote participation in professional development programs. Despite self-identification of skill deficits in key areas addressed by this program, some participants still chose not to engage in relevant activities. A key issue that needs to be considered here is which capacity building activities should be embedded within formal probation programs and/or promotion tracks.

Policy recommendations for universities As a result of this project the following policy recommendations are made to guide policy development around new academics; 1. There is a need to consider the nature of the specific profession and discipline area

rather than having one size fits all policies for new and continuing academic staff.

2. Formal mentoring programs should be made available to all ECNAs

3. Participation in career development programs should be actively supported by the employing institution and individual department. Such support might include reduced workload or teaching relief.

Evaluation An external evaluator, Dr Leigh Wood participated in an external evaluation of the project. This report concludes that this was an important and ambitious project that largely met its intended outcomes. It also highlights the challenge that the project faced in retaining academics in a longitudinal program given the existing time pressures on this group, stating that “the reality of time pressures on academics meant that many valuable opportunities were not taken up”. The evaluation further identifies that the project has the potential to inform universities in the development of policy for new academics.

Conclusion This report has detailed the conduct of the ALTC funded project, Developing and implementing a leadership capacity building program for teaching and learning in nursing. The report outlines the development of the leadership capacity building program for ECNAs and its implementation across the nursing and midwifery faculties at the University of Western Sydney and University of Technology Sydney. It describes how the project uses and advances existing knowledge around academic leadership development, as well as exploring the challenges faced in implementing the project.


The development of leadership capacity amongst academics within a discipline and the embedding of a leadership development model within academia occurs over far longer than the two year lifespan of this project. However, the strategies that have comprised this model have provided opportunities for leadership development amongst participating ECNAs. The implementation of this project has provided effective supports for these individuals to develop key leadership skills to underpin their academic career.

Given the current political and industrial emphasis on ensuring the quality of tertiary education and preparedness of graduates for the workplace, the need to embed quality leadership capacity building initiatives for the early career academics who comprise the teaching teams is timely. This kind of program is essential in practice disciplines, such as nursing, where individuals often enter academia at a different life stage to other disciplines, following a period of experience in clinical practice. There is a real need for institutions to engage with the nature of the early career academic workforce in practice disciplines at a policy and planning level to embed strategies that recognise and reward staff development and capacity building.


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Appendix A. Pre-Intervention Interview Schedule

Experiences of being an Academic

What do you find satisfying in your role as an academic?

What opportunities have there been for you to develop as an academic? Were you happy / satisfied with these opportunities?

Support

Can you tell me about the kinds of support you’ve received in your role as an academic? Who has provided this support? Do you consider that this has been adequate?

Information

How do you find out information related to your role? Is there someone you can go to for information? What role does that person have?

Are you happy with the level of information provided to you so that you can perform your role? If not, what information would you have liked?

Leadership program

What do you expect to get out of your participation in this program?

Leadership

What are the main attributes that are important for a leader in academia?

Have you experienced those attributes in a leader yourself? If someone has those attributes what effect does it have on others?


Appendix B. 360 Survey Tool PART 1 Part 1 uses a special scale: “Do less/ Do more” (-2 to +2). This is NOT a 1 to 5 rating scale! Consider the items and indicate whether you think you should do less, as now or do more of each behaviour to be more effective at work. Example “Meeting clients regularly”

I should: -2 Do a lot less

-1 Do a bit less

As now

1 Do a bit more

2 Do a lot more

“Meet clients regularly”

The box you select means:

I should meet clients a lot less to be

more effective

I should meet clients a bit less to be

more effective As now

I should meet clients a bit more to be

more effective

I should meet clients a lot more to be

more effective

PART 2 Part 2 uses a “Disagree/Agree” scale (1 to 5). Consider the items and indicate whether you agree or disagree with the statement. Example: “I am someone people can rely on”

I think that…

Stro

ngly

/ dis

agre

e

Disa

gree

Neith

er

agre

e /

disag

ree

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

agre

e

“I am someone people can rely on” The items have been selected to give the best chance of covering your views. Leave as few blanks as possible.

PART 1: “DO LESS/ DO MORE” SCALE People Leadership


-1 Do a bit less

As now

1 Do a bit more

2 Do a lot more

1. Be seen as an expert in my area of work 2. Be willing to ‘get my hands dirty’ 3. Build relationships at own level and above 4. Stand up for others when they’re attacked 5. Pay tribute to the Research Group/ School/Faculty’s

achievements

6. Show trust in the Research Group/ School/ Faculty’s ability

7. Give full and timely information about changes 8. Reveal own thoughts and feelings 9. Be consistent, both in words and deeds 10. Treat people equally and value diversity

Do you have any comments in relation to People Leadership (above)? Are there any strengths or areas for development you would like to mention? (max. 150 words):


