Spring 2011: The Faculty Issue

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

In this issue of the Baylor Business Review, we focus on the faculty of the Hankamer School of Business. Our faculty members are charged with more than just teaching students—they involve students by providing interactive learning with an ethical foundation in a Christian environment. Our faculty members also provide thought leadership by producing research that earns publication in top journals and inspires change outside of academia.

You will be introduced to a few of our faculty members and gain insight into the world of teaching from Bill Thomas, a Master Teacher with 40 years of teaching experience. You will also learn about the McBride Fellowship program, which offers collaboration among faculty and international doctoral students.

You will read about departments within the business school that not only focus on the current education of our students, but also prepare them for life after graduation by offering professional development activities. You will also read about how Entrepreneurship faculty members provide unforgettable international learning experiences for students through the Baylor in the Caribbean program.

We hope you learn more about the faculty of Hankamer, who continue to provide an outstanding education for our future business leaders while imparting some of life’s lessons along the way.

Terry S. Maness
Dean, Hankamer School of Business

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2011

The Hankamer School of Business Teaching Philosophy

by Eric Krell

Emily Hunter describes her decision to join Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business as an assistant professor in 2009 as intentional. In doing so, she demonstrates fluency in Hankamer terminology that reflects the business school’s purposeful commitment to balance.

“There are plenty of great business schools out there that are research-focused, but many of these schools tend to treat teaching as a lower priority,” notes Hunter, an assistant professor of Management and Entrepreneurship with a PhD in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology. “When professors spend more time on research and less time on strengthening their classroom techniques, the students can suffer. I did not want to be in an environment where teaching was not rewarded, yet I am also passionate about research. Baylor and Hankamer have an excellent balance between teaching and research.”

The business school’s commitment to balance extends to other areas as well: scholarly exploration and active learning; practice and theory; value and values; and professional development and spiritual development. The Hankamer faculty’s balanced approach thrives thanks to the school’s foundational philosophy and values; ongoing strategic planning that compliments accreditation activities; and a commitment to continuous improvement in teaching and research.

“If you talk to professors about why they chose an academic career,” notes Hankamer School of Business Dean Terry Maness, “most will say that they chose the profession because they want to have a positive impact on their students’ lives. At Hankamer, I believe that this desire plays out in our professors’ willingness to go the extra mile to help our students.”

Professor of Finance and W.W. Caruth Chair of Entrepreneurship Bill Petty says he has enjoyed every step of the extra miles he logs for students. “My philosophy is that I want to teach the technical material, but I also want to teach core values and how to develop effective relationships,” says Petty, who in 2004 received the Master Teacher designation, the highest honor granted to Baylor University faculty. The entrepreneurs Petty invites to the classroom to speak and mentor students continually emphasize a common theme in Petty’s teaching: the importance of relationships.

“When students get to my age and they’re looking back on their lives, they will likely ask themselves the extent to which they were effective in the most important relationships in their lives,” he adds. “So, I also open up and share some of my successes and failures related to relationships.”

The Value of Values

This willingness that Maness and Petty describe stems from the Hankamer mission and values. The mission statement (see “The Hankamer School of Business’ Mission” side bar) emphasizes the fostering of a culture guided by “Christian commitment” and championing “life-long learning, highly-regarded scholarship and service to others as its highest ideals.” The purpose of this culture, according to the mission, is to groom business leaders who can thrive in the modern, global business environment.

The specific values on which the Hankamer faculty philosophy rests include the following:

 

• Excellence in its students, faculty, staff, teaching, scholarship and in its reputation as an institution of higher learning;
• Integrity, Leadership, Service, Diversity, and Teamwork in its faculty, staff, and the students it delivers to the world;
• Relevance and Innovation in its subject matter, scholarship, and learning methods; and
• Christian Principles in its faculty and staff.

As these values are manifested through policies, faculty-student relationships, collaboration among faculty, research efforts and other tangible behaviors, another output is produced, according to Van Gray, director of accreditation and planning for the Hankamer School of Business: caring.

