Welcome to my Mini Blog on Leadership, where I record everyday micro thoughts and observations. Thank you to all of the leaders with whom I work. It is a privilege.

Self-reflection, Self-control, Self-accountability
Sonja Fritzsche, November 6, 2022

Chairs and directors often come to me to ask how they might remain resilient in a leadership role. So often, my answer is work on being self-reflective and mindful of your own self-control, so that you may hold yourself accountable.  Self-work is the hardest work, and is done best when looking for learning experiences in the everyday.

For instance, when on the other side of a challenging day or watching others manage adversity, take the time to reflect on what worked and where better decisions might have been made. Be honest and straight with yourself in the process. Failure is the best teacher, so own up to where you made mistakes and create a “do and do not” statement for yourself for the future. Often it helps to talk through this with a trusted someone; sometimes just journaling about it is another meaningful option.

Here is an example of what I mean by learning from the day-to-day trouble and strife that also includes a modicum of the – oh can you believe what happened to me – for interest. I recently returned from a short-term research trip overseas. From the very beginning in the airport in Berlin, I knew I was in trouble when I discovered the second set of rental apartment keys in my coat pocket. I had forgotten to leave them when I checked out at 5 am. Then I proceeded to wait in line for 90 minutes to check my luggage. My suitcase ended up being too heavy and I had to open it up in front of everyone and put 4 kilos of books into my hand luggage. At security, I experienced the first of what would turn out to be three security checks. Evidently, I had so much chocolate and other packaged food packed together in a carry-on that the agents could not see through it. Three times I was flagged and they had to take out and rescan. The second time, this included taking me to the side and unpacking and testing everything in six different trays from my iPad to the vanilla sugar packets, Milka bars, and books all at 8:30 am. By that point I was feeling exposed, vulnerable, and tired. Finally seated next to a friendly German and with a seat between us, the plane proceeded to bounce substantially five of nine hours from Munich to Chicago. The turbulence was greater since I was seated at the “back of the bus.” My luck. In Chicago, I discovered my suitcase open on the floor next to the baggage claim. I learned later that the three T-shirts I had bought as gifts had fallen out or otherwise disappeared. Finally, after the third flight, an espresso, and the 90 minute drive, I ended up safe and sound back home. Two weeks, lots of e-mail, and $100 later, the keys made it back to the rental owner.

So now time for reflections and lessons:  1) The most important is that everyone returned home safely after such a bouncy flight over the ocean. 2) Somehow I had remained calm, if resigned, throughout all of this. Well maybe with the exception of my exasperated ask “why” of the Chicago O’Hare security agent after they had finished scanning. Never get upset with agents as they are there to keep everyone safe and to help you. Here, I am a firm believer in the Golden Rule and maintaining good Karma. And I have made this flight so many times before that I was not nervous or otherwise agitated as can often be the case when one is traveling, especially overseas. Doing a self-check often to remain calm and resilient in the face of uncertainty and change is essential.  It is small mundane adversities such as this that provide meaningful practice to get off of the emotional rollercoaster that daily life can become if you let it. 3) Always pack your food in your checked luggage and carry books with you. Yes even if they are heavy. We academics always buy too many books. It is just the way of things. 4) Always say Danke!/Miigwetch/Mercí/Daalu/Gracías/Shukran/Asante/Grazie/Xièxiè/ thank you and remember the person in front of you might be having just as bad a day.

Cycling Taught Me the Most Valuable Lessons in Leadership Resilience 
Sonja Fritzsche, August 4, 2021

Some of the most valuable leadership lessons I have learned from long-distance road cycling and racing. These include an understanding of the close connection between mental and physical wellness, the value of a competitive spirit and when to stow it and listen in favor of collaborative team work, knowing that you will go much further drafting on rotation as a team than going it alone, the importance of a daily practice for resilience training, and just plain knowing when to look up at the hill in front of you or when better to avoid looking up and and sing out loud instead as you pedal forward. Oh and never forget to learn how to fix the bike yourself rather than rely only on your mechanic, for she will not be there for you that time that you get stuck out 50 miles from home with a flat tire or a broken spoke.

I write this today inspired by multi-medal winning Olympian gymnast Simone Biles who knew when it was time to step out for self-care. Remember to look to her and watch her balance-beam routine that won her Tokyo bronze.  There you will see a true leader who allowed herself to take time out to heal in the face of enormous pressure and then rejoined triumphant precisely because she had taken that time. These actions are a bold statement for women’s health and agency in a sport that has for so long put winning above everything else, even a tolerance for the widespread abuse of the athletes themselves.

It is in this spirit that I restart my leadership mini-blog after a hiatus of exhaustion.  It is a refocus on cycling as meditative practice that has been restorative and healing over the past months. The Delta variant miles to go seem now to stretch out on the road ahead of us caused by the trickster – “The Trail Stretcher”.  But we will make it through, just like Simone, and earn a feast and a good shower when this unending COVID Tour is finally done.  Now just where did I put that map?

We Are Fragile in This Year’s Darkest Days 
Sonja Fritzsche, December 5, 2020

As the Winter Solstice nears, we have entered the darkest days and see again how fragile we are. Each of us will be touched by COVID-19 – some from a social distance, others so close find multiple, intersecting tragedies have turned their lives upside down. As Winter Solstice 2020 nears please remember to lead and bring warmth to this great pandemic cold by radiating light to everyone you meet. Light traverses 6 feet safely. In the future, if you are one of the lucky ones to remember this year, shed your hubris and remind 2020 to others with humility. We seem to have forgotten that while all humans are fragile, a great many experience that fragility multiple times daily.

CONFOUNDING LAYERS OF UNCERTAINTY
Sonja Fritzsche, October 30, 2020

The times we are living in confound normal coping strategies as uncertainty and disruption are present at every level – physical health, mental health, familial, social and support networks, financial security, public spaces, societal and governmental structures, planetary ecosystems, cycles, and rhythms. Some aspects of this shift are hopefully bringing long needed recognition and real, transformative change. Others are constantly nagging in the back of our minds or at our heels feeling as if they were lurking just right behind us. This can drive one crazy. There are really only two solutions – 1) don’t just talk or believe, always take action towards greater equity. If you don’t know how, go out and find out/look it up; and 2) lift the veil of your own concerns, and see the real human beings in front of you. Respect a person for who and what they are and where they have been.  Because you cannot truly know the latter:
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Dalai Lama

EMBARKING ON A JOURNEY TOO LONG OVERDUE
Sonja Fritzsche, October 13, 2020

Our new Learning Community “Anti-racist Strategies for Teaching, Learning, and Faculty Development” starts on Wednesday. In preparation, I am reading – “Show Us the Love: Revolutionary Teaching in (Un)Critical Times” (1) – by my generous colleague Associate Professor Lamar Johnson and his co-authors Nathaniel Bryan and Gloria Boutte. How thankful I am for this first reading as I see the words:

“I love all of my students because they all have potential”; “I love all children because some of them don’t get love at home”; and “I love all kids regardless of what color they are…red, white, blue, yellow, or Black”. These superficial notions of love represent the ongoing rhetoric that permeates urban classrooms. On the contrary, we are referring to the type of deep-seated love that is cloaked in pain and that is bounded in action which disrupts the social constructions of anti-blackness and white supremacist patriarchy through the practice of humanizing love, which we will further discuss and unpack later in the paper. Being able to practice a humanizing love is a painful process because it is a struggle and ongoing fight for liberation. (48)

How fortunate I feel to have this sentence shared with me on the page. But my journey has been one of choice. I can only hope that some day I might have almost attained the true “practice of humanizing love.”