People Management


-1 Do a bit less

As now

1 Do a bit more

2 Do a lot more

11. Show consideration and respect for others 12. Show concern about others needs and work-life

balance

13. Actively seek opportunities for teamwork 14. Get issues and concerns openly aired 15. ‘Let go’ to help others develop their abilities 16. Involve others in decisions affecting them 17. Seek and act on feedback 18. Allocate (and use) time to visit others 19. Thank others in ways they appreciate 20. Provide recognition/reward straight away

Do you have any comments in relation to People Management (above)? Are there any strengths or areas for development you would like to mention? (max. 150 words):

Task Management


-1 Do a bit less

As now

1 Do a bit more

2 Do a lot more

21. Monitor and review others performance with them 22. Initiate and support professional development 23. Adequately staff the work to be done 24. Get the right structure, processes and technology 25. Seek continuous improvement in output 26. Manage my time 27. Consider several options before deciding 28. Manage own stress and emotion 29. Agree clear roles and responsibilities for others 30. Agree clear key result areas and priorities for others

Do you have any comments in relation to Task Management (above)? Are there any strengths or areas for development you would like to mention? (max. 150 words):

Task Leadership


-1 Do a bit less

As now

1 Do a bit more

2 Do a lot more

31. Move outside my ‘comfort zone’ 32. Make clear-cut and timely decisions 33. Be assertive 34. tackle long-standing ‘difficult’ issues 35. Think beyond (outside) the organisation 36. Focus on the Research Group / School / Faculty’s

‘customers’ and/or stakeholders

37. Be creative and innovative 38. Emphasise the need for ideas from others 39. Give a sense of purpose and direction to the Research

Group/School/Faculty

40. Anticipate problems/risks and take early action


Do you have any comments in relation to Task Leadership (above)? Are there any strengths or areas for development you would like to mention? (max. 150 words):

PART 2: NEW SCALE “DISAGREE/ AGREE” Nursing Leadership Behaviours

I think that…

Stro

ngly

Disa

gree

Disa

gree

Neith

er

agre

e /

dias

agre

e

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

agre

e

41. I put others best interests ahead of my own 42. I do everything I can to serve others 43. I am someone who others would turn to if they had a personal trauma 44. I am alert to what’s happening 45. I offer compelling reasons to get others to do things 46. I encourage others to dream ‘big dreams’ about the organisation 47. I am good at anticipating the consequences of decisions 48. I am good at helping others with their emotional issues 49. I have great awareness of what is going on 50. I am very persuasive 51. I believe that the organisation needs to play a moral role in society 52. I am talented at helping others to heal emotionally 53. I seem to be in touch with what’s happening 54. I am good at convincing others to do things 55. I believe that our organisation should function as a community 56. I sacrifice my own interests to meet the needs of others 57. I am someone who can help others get past setbacks 58. I am gifted when it comes to persuading others 59. I see the potential for our organisation to contribute to society 60. I encourage others to have a community spirit in the workplace 61. I go above and beyond the call of duty to meet others needs 62. I seem to know what is going to happen 63. I contribute to the organisation’s ability to make a positive difference in

the future

Do you have any comments in relation to the Nursing Leadership Behaviours (above)? Are there any strengths or areas for development you would like to mention? (max. 150 words):


Appendix C. Mentoring Summary Form

MENTEE NAME:

MENTORING MEETING SUMMARY For: January 2011 (please select month and year)

___________________________________________________________________________ Date: Time: Duration: LOCATION:

Office Food outlet Meeting Room Off campus Phone Online Chat Email Other

TOPICS COVERED:

Research Teaching Self Development Career Development University processes/policies Personal issues Other (please write comment below)

COMMENTS: DATE OF OUR NEXT MEETING:

Please complete and email to: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Appendix D. Workshop Evaluation Form STREAM Project Workshop Evaluation Form

Thank you for your participation in the workshop. We would appreciate your assistance in completing the following evaluation. Your feedback will assist in the developing and planning of future workshops.

ARE YOU A MENTEE ARE YOU A MENTOR

Please provide your rating for each statement below;

Workshop outcomes St

rong

ly Di

sagr

ee

Disa

gree

Neutr

al / U

ndec

ided

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

Agre

e

The workshop enabled me to reflect upon the challenges and opportunities that I face as an academic.


Practical strategies were identified that will enable me to develop further in my role

Presentation and structure There was adequate time for discussion and exchange. The workshop was logically structured. Facilitation supported achieving workshop outcomes. Organisation Location of venue and facilities were adequate. Room set up, audio and visual aids were appropriate. Follow-up Action I intend to follow up with colleagues present today following the workshop. Transfer I will use what I have learnt after the workshop. My attitudes or beliefs have changed.