A key component of Gray’s role involves collecting input from a diverse collection of Hankamer constituents – current students, alumni, business leaders who hire alumni, and other stakeholders – as part of an ongoing strategic planning process. “One of the insights that immediately comes to the surface in these discussions,” Gray notes, “is how caring and encouraging the learning community within Hankamer is.”

This caring extends to relationships between students and professors, students and alumni, and professors and other professors as well.

“The most fulfilling aspects of my experience [at Baylor and in Hankamer] have been the personal relationships I have developed with my professors and through my extracurricular experiences,” says Amy Wofford, who graduates this year with a double major in Entrepreneurship and Marketing. “Through these experiences, I have become a better student and person. I have also found a large business network full of opportunities and active alumni in the business world and across the globe who are ready to help us.”

For her part, Hunter appreciates the care her veteran colleagues respond with when she seeks their counsel on teaching matters. “If I have an issue in the classroom or want some advice, I know I can go to any of my colleagues and talk about that,” she explains. “All of them are excellent teachers, and I feel confident in approaching them because I know that they will offer good advice.”

As Hankamer’s mission statement and values indicate, the guidance, advice and instruction faculty impart to students extends beyond business instruction. “Many people struggle with serious life questions while they are students in the business school, or in any other university program,” Gray adds. “I believe that our faculty and staff really are committed to this mission of preparing, within a Christian context, men and women for global leadership positions.”

Others share the same belief. “My professors have helped me to fulfill my aspirations by supporting me and teaching me long-lasting principles,” Wofford notes. “All of these resources [that Hankamer offers] have prepared me to step into the business world with confidence and eagerness to be a leader and make a difference.”

Accreditation: Beyond Compliance

In addition to strategic planning, Gray is also responsible for reporting measurements for maintaining accreditation. While it is noteworthy that Hankamer recently celebrated its 50th anniversary of maintaining accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), Hankamer’s approach to accreditation seems more compelling.

The AACSB is an international association of educational institutions, businesses, and other organizations devoted to the advancement of management education; the organization also functions as the premier global accrediting agency of collegiate business schools and accounting programs (Hankamer’s Accounting and Business Law program also maintains AACSB accreditation). Less than 5 percent of business schools worldwide have earned AACSB accreditation.

In accordance with the accreditation process, Hankamer submits a new application for approval every five years. The accreditation exercise involves a self-evaluation process, on-site visits from other AACSB deans and additional documentation reviews as well as interviews with Hankamer faculty and staff.

“It is not just a compliance exercise,” asserts Gray. Instead, Hankamer faculty and staff use the accreditation requirements as an opportunity to conduct self-assessments and collect feedback from key constituents that address a broad question: Are we intentional in working toward our mission? “It really is about whether we are intentional about serving all of our constituents,” Gray continues. “This functions as a research effort to determine how effective we are and whether or not we are achieving our stated mission.”

This helps explain why accreditation integrates into Hankamer’s strategic planning effort. Although the formal strategic planning process occurs on a two- to three-year cycle, the collection of input from constituents takes place on an ongoing basis. This input includes assessments from students, alumni, external stakeholders, faculty and staff as well as reports on activities and accomplishments that reflect Hankamer’s performance in executing its mission.

“We strive to be very deliberate in capturing all the great activities that are going on in communicating these accomplishments on a fairly frequent basis,” Gray adds.

Continuous Improvement

This approach helps enable a culture of continuous improvement throughout Baylor University and within Hankamer. The emphasis on continuous improvement is supported by other offerings as well.

Baylor University’s Academy for Teaching and Learning (ATL), launched in 2008, is a “school within a school” designed to advance shared inquiry and transformative conversations. ATL was named an “academy” intentionally, notes ATL founding director Gardner Campbell. This title, Campbell explains, describes a place within the university from which individuals can “think, at a strategic level, about the primary mission of the university, which is teaching and learning. ™One of the things that I’ve tried to emphasize here is the way that research itself is an activity that involves teaching and learning.”