(1) The Urban Review (2019) 51:46–64

WHEN AN ASSOCIATE DEAN ADMITS TO HERSELF SHE IS BURNED OUT
Sonja Fritzsche, October 5, 2020

The hardest thing to do when you are trying to model a commitment to work from home, to listen to others in a crisis, to anticipate needs and plan the right workshops, to attend the right webinars to keep up on other campuses, to contribute to multiple subsubsubsubcommittees, to make sure that you aren’t overtaxing others, to cut back on service that is expected of faculty and staff……. is to admit that you are exhausted. I couldn’t even manage to recognize it when my son started virtual school and I flung myself and my husband (poor soul) anew into managing that too.  “I just have to work harder and be more efficient” – I told myself. This is how I’ve always survived as a feminist academic. Prove that you are good enough to keep up.  I’ve been doing this since I had to show that I was just as strong a cyclist as the men I was riding with and could get up hills before them. (Better gearing on my bicycle. Ok maybe I couldn’t pull the pace line as long as they could, but I was the only woman in the pack and I was keeping up just fine.) And goodness knows my situation is so privileged compared to so many others. I have nothing to complain about. We are doing just fine.

Anyway – virtual schooling hit and I started to feel like a failed mother because my son wasn’t getting his homework in on time. Yes, seriously! Yikes! That is when I recognized clinical perfectionism. I’ve always known I suffered from it.  Vulnerability meant identifying that area where I hadn’t yet trained or researched enough.

And then I made another discovery.  We can be told by our supervisors that we can adjust our commitments. We can convince other administrators to cut back in their departments on the service and other expectations during the pandemic. But if we don’t reset our inner clocks, readjust our own commitments, none of this will help us as individuals. We need to do self work/a self-assessment.  We have to tell and listen to our-own-selves that it is ok to cut back and actually do it. We can’t continue to run ourselves into the ground and work at our normal pace or even an already once adjusted pace. It just won’t work. Slow down. Rest. Rejuvenate. This is easier said than done, as suddenly there just really aren’t enough hours in the day. But I’m working really hard on it. Ha! Well, ok no maybe that is not the right approach. Maybe I’m making sure to let myself… let… it… go. That is it a small problem and not a big problem. That I’m working on my mental flexibility skills (“superflex” and not “rockbrain”) and making progress. Well at least I’m getting A LOT better at yoga. And recognizing that I’m no use to absolutely anyone when I’m burned out.  There, I guess that observation isn’t quite the feminist self-place I’m trying to get to, but it is a start.

So when you’re ready to check in with this or that group of people to see how they are doing. Don’t forget to take the time to check in with yourself. And just leave that report and e-mail until tomorrow. They will keep.

SELF-EDUCATION FOR A WHITE ACADEMIC’S ANTI-RACIST READING LIST
Sonja Fritzsche, June 21, 2020

The observations below are part of my own self-reflection over the past two years and I thank my African-American colleagues for their patience with yet again another ignorant white person seeing the Matrix for what it is in her own country. Sure I know and have taught a lot about German-Turkish issues, the history of Afro-Deutsch identity formation, always and pointedly the Shoah, but have I been able to see the Holocausts that have happened in my own country? They continue on not as one event then over, but in slow continuous systemic oppression encompassing me as MitläuferIn (the woman who runs with). Sure I have been aware of the issues, had educated myself, but was resigned to trying to fix other social justice problems in my own chosen and safe way. But I had the privilege to make this choice and the excuses.

Thank you for not trying to make me “comfortable” any more, which is what so many white people expect. (See Resmaa Menakem). Whites are for some reason so “fragile” in our self-conception, but it is time once again (how many times has it been time already before this) for US American whites to stop needing to feel comfortable. Make changes! Take off your veil of self-imposed ignorance! It is so strange that white academics routinely conduct research in our own areas of expertise, yet as soon as issues of racism come to the fore, we ask our colleagues of color to teach us. Are anti-racist topics not worthy of the white academic’s own self-directed time and efforts? Don’t ask your own colleagues of color to summarize their work in person. Read their scholarship that they have published on social justice, anti-racist issues. Look it up in the library database just like you would for your own research for any other colleague.

Cannot white academics of all disciplines get together to learn and teach themselves how to adopt inclusive pedagogical practices and to perceive and dismantle the racist institutional structures and practices around them?  And do the white, tenure-stream faculty then need to demand to be paid extra for this labor that is essential to their understanding of their own complicit citizenry in the US and the “privilege hoarding” (Eula Biss) that they have so long benefited from? Shouldn’t that money be better directed to funding for graduate and undergraduate students of color? Somehow diversity issues are always extra. “Everyone is doing them”, which means no one is doing them except again the faculty and students of color.

So here is a reading list. I assign this to my white academic colleagues everywhere. Read before you speak, so that you may speak wisely and then commit yourself to anti-racist change no matter who you are or where you come from. And I invite you to add to it and give me an assignment right back. Send me the title that most impacted your anti-racist self-education. Some titles below are more general, some niche, some cover important intersectionalities.

Yes to and Beyond Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility –

• Academics for Black Survival and Wellness. Anti-racist resources.
• Ahmed, Sara. On Being Included. Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. (Duke 2012)
• Bliss, Eula. “White Debt.” New York Times Dec. 2 2015 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/white-debt.html
• Brown, Adrienne Maree and Walidah Imarisha. Octavia’s Brood. Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. (AK Press 2017).
• Brown, Lydia, E. Ashkenazy and Morénike Giwas Onaiwu, ed. All the Weight of Our Dreams. On Living Racialized Autism. (DragonBee 2017).
• Chun, Edna and Alvin Evans. The Department Chair as Transformative Diversity Leader. (Stylus 2015)
• College of Ag and Natural Resources, MSU. DEI Novel Coronavirus Communication Tips.
• Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences. Anti-Racism Resources.
• “DEI Read and Learn: COVID-19 Race and Racism.” Iowa State University Library.
• Hodges, Carolyn and Olga Welch. Truth Without Tears. African American Women Deans Share Lessons in Leadership. (Harvard 2018)
• Kezar, Adrianna and Julie Posselt, ed. Higher Education Administration for Social Justice and Equity (Routledge 2020)
• Matthew, Patricia, ed. Written/Unwritten. Diversity and the Hidden Truths of Tenure. (UNC Press, 2016)
• Menakem, Resmaa. My Grandmother’s Hands. (Central Recovery 2017)
• Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. Carework. Dreaming Disability Justice. (Arsenal 2019)
• “Professorial Advancement Initiative” BTAA
• Singh, Anneliese. The Racial Healing Handbook. Practice Activities to help you Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing. (New Harbinger 2019)
• Turner, Caroline and Juan Carlos González. Modeling Mentoring Across Race/Ethnicity and Gender. (Stylus 2015)
• Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns. (Vintage 2011)
• Williams, angel Kyodo and Rod Owens. Radical Dharma. Talking Race, Love, and Liberation. (North Atlantic 2016)Thanks to my colleagues who have sent in these additional suggestions/reading assignments :-> –
• Kendall, Frances. Understanding White Privilege. (Johns Hopkins 2009)
• Prashad, Vijay. The Karma of Brown Folk. (Minnesota UP 2000)
• Wise, Tim. White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2011)
• “So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluohttps://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Talk-About-Race/dp/1580056776
• Warner Bros. makes Just Mercy available for free as education on ‘systemic racism’https://ew.com/movies/warner-bros-just-mercy-available-free/
• Bryan Stevenson on the Frustration Behind the George Floyd Protests (New Yorker) https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/bryan-stevenson-on-the-frustration-behind-the-george-floyd-protests
• “How to reform American police, according to experts”, German Lopez (Vox) https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21277013/police-reform-policies-systemic-racism-george-floyd
• “The Case for Reparations”, Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/reparations/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations-an-intellectual-autopsy/371125/
• Season 3 of “Serial” podcast – deep dive into criminal justice system and racial disparities in Cleveland https://serialpodcast.org/

THE LEADERSHIP CYCLE AND ESSENTIAL HOPE
Sonja Fritzsche, March 5, 2020

Change maker, activist, optimism, joy, vision, belief, faith, humanity… The dynamism of the leadership talk, fresh perspectives, new hire, first meetings, connections, can do, will happen. Perpetual energy, what are others doing, building togetherness, honesty, “I” found in community, mistakes, oops, tough finds solace, working through meets success, relistening and reorganizing, revisions and relistening, more revisions, more relistening, need to push forward, what used to be break. In the dark and grey days of January and February, energy slows, the challenges and miscommunications, the harassment, the trolls, the racist acts, failures, lessons learned, confidence ebbs, disappointments, had thought, perpetual motion, stand back up, there is a sting.

Hope. Is it still there? Whew… Good.

In Disturbing the Peace (1985-86/1990, 181-182), Czech writer, human rights activist, and statesman Václav Havel spoke:

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out….  It is also this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.

Intellectual leadership and hope. Hope and intellectual leadership. It would seem that one cannot exist without the other.

WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, OPEN THE DOOR
Sonja Fritzsche, February 8, 2020

Life takes many twists and turns that are impossible to predict. A chance meeting can change the direction of your life. An unexpected invitation to a new experience can make visible other ways of knowing and open up a world that you did not know existed. A trip to a new place, a chance to serve in a new way, a new committee with unknown people and expertise. Saying “yes” can afford you insights or an opportunity that might not otherwise have come your way. Or you might collect knowledge that eventually sets you on a new and better path. Whenever possible grab hold of such unexpected opportunities, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, as they are excellent ways to expand your network and worldview. Of course make sure that they are safe invitations, do not over commit yourself, and consult those who depend on you, but do not shrink from something strategic, serendipitous, or just plain different that seems outside of your plan. Push your boundaries and create opportunities by being curious and trying it out. Have the courage and the grit, and then just jump – Then never forget to pay it forward for all of those behind you.

REALIZING THAT THEY JUST MIGHT NOT KNOW
Sonja Fritzsche, December 7, 2019

So often I am reminded that good teaching practices also make good leadership practices. Those who have spent much time devoted to refining their classroom techniques also have been honing their patience quotient and communication skills. The challenge is to remember to exercise them. When a student makes a pronouncement in class that is not fully informed, an expert teacher will recognize and take advantage of the “teachable moment.”  Yet, so often when adult colleagues make a similar unexpected declaration, a common immediate reaction is indignation, frustration, even anger at a statement that is perceived to be ignorant, obtuse or aggressive, hostile.

The first lesson of leadership is to never react immediately to anything, but to just put a lid on it and let it simmer.  If pressed for a decision, mention that you need to look into it, would like some time to reflect, or that you will get back to them soon or in a day or two. In the time that you let something simmer, envision that colleague as one of your students or a mentee. Imagine what it is about the situation that they do not know or have not had a moment to consider. What information are you privy to that they are not? What space do they occupy so that they cannot see outside of their experience, expertise or discipline, or beyond their silo? This simmering enables you to remove your own emotional blinders or become aware of your own box, and to approach the situation with greater critical distance. Then with a clearer head and maybe a jog or some yoga, you will be in a place to collect some data, analyze the situation, potentially consult confidential others, and come up with a strategy. Even if it is a mini-strategy. A stepping stone.

The goal is then to approach the colleague and have a respectful “teaching” conversation as equals, in which you politely bring up a not-yet-considered idea or make them aware of contextual information that you have access to in your leadership role. That position likely grants you informational privileges that they do not enjoy, some of which you must protect, so do consider what you can and cannot say. However, if you take the time to address the issue in a timely manner, it will likely be diffused more easily. It will not lead to additional hard feelings or compounding encounters that become difficult to unpack for yourself or for others. Have the courage to hold yourself accountable in this way. And model seeking the teachable moment for others.

CULTIVATING AND EVALUATING ADMINISTRATIVE INTELLECTUAL LEADERSHIP
Sonja Fritzsche, November 16, 2019

Reading Sally Helgeson’s The Web of Inclusion today, I am inspired by its description of the leaders who emerge in its circular structure as people who “feel comfortable being in the center of things rather than at the top, who prefer building consensus rather than issuing orders, and who place low value on the kind of symbolic perks and marks of distinction that define success in hierarchy.” (20) This type of leader recognizes that “the periphery and the center are interdependent” and if “only the center is strong, the edges will quickly fray.” (13) To borrow from Donna Haraway, this person continually “stays with the trouble” of the being together knowing that the organization consists of and relies on the quality, diversity, equity, and wellness of the very human beings it consists of and their environs.

The challenges come in transforming the evaluation of such leadership from one based on hierarchy. Common leadership indicators of success in this model are the initiatives, policy decisions, grants led as an individual separate and in competition with others. These are the measures used in job searches. To recruit the kind of leader described by Helgeson, we need to transform administrative job search criteria, ask different interview questions, choose leaders who align with the values we espouse; who will talk about how they guided and helped others to succeed and learn to lead, not just about themselves and their own initiatives.

Consider collaboratively reorganizing an evaluation rubric or a CV in terms of categories of intellectual leadership: “sharing knowledge, expanding opportunities, and mentoring/stewardship.” These can be found in the Cultivating your Path to Intellectual Leadership (CPIL) model conceived of by Chris Long and Bill Hart-Davidson in the College of Arts & Letters at MSU.  Hold a workshop so that all in the administrative unit (department, center, college..) can formulate definitions and ways of documenting expanded opportunities, shared knowledge, the mentoring/the stewardship. Those who are being evaluated need to be able to record them as they happen and feel confident that they will be valued and recognized in a new system.  The Mellon-funded HuMetricsHSS initiative is dedicated to articulating values-based metrics in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Transforming the metrics of intellectual leadership for faculty also needs to be done for its administrative leaders at the same time. In this way, they may understand the application of new criteria through personal experience and in their capacity as mentors/stewards.

EFFECTIVE MEETINGS – THE KEY TO GOOD LEADERSHIP
Sonja Fritzsche, November 10, 2019

Think back to the best or worst meetings you have attended or led. What was successful? What did not work? Where did they go wrong? And why do we need to meet in the first place? Too often colleagues are brought together and expected to collaborate without attention paid first to the needs of the humans present and the intentional creation of a community culture and definitions of ways of being with each other. Effective meetings are based in community values and norms and grounded in the trust that forms from adhering to these and revisiting them when they are questioned or disregarded. A community can be as little as 2 people. It is incumbent on the leader/facilitator/coordinator to schedule and prepare effectively, decide with the others who, what, where, when, why, how, and ensure that any pre-meetings, the meeting itself, and next steps/follow ups proceed in a manner that is equitable, inclusive, and transparent.  The process is much like preparing a successful class plan or syllabus grounded in student-centered, active learning pedagogies that attends to the unique backgrounds, preparations, and interests of the students themselves. Often a key indicator of successful meeting leadership is how many of the participants are empowered through meeting format and content. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “10 Ways to Better Manage Your Meetings” highlights a number of useful tips. Be creative, do what works for all of the people present, and establish a community of practice that can be built upon in the future.

BECOME A GRASSROOTS LEADER
Sonja Fritzsche, November 8, 2019

Leadership takes many forms. Informal leaders discover their power in listening, sharing information, expanding someone’s network, mentoring on the choices of several directions. I am continually inspired by Adrianna Kezar’s and Jaime Lester’s still very relevant Enhancing Campus Capacity for Leadership, particularly the chapter 12 – Encouraging Faculty and Staff Grassroots Leadership.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FRIEND?
Sonja Fritzsche, November 6, 2019

Occupying a new formal leadership position suddenly means you have acknowledged power, no matter the level.  A friend may suddenly treat a new leader very differently. They may no longer be seeing the person, but the position. The most nimble friend may be able to adapt. Other friendships may need to be put on hold, so respect this situation as it is not always your decision to make. Some friendships may end. Be patient with yourself and others.