REACTION What aspects of the workshop were most helpful? What aspects of the workshop were least helpful? What suggestions do you have for improvements in the next workshops? What aspects could be improved or omitted? Learning What is one significant idea from the workshop that will apply now? Was there an idea/area you were confused about?


Appendix E. Workplace Survey Tool 1. Leadership & Management behaviours

How important it is for an ideal Leader to...? Very

un

impo

rtant

Not

impo

rtant

Neith

er

Impo

rtant

/ un

impo

rtant

Impo

rtant

Very

im

porta

nt

Be seen as an expert in his/her area of work Be willing to 'get his/her hands dirty' Build relationships at own level and above Stand up for others when they're attacked Pay tribute to the Research Group/School/Faculty's achievements Show trust in the Research Group/School/Faculty's ability Give full and timely information about changes Reveal own thoughts and feelings Be consistent, both in words and deeds Treat people equally and value diversity Show consideration and respect for others Show concern about others' needs and work-life balance Actively seek opportunities for teamwork Get issues and concerns openly aired 'Let go' to help others develop their abilities Involve others in decisions affecting them Seek and act on feedback Allocate (and use) time to visit others Thank others in ways that they appreciate Provide recognition/reward straight away Monitor and review others' performance with them Initiate and support professional development Adequately staff the work to be done Get the right structure, processes and technology Seek continuous improvement in output Manage his/her time Consider several options before deciding Manage his/her stress and emotion Agree clear roles and responsibilities for others Agree clear key result areas and priorities for others Move outside his/her 'comfort zone' Make clear-cut and timely decisions Be assertive Tackle long-standing 'difficult' issues Think beyond (outside) the organisation Focus on the Research Group/School/Faculty's 'customers' and/or stakeholders

Be creative and innovative Emphasise the need for ideas from others Give a sense of purpose & direction to the Research Group / School / Faculty Anticipate problems/risks and take early action

Additional comments about the 'Leadership & Management behaviours' section above:


2. Work satisfaction How satisfied are you currently with your work in each of the following domains?

Strongly dissatisfied 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Completely

Satisfied Teaching Research

Governance Overall Job Satisfaction

What proportion of time (%) do you spend in the following aspect of your academic work?

Teaching [ Please Select ] Research [ Please Select ] Governance [ Please Select ] Total =

How important are the following aspects of your academic work to you? Ve

ry un

impo

rtant

Not

impo

rtant

Neith

er

impo

rtant/

un

impo

rtant

Impo

rtant

Very

impo

rtant

Teaching Research

Governance Additional comments about the 'Work satisfaction' section above): 3. Support from senior staff In the past 12 months, outside of this program, did senior staff at your institution do the following?

No Yes Advise you about career development Advise you about promotion issues Critique your work Suggest activities to enhance your visibility Advise you about opportunities for leadership Give constructive criticism Promote your activities Allow you autonomy to make decisions Treat you well as a colleague Provide positive feedback

Additional comments about the 'Support from senior staff' section above – optional (max. 150 words): 4. Perception of work issues

The statements below describe the experiences reported by academics in various settings. Please

assess how well each statement describes your current attitude St

rong

ly Di

sagr

ee

Disa

gree

Neutr

al

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

Agre

e

N/A

Difficulty balancing family/home and work responsibilities Concern with burnout Inadequate salary Too little control over daily work life


The statements below describe the experiences reported by academics in various settings. Please

assess how well each statement describes your current attitude St

rong

ly Di

sagr

ee

Disa

gree

Neutr

al

Agre

e

Stro

ngly

Agre

e

N/A

Too many time pressures Promotion criteria too difficult to attain Lack of collegial trust Inadequate recognition for clinical work Too much administrative work Inadequate recognition for teaching Too much pressure to obtain external research funding Lack of support for research (e.g. space, equipment, staff) Feel isolated at work Inadequate colleague support/collaboration Feel stressed beyond a comfortable, energising level Insufficient job security Lack of leadership opportunities Personality conflicts Inadequate time for academic pursuits Feel overloaded all the time Too much pressure to publish papers Additional comments about the 'Perception of work issues' section above – optional (max. 150 words): 5. Confidence in work activities

RESEARCH

How confident are you in performing the following tasks? No

t at a

ll co

nfide

nt

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Comp

letely

Co

nfide

nt

Keeping up to date with research literature Generating research ideas Reviewing literature for a research project Expressing your ideas in writing Designing research Conducting pilot studies Collecting data Using computer software Analysing research results Leading research projects Collaborating with colleagues about research Working with research assistants Delivering research findings at staff seminars Preparing conference papers Attending conferences Delivering conference papers Writing journal articles Reviewing journal articles Supervising students' research projects



t at a

ll co

nfide

nt

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Comp

letely

Co

nfide

nt

Submitting papers for publication Applying for research grants Preparing a research budget Applying for study leave

