Educator as Manager: Organizational and Team Leadership Skills for the Clinician-Educator

For many clinician-educators, formal leadership roles (core faculty, assocate/assistant program director, program director) are their first opportunity to work as a manager in a non-clinical setting. While skills like teaching and curricular design are often intentionally developed, many managerial skills are learned informally or not at all. Inefficiency or discomfort with managerial tasks such as time management, team development, and conducting meetings effectively often hinder clinician-educators and reduce their effectiveness. This workshop includes a self-assessment of managerial skills, an overview of the "typical" academic year schedule, and discussion of specific skills, strategies, and resources to develop managerial expertise in an educational leadership role. The workshop begins with written self-assessment and pair-and-share discussion of the organizational challenges inherent to our roles as educators. We then discuss advanced planning of the academic year's schedule, including strategies to manage the cycles of work. Participants will work in breakout groups to complete a hierarchy for their current leadership team and identify areas of duplication, under-delegation, and tasks/roles that remain unfilled. Finally, we will discuss the structure, function, and facilitation of an effective meeting and how to leverage the skills and talents of members of your team. Presenters will conclude the session with an overview of relevant resources for continued growth, recognizing the complexity of growing managerial skills and discussing strategies to build time for professional growth into our busy schedules.