Vision and Goals

1. Establish a stable, shared long-term vision and a common sense of purpose

2. Identify what is happening to, or affecting, results (teaching, research, productivity)^*

3. Set clear, short-term achievable goals

4. Ensure flexibility in all levels of planning

5. Consider views of stakeholders and partners

6. Ensure plans start with understanding performance relative to institutional purpose^*

7. Ensure staff embrace institutional aims & culture (vision, goals, understand the system)^*

8. Get people to measure performance relative to aims in teaching, research and enterprise^*

9. Advocate good governance: institutional, departmental, academic, and in complex projects^†

10. Ensure congruency between plans, action on the ground, and results

Hands-on Leadership

11. Be orientated towards ‘hands-on’ management, working with staff

12. Possess highly developed academic and/or operational skills appropriate to the institution^*

13. Be able to prioritise the work by asking key questions

14. Know people’s strengths; channel their energy and passion to maximum effect

15. Understand cultural differences and manage people’s expectations and views sensitively

16. Check results with staff and empower them to get the job done

17. Involve the people doing the work in data analysis, decisions and implementing changes

18. Place responsibility and control of information in the hands of people who do the work

19. Ensure that an understanding of what matters to teaching & research steers people’s work^†

20. Have two-way communication meetings, with an emphasis on clarifying, testing & listening

21. Ensure managers lead; spending time with staff, listening to concerns and enabling contributions

Improvement and Learning

22. Give people the opportunity to ask for training and provide it on a just-in-time basis

23. Be receptive to (and seek out) alternative solutions

24. Enable staff to challenge, share and learn from mistakes, without fear

25. Expect, and support staff, to strive for-high standards

26. Expect the institution (and its needs) to evolve through time^*

27. Understand risk factors and make suitable contingencies

28. Judge the system rather than people; manage morale, celebrate success, learn from failures

29. Improvements are guided by understanding student, research & process performance, not arbitrarily defined targets^†

30. Recognise the difference between neglect and lack of capability (training, experience, resources)

31. Allow people doing the work freedom to experiment with method to improve performance

Work Details and the Big Picture

32. Focus both internally and externally, understanding intra- and inter-organisational dynamics

33. Know the institution’s sphere of influence and identify the solvable problems^*

34. Establish budgets and a clear fund-raising strategy (grants, fees, philanthropy, sponsorship)^†

35. Examine financial and non-financial measures; which predict and cause institutional results^*

36. Base information, technology and resource needs on how they help people’s core work

37. Create attitude of co-operation with external partners, sharing information to improve work

38. Anticipate unexpected outcomes

39. Be prepared to seek specialist advice from external sources

40. Integrate management flexibility alongside professional and academic rigour^*

41. Determine whether data on staff, communities or society would be useful to the institution^*