To that end, Campbell has collaborated with Accounting and Business Law department chair Charles Davis to explore the impact of Web 2.0 technology on teaching and learning as well as with associate professor Blaine McCormick on practical ways to leverage social media in the classroom.

Within Hankamer, one of associate dean of Research and Faculty Development, Jeff Tanner’s primary responsibilities is to identify opportunities and resources that will support high-quality faculty research while maintaining the faculty’s commitment to teaching. “I think it’s rare to find a university that excels in both of these areas,” says Tanner, who stresses that the two endeavors can be complimentary.

“One of the best opportunities to achieve both of these objectives,” Tanner continues, “arises when a faculty member tackling real business problems while engaged in research with a company or organization involves students in the effort.”

In this situation, students may be directly involved in the research or the professor may be teaching a subject related to the research and can bring the research into the classroom. “Research can be a teaching tool when faculty involve their students in the process. We are seeing more faculty engaging their students in this way,” Tanner notes.

This type of engagement with students – and between teaching and research – occurs in large part because of the way in which Hankamer leadership engages, and deploys, its resources. While many business schools assign an associate dean the responsibility for faculty development, these duties typically focus more on promotion, tenure and sabbatical policies and decisions, but less on practical development opportunities related to teaching and research. Tanner’s role, like Hankamer’s underlying teaching philosophy, is much more balanced.

As is Maness’ recruiting strategy when hiring professors. “Here,” he says, “is the ideal response I want to hear when I’m talking to faculty recruits: I am looking for the kind of academic environment that places a priority on the classroom and student learning while also allowing me the time to do the research. I’m looking for the environment that rewards good teaching, and also allows me to contribute to my field.”

That balanced and intentional approach enables Hankamer to attract new teaching talent, like Hunter, and to retain more seasoned teaching talent like Petty, who in 2009 was named the National Entrepreneurship Teacher of the Year by Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurial Enterprise.

“I am happy to report,” says Petty, “that there has not been one day in 20 years I wasn’t excited about coming to work at Hankamer.”

The Hankamer School of Business’ Mission

The culture of the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University is guided by Christian commitment and champions life-long learning, highly-regarded scholarship and service to others as its highest ideals. The School seeks to produce business leaders with recognized integrity, superior theoretical knowledge and practical skills of modern global business developed through an experiential learning environment. We engage a diverse group of undergraduate, graduate, and executive students and alumni in a curriculum that produces graduates of value to business organizations and to their communities.

 

According to Students

“A good professor is someone who has real-world experience, and at the same time is relatable to students and relaxed enough. A good professor is someone who is like a friend.” Kyle Mills, Senior, Finance, Entrepreneurship and Economics

“Betsy Willis is really passionate about teaching. She talks to students and is available to answer questions. A good professor is there for his or her students and is passionate about his or her profession.” Lauren Kepple, Sophomore, Accounting

“Dr. Gilbreath is my favorite professor. He teaches you to understand the meaning behind why you’re learning about business. He is someone who understands what we are doing impacts the world around us, inside and outside the classroom.” Thad Warren, Sophomore, Entrepreneurship and Real Estate

“Tim Thomasson is my favorite professor. He had the most impact because he was my first Accounting professor. At that time I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and he really loves his profession. He was always available, encouraging and honest about accounting. He told us it was never easy but always rewarding.” Britanny Bay, Senior, Accounting

“Dr. James Roberts teaches Advertising Procedures. He taught me about the workforce and helped me with my resume. He’s in sports, and I am too, so he helped me with schedule conflicts. I related to him well and was even able to use his teaching as an example in my recent interview.” Joe Farley, Senior, Marketing and Management

“Dr. Lehnus teaches Professional Selling for Sports. He was incredibly encouraging and pushed us to reach our fullest potential. He also taught life skills and imparted wisdom that will benefit my future. A great professor is one that focuses on the success of his or her students. They are challenging yet immensely passionate about what they teach.” Aarika Rosa, Senior, Entrepreneurship

