Dr Flavius Akerele III's The E Team Education blog

Corinthians, ITT, and now Coleman. All oldish alternative institutions (same accreditor ironically), and the thing they also have in common is they are all closed. But guess who suffers? The student. The money the students spent they will never get back, and the time they spent was wasted. Promises made, but not kept. This is a failing of educators and administrators for not paying attention to what they teach in their own schools. There are case studies being taught on what has happened to these schools, by these very schools teachers!!! I have said it before and I will say it again: there needs to be a certification or training for those taking leadership potions in higher educational institutions. Seniority is no longer a valid reason to promote someone in today's educational environment. What is your institution doing to make sure your administrators are job ready? Dr Flavius A B Akerele III The ETeam https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/corinthian-colleges-shu...

Summary Strong leadership is the cornerstone for a successful institution, and strength comes from training as well as experience. It is often the case specific training does not occur before a leadership appointment nor does it occur after a leader is chosen; rather it is often based upon seniority or the “old boys network”, as can be clearly in many companies. The kind of leadership needed for this arena in the 21 st century is different, and requires and upgrade in tools and training. A certificate in leadership/leadership development would give the much needed specific knowledge of four key areas, to leaders. It will give them the training they do not have and will not get, it will provide stability, reduce turnover of positions because leaders are not feeling overwhelmed, and it can build a network between peers and make the atmosphere more collaborative. While there are programs that exist in the industry, most are geared towards specific companies and do not in...

Let us look at this sentence: “I don’t like because of color”. If inserted into the wrong conversation in the right way, all of sudden you have an argument about racism. The whole sentence was really: “I don’t like this couch because the of the color” , a significant difference. When people alter, or omit words from sentences, it can have a profound effect on a conversation, when leaders do this, it can have a devastating effect in general. Leaders who consistently keep their employees in the dark are fostering a culture that thrives on rumors because we all know that information gap will be filled by something. It is even more sad when the information that was withheld was not even vital! If you want “buy-in" from your employees than you need to give them something to buy; if you want to have civil conversations then you need to check your sources before you quote. The standards of using references that are peer reviewed and reliable is not just for academia. A le...

Insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results ”. This a common occurrence in educational leadership and it does not look it is going to change anytime soon. ·          A school talks about the need for radical change, and their solution is to promote a long-time insider to head that department because they have not yet held that position. ·          A school is constantly in financial trouble, and instead of looking at the accounting structure, they hire a consultant (for a hefty price) to study the issue; even though you know someone is stealing ·          Your students complain that they are not learning anything new, and the school does not look at the fact most of the faculty and staff are graduates of the school they are working at ·          You advertise a job that you hav...

•       Communication is a matrix of oral, visual and emotion. Your spoken words, voice quality, and body language come together to communicate a message. •       Successful communication is measured in how well these components are applied and balanced. •       Is what I said, what you heard? •       Communication requires a transmitter and a receiver. Both must be tuned to the same frequency. •       As a manager, it is your job to ensure proper tuning. •       You communicate to your staff at the frequency they are on. Words, phrases, ideas, concepts, theories and directions must be tuned to their level of comprehension. You do not talk down, but find a commonality where both you and the staff can meet and communicate on a level plane.  Seems simple eh? Then why do many managers in higher education not pr...

Communication is a buzz word in business/leadership, and you will find many different variations of what it is, but the root of it is simple; get the message you want to send to the right people in an effective manner. Communications says nothing of what modality one should use, it does not say how often, it simply needs to be clear. A complete lack of communication is still communication, except, what you are communicating to your people is that you really do not care about them. This is a common complaint from employees, not knowing what their boss wants of them or not knowing important things that could affect their job. As a leader, effective communication should be at or near the top the list of skills you have or are trying to develop. How can you give that employee a bad review when they had no clue what the goals were? How do you expect employees to show up to a meeting that they heard nothing about? Etc. Simple lessons from an MBA program. Dr Flavi...

One of the most common reasons people fail at a job is because expectations and details of the job were never clear. This happens from front line workers all the way to CEOs. When people have to get fired, “under performance” is often put as a reason. Maybe you write, “they were not good at their job” or “they did not have the right skills”, etc. However, whose job is it to make sure that your employees are ready to the job? Whose job is it to make sure they are making progress throughout the year? The managers and HR. I recently wrote about unprofessional behavior by the HR departments and hiring managers during the interview stage. The general consensus is that it has become a common occurrence for companies to simply ignore candidates who are not chosen after a professional interview. Some people are of the mindset that maybe the candidate was not “properly prepared” and did not “set the right expectations”. However, at some point we have to acknowledge that it had nothin...

I am a firm believer in sharing good an relevant material, that is how we learn. Today I am sharing two articles by Jeffrey E. Reeves ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyereeves ) . I hope you get something out of this as well! Leadership… An Informed Perspective August 26, 2016 “Leaders create the vision.  Managers create plans.  Your vision motivates people to action; plans are an outcome that guides your team toward making your vision a reality.  Leadership and management are the two elements of   being-in-charge and being responsible .  The ability to discern which element one is dealing with or which is dominant at any moment in each unique situation is—in my view—the main characteristic of a great leader.  I call this characteristic   wisdom ”. Read the rest here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leadership-informed-perspective-jeffrey-e-reeves?trk=prof-post Leadership: Part II - How the Planning Padlock Stifles Leadership, ...

In my experience, most apologies are given to make the person apologizing feel better, and societal norms in this country say we must accept that apology and not hold a grudge, etc. What is not factored in is the human factor ; the fact that we are thinking, breathing and feeling creatures. How you treat your employees before they leave and how you treat your colleagues before you part ways will have a lot to do with how that apology is truly received. If you had made the effort beforehand, you probably will not have to apologize later, or give false platitudes such as “it is nice to see you”. This sounds cynical, I know, however, the point of this write up is to prevent these issues from becoming issues in the first place, and it starts with authentic leadership . Some things to think about that get taught in class every day, but do not necessarily get put into practice. Dr Flavius A B Akerele III The ETeam