Reputation, purpose, and the mess of leadership | Tania Rhodes-Taylor

Tania Rhodes-Taylor, guest · [02:35]I have a somewhat unconventional background for someone that works in higher education, so I didn't, I didn't graduate for my first degree until I was in my thirties. And so I came from a fairly, very loving but fairly traditional working class background, and I think I had, I always had higher expectations of myself than anyone else had. And so the way that things worked out, I left home quite quickly when I was eighteen. I'd bought an apartment by the time I was twenty, and it wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties and I was working for corporate, and I had quite a stable but quite successful career at that point that I thought it might be quite nice to go to university. But I also had a mortgage, so, I couldn't, I couldn't afford to stop and just go to university, so I did it part-time through an organisation in the UK called The Open University. So, in some countries, I, you know, my experience in Australia, it's a group of universities that kind of group together and do distance learning. The Open University in the UK is an amazing institution that does really high-quality degrees, but at that time, showing my age, it was done by post. So you'd write, you'd write your assessment and you'd write your essay and you'd send it off and get it marked kind of thing. So I did my first degree with the Open University and I did it in art history. So I was working as a corp, in a corporate at the time and everyone said to me, well, why don't, why aren't you doing business and why aren't you doing management? It's just kind of like, cause I kind of want to do something that I'm interested in. If I'm going to have to do this part-time, it's got to be something that motivates me. So I did that and then later on I went on to do, as you mentioned, the MBA and a couple of postgraduate diplomas and stuff like that. So my education background is slightly unusual for someone that works in a university and in a leadership position in a university. Then add into that the fact that, as you've mentioned, I've worked across multiple sectors, but I've also lived and worked in Hong Kong and Australia and the US as well as UK and Europe. And I think I think when you're used to seeing so many things from so many different perspectives and having to start again on how you view things, I think it gives you a different approach to how you, how you understand and interpret things. I think you're much less likely to just make an assumption. You're much more likely to come from the point that you've got no assumption. So I've got no idea what's going on here. Let's, let's start from the beginning. So a little unorthodox.

Tania Rhodes-Taylor, guest · [10:00]So I think part of it is, is about being clear what you're there for. What is it that you're there to deliver? cause that helps you with the prioritization. It's really easy to be distracted by the noise. And I've worked with people who love a crisis. They love the sugar hit of a crisis. And so they'll take an issue and make it into a crisis because then they can, they can solve it and there's that sense of satisfaction. and I, and I get that. You know, I, I, I do understand that. But as organizations, we need to be really clear what it is as an organization we're, we're looking to achieve. And of course, you have to do the kind of issues management around that. You have to be agile. You have to have the systems to manage that. But you have to do it in, in a framework of values, and culture and institutional ambition. So what questions do you ask yourself in terms of how does this align with what we're seeking to achieve? Who is this important to? What would success look like? But also ask the questions, those questions of the people that are asking you to do the task. so, you know, okay, how does this fit in with your overall strategy? How does this align with the university's strategy? What is it that you would like people to do as a consequence of having heard about this? What is it that, What opinions would you like to change and why? So there's a lot of, there's a lot of questions in there that you have to ask to get to the real nub of what people are trying to achieve. and they can be, they can be revelationary and people rush to solution. And for me, part of the, way that we think about how we manage the mandate and how we cope with the competing demands and the, the often contradictory demands that we have is to keep in mind the big picture and help others keep in mind the big picture. That's not always easy. It's really easy to be distracted by the loudest voices, but most of the time the people that we are there to serve are the quietest voices in the middle. And we should never lose sight of those. So that helps me, and I hope it's something that I work with my teams to work through, helps us think about what should our genuine priorities be, and how are we contributing, contributing to the overall aims of the organization.

Tania Rhodes-Taylor, guest · [13:36]So I would say that I have a passion for dev- developing and amplifying reputation. So managing reputation, absolutely, and that's a day-to-day thing, but it's, it's also how do we take that to the next level. So to answer your question, the question, why does reputation matter? It's our currency. So it's, it's how universities buy opportunity. So people engage with the universities that they engage with in part because of their reputation, either for their research or their teaching or the contributions that they make to communities or, you know, donors engage with universities because they think that they're actually going to be able to help them deliver on, on a vision or a dream. So our reputation is, is key to all of that. I think for most universities, it's, it, it is their most precious asset. So the World 100 Reputation Network, I mean, the network's been going for a number of years now, and the purpose of the network is, it really is a truly global network. So the reason we have the network and that we share in the way that we do is, I think, because we recognize as reputation professionals that it's a, it's an evolving and a challenging and an ever-changing context. And we need to be able to respond to that and support our organizations through it. One of the things that I have certainly noticed in the last decade is a change in the recognition of the importance of reputation within universities and with our leadership. So certainly when I first started, you know, I'd talk about reputation and people would think I meant about, would think I meant branding. and then it got to the point where I'd talk about reputation and people would think that I meant league tables. Now when I talk about reputation, much more often People understand that it's vital to have it in order to do the things that we want to do as organizations and to realize our ambitions. Reputation being our currency, it's the thing that buys us the opportunity that helps our organizations realize their ambitions. That's really important. The network is one way that you support the professionals and share best practice in order to do that.