TEACHING


t at a

ll co

nfide

nt

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Comp

letely

Co

nfide

nt

Delivering lectures Keeping up to date and revising lecture material Preparing tutorials Delivering tutorials Using information technologies (ICT) Selecting reading materials Preparing handouts Revising teaching strategies Facilitating student discussion in class Consulting with students Designing subject assessment Setting exams Preparing assignments Marking assignments Assessing students' skills Providing feedback on assessment items Assigning grades Responding to student feedback Developing subjects Consulting with colleagues about coursework Supervising the teaching in a subject Coordinating subjects

OTHER UNIVERSITY AND EXTERNAL ACTIVITIES


t at a

ll co

nfide

nt

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Comp

letely

Co

nfide

nt

Participating in school committees Participating in university-wide committees Chairing academic meetings Participating in professional associations Answering public enquiries



t at a

ll co

nfide

nt

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Comp

letely

Co

nfide

nt

Advising prospective students Entertaining visitors on campus Consulting professionally Liaising with external agencies about research Liaising with external agencies about coursework Providing feedback to colleagues about performance Participating in courses/programs outside the University

In which of the following areas are you interested in support/guidance (tick all that apply): 1. Writing for publication 5. Development of Leadership skills 2. Development of teaching skills 6. Time Management 3. Career development 7. Computer/Software skills 4. Research management 8. Other (please specify)

Additional comments about the 'Confidence in work activities' section above – optional (max. 150 words): 6. Demographics

6.1 Your gender: [ Please Select ] 6.2 Your age group: [ Please Select ] 6.3 Your current job title: [ Please Select ] 6.4 On what basis are you currently employed? [ Please Select ] 6.5 In what year did you first qualify as a nurse/midwife? [ Please Select ] 6.6 What is your highest nursing qualification? [ Please Select ] 6.7 What is your highest formal teaching/education qualification? [ Please Select ] 6.8 Did you receive a formal orientation to academia at UWS/UTS? [ Please Select ] 6.9 If you received a formal orientation to academia at UWS/UTS, how helpful was it to your roles in:

a. Teaching? [ Please Select ] b. Research? [ Please Select c. Governance? [ Please Select ]

6.10 Before you were employed by UWS/UTS, were you employed by another University as an academic? If so, on what basis? Tick more than one if applicable.

i. Not previously employed by another University ii. Permanent staff iii. Short term contract iv. Sessional Teacher/Clinical Facilitator v. Other (please specify)

6.11 How long were you employed at the above institution (if applicable)? [ Please Select ] 6.12 If you are currently employed by another University, please specify the general nature of your work:

[Please Select ]


Appendix F. Post-Intervention Interview Schedule

Mentees 1. Can you elaborate on how you use your research time? 2. Is a substantial amount of your work time taken up by administration? If so, can you explain

how? 3. What time management strategies do you use? Do you think they are effective? 4. What can the institution do to support you in managing your time? 5. How do you know that you are a good teacher? 6. What was your motivation for participating in this program? 7. What elements of this program benefited you? What elements didn’t work well for you? 8. What do you consider a successful/good relationship with a mentor? 9. How would you describe your relationship with your mentor? 10. Were there any difficult moments/conversations you had with your mentor? 11. Do you think you will continue the relationship with your mentor on a formal basis? 12. If you knew someone who was about to take on a mentee/mentor program, what would you

advise him or her from a mentee perspective? 13. Having done this program where do you see yourself in the next 2-5 years? 14. What do you think is the main obstacle which would prevent you from progressing in your

career? 15. What do you think is your biggest strength as an academic? 16. What advice would you give someone else wanting to become a nursing academic? 17. Do you think you are provided sufficient opportunities to for career development at your

institution?

Mentors 1. Can you tell me a bit about your experience of mentoring in this program? How often did you

meet? How many mentees? What issues did you address? 2. What do you understand about mentoring? 3. Tell me about your experience as a mentor in this ALTC program 4. Can you elaborate on any benefits you have had from being a mentor/participating in the program. 5. Can you describe any boundaries you set in your relationship with your mentee? Can you talk

about whether or not your mentee respected these boundaries? 6. Were there occasions where you needed to have difficult conversations with your mentee? If so,

please give an example 7. What do you think the major benefit your mentee has had from participating in the program? 8. What is the most important skill or strategy you have been able to pass on to your mentee? 9. Now that you have had some time to get to know your mentee, what leadership qualities do you

think your mentee possesses that could be further developed? 10. What do you perceive the major challenges your mentee faces in building their career in nursing

academia? 11. Do you intend to continue the relationship with your mentee? What kind of relationship will this be?

(i.e. mentor, PhD supervisor) 12. What would you do differently when working as a mentor in the future? 13. If we were to offer this program again in the future, do you have any suggestions for improvement?


Appendix G. Sample Completion Certificate

supporting career progression through academic mentorship

Documents