“Dr. Stegemoller’s Finance class was one of my favorites. I always looked forward to going and wanted to be prepared because I enjoyed the lectures. Dr. Stegemoller was very approachable, and he made it clear that he respected and valued everyone, no matter how they performed academically. While my other professors often exemplified the same principle, Dr. Stegemoller was the first to point out that Baylor’s mission statement claims ‘truth has its ultimate source in God.’ That statement is worthy of consideration in every classroom.” Danielle Grootemaat, Senior, Economics

“Dr. Mark Dunn is one of my favorite professors because he is great at teaching Marketing. He applied ideals not only in the classroom, but also in the real world. I was in Dr. Dunn’s class while studying abroad in Great Britain. I got to see Marketing applied to a different culture with a different dynamic. In my opinion, a great professor has to have a passion for what they are teaching and they must care about their students. Dr. Dunn does all of these.” Andrew Brenneman, Senior, Accounting

 

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2011

by Kristin Todd Stires

Faculty at the Hankamer School of Business are charged with a mission that comes with great responsibility: to produce business leaders with recognized integrity, superior theoretical knowledge and practical skills of modern global business developed through an experiential learning environment. The individuals highlighted in this article represent the high caliber of faculty Hankamer attracts and retains.

Tisha Emerson

Randal Vaughn

Charles Delaney

Christopher Meyer

Ann Mirabito

Kathy Hurtt

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2011

by Becca Broaddus

Professional development is “the advancement of skills or expertise to succeed in a particular profession,” according to Webster’s Dictionary. Hankamer School of Business faculty defined what professional development is to each of their departments.

Andrea Dixon, executive director of the Keller Center for Research and the Center for Professional Selling, says it’s “the bridge that needs to be created for the transition from college to a career.”

“Professional development is everything possible to make our students marketable to potential employers,” said Hope Koch, the Information Systems department’s Career Development director and associate professor.

Anthony Herrera, the Accounting department’s director of Internships and Career Development, said it is “preparing students for their professional careers and helping develop the skills and tools needed to be successful in it.”

Today, faculty members prepare students for their future in addition to teaching. The business school’s Accounting, Information Systems and Marketing departments go beyond the call of duty to prepare their students for a successful career outside the walls of Hankamer.

“We’re exposing students to a variety of experiences to develop skills that will benefit their career, not just in their first job,” Herrera said.

In the Accounting department, the term “Backpack to Briefcase” is not only the name of the development program, it also describes the transformation of a student into a professional. The program extends the educator’s role beyond technical knowledge to help students gain essential skills in supplemental areas like interviewing, networking, mentoring, etc.

“There’s a lot more to education than technical knowledge,” said Charles Davis, department chair of Accounting and Business Law. “Realizing that gives our students a leg up on other programs that don’t have this focus.”

Events within the “Backpack to Briefcase” program include opportunities to network with fellow students and recruiters. It also serves as an introduction to the field and the opportunities within it.

The Accounting Extravaganza is designed to inform freshman and sophomore students of the variety of accounting career possibilities. Accounting Orientation welcomes new majors and gives new students an overview of the program, as well as providing a chance for students to interact.

“From the second they become an Accounting major, we start preparing students for the end result: a career,” Herrera said. “We encourage all of our students to seek internships, school activities and organizations to develop skill sets they need to succeed post-graduation.”

Other events include Lunch and Learn information sessions, Accounting Career Day, a mentoring program, and a graduate professional trip to New York City and Washington, D.C.

“Our efforts pay off because most of our students who want internships, have internships,” Davis said. “We have new firms contacting us each semester about hiring our students; that’s market value.”

The Information Systems (IS) department is also making great strides in helping their students reach success.

“Nationally, students are graduating with unprecedented levels of debt, and the unemployment rate among recent graduates is at a record high,” Koch said.

Given the positive job outlook for IS majors, the department is increasing awareness about the opportunities in the field to make sure Management Information Systems (MIS) majors get hired. Since 2007, the number of MIS majors at Baylor has increased by 273 percent.

The IS department’s development program focuses on fostering relationships between students, faculty and potential employers. Koch has started a campaign “on the ground” building relationships with companies.

“We’re building company relationships and we’re making our products, the students, better,” Koch said.

The program includes career development dinners, classroom presentations, consulting projects and career panels for students to attend. Events are run by the students themselves for optimum involvement and professional exposure.

“The events are successful because they’re student-driven, there’s a buy-in from the students, so they see the value of it,” Koch said.

In the Marketing department, they operate through three ‘buckets’ of work: the curriculum, the assessment of God-given talents, and the combination of knowledge and skills culminating as a career path.

“You don’t just get knowledge rich and deep enough to decide what you like off the Internet,” Dixon said. “A student must develop a sense of who they are and compare that to what different roles are out there.”

The program is a system led by a professional development plan committee made up of students and faculty. Together the committee creates student networking events, internship advisory sessions, a branding yourself session, career fairs, field trips and luncheons for students.

“Everyone has the same curriculum; you have to stand out,” Dixon said. “You’ve got to build your own case, and these are great forums for practice.”

One of the big additions to the Marketing department’s efforts in the 2010 fall semester was First Wednesdays. The department hosted a speaker from the field to discuss his or her experience with students the first Wednesday of every month.

“It’s our responsibility at the university level to help the student see what options are available and help them,” Dixon said.

Dixon’s major focus is to get more student-professional interactions.

“There’s an underexposure of professionals to business students,” she said. “The current generation is good at digital networking, but they’re intimidated by face-to-face interactions.”

All three departments stress the importance of professional development as a means to an end. Davis, Dixon, Herrera and Koch all agree that success in their programs can be measured by whether the students have jobs after graduation.

“At the end of the day a department can do a lot, but the ultimate measure of value is placing students in jobs,” Koch said.

But students aren’t getting jobs without help from faculty members. The business school’s departments and faculty members are hosting events and meeting potential employers all in the name of their students’ career success.

“Faculty involvement and commitment breeds an environment so students are dedicated to their future success,” Herrera said.

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2011

by Barbara Elmore

If a professor wants to get to Point X in her academic career by next year, she might:

A. Discuss issues with a mentor
B. Sit in on a panel discussion about engaging students
C. Attend a workshop that dissects teaching techniques
D. Continue pursuing research ideas
E. All of the above

The answer is E. And the lack of time in a day helps explain why the business school has built a strategy of development instead of just putting an idea out there for the professor to do on her own – IF she has the time, IF she believes the development opportunity speaks to her, and IF she doesn’t have another appointment.

Ideas of how to develop faculty are changing because universities are changing, noted Jeff Tanner, associate dean of Research and Faculty Development. The changes tilt toward career orientation and forging paths that professors can travel efficiently, he said. Although a professor’s upward mobility may not result in a new title, it will likely be evident in new responsibilities.

Complicating and helping the changes are new teaching technologies and a new kind of student.

“Millennials are different in how they learn and interact, and we have new tools that we use to do our research. The faculty realized they needed to do something in order to stay up with it,” Tanner said.

Associate professor Blaine McCormick is among the professors learning new ways to communicate with students by using social media and a regular blog – but not e-mail.

“Students today don’t read e-mail as much as previous years,” he said. “It’s a new generational gap. In fact, some colleges have stopped issuing email addresses to students.”

Millennials, who were born between 1980 and 2000, do their coursework through social media channels like Facebook pages or blogs, McCormick said.

“I can get responses quicker via Facebook and texting rather than e-mail,” McCormick said.

The commitment to keep up with new technology results in more effective teaching, he said. To navigate the ocean of practices, tools and gadgets, McCormick attends a seminar run by the New Media Consortium in Baylor’s Academy for Teaching and Learning.

“We learn about Web 2.0 technologies and how they are changing teaching technology,” McCormick said