Tania Rhodes-Taylor, guest · [21:19]Certainly some of the conversations that I've had with vice chancellors over the years is that they've been surprised by the level of detail that they're supposed to get involved in or they're expected to get involved in. There's individuals where I've helped them come to a position where they've understood that you can have management without leadership, but it's much more difficult to have leadership without management. They're expecting to go in and direct and change, you know, some pe- I can think of at least two vice chancellors that have said to me that they've been surprised at how difficult it is to change the organization that, that they are overseeing. Organizations have a life of their own and a vice chancellor position is about stewardship as much as anything. I think the other thing that surprises people when they come into senior leadership roles, especially if they've come up through academia, is how lonely it can be. So you've worked as, if you've worked as an academic for your whole career up until that point, if you've been part of, a department within a university, if you've been part of research groups, if you're used to working with like-minded people who have similar interests, who support and get you, and where you, you can talk in the shorthand that we all talk to with those people that understand us the most. And I think, I think for some senior leaders, thinking about as they go into those positions, Where am I going to find my tribe? Where am I going to find the, the sounding boards, the people I can talk to honestly, those that I can trust, those that I can engage with as I try and navigate this? I think that's really important. And I think as we're appointing people, and it does, actually this doesn't just apply to, you know, academic colleagues. I think, you know, I see it in, in people in my, in my own functions as I promoted them, and they're no longer part of their peer group. We should be seriously thinking about how we provide that level of support, how we provide people with, with a trusted circle. That they can engage with. So I think some of it is about actually current senior leaders in universities being honest about just the amount of stuff they have to deal with and how they do that. So how do we ensure that people coming into the roles understand that and understand the mechanisms for coping with that? And how do we understand that people are not promoted to a point of loneliness and, and actually have that opportunity to build that network that will support them in their new role?

Tania Rhodes-Taylor, guest · [27:58]So I think part of it's going back to what I was saying earlier about being really clear about what your purpose is. And what you're there to deliver. No university has a unique selling point, but our point of differentiation is not the fact that we do research or teaching. I think our point of differentiation is the impact we have. And we all impact in different ways. And because there has been, I would say, a rush to homogenization in the way that we describe our institutions in the last 20 years, and a rush to, well, you know, you've got 10,000 universities wanting to be in the top 100 in the league tables. That's just not possible, but there's that rush as well. I think some organizations, or some of us, and I would count myself in this from time to time, we lose, we lose sight of the impact that we have or can have that makes us distinctive. and so I think in terms of thinking about how we adapt and thrive in the future, I think we're going to have to be honest that governments aren't going to bail us out. We're going to have to do this for ourselves. And so I think for a lot of our organizations, we're going to have to sit down and have a really grown-up conversation with ourselves and with our communities about what are we here for? How can we most make a difference? How do we turn out articulate, well-prepared graduates who are really going to make a contribution to society, but also are best prepared for the lives that they want to lead? What is it that we need to actually do that? What is it that we need to actually deliver the research that where we can make a real difference? and we, and we need to start having that conversation now, both as a sector and as organizations.

Tania Rhodes-Taylor, guest · [37:17]one of the things that's not talked about in leadership is the role of stewardship. So someone said to me recently, your real strength is In creating teams and creating teams that are really effective so that when you go on, they continue. And I think we don't talk enough about the role of stewardship and leadership. Quite often, we talk about leadership in the context of the individual and what they're seeking to achieve and their persona and their priorities. But the most effective leaders, I think, are those who are thinking about their legacy and thinking about their legacy in the context of how they are setting things up for the next generation, the next leader. And it's something that I've been thinking about a lot in terms of universities. So when things are really hard and really messy, I find it helpful to think about, so What difference have I made? What difference will I make for the future? Because it's the future that counts really now more than the now in this context. And so, yeah, stewardship, I think, is something that we should be talking much more about in terms of leadership.

Daniel Atlin, host · [38:50]I love that, Tania. And it actually reminds me of another podcast guest who actually talked about, you've got to get, stop getting so obsessed with outcomes and think more about the journey because, you know, you are, as you, as you said, you're only one person in this incredible journey in the life of a, of a university. And, you know, do what you can to make an impact, but recognize you're going to have to smooth, smoothly pass the, the baton to someone else actually in the, in the near future.

Tania Rhodes-Taylor, guest · [39:20]Yeah. And when it goes wrong is when people cling onto the baton and you have to peel their cold dead hands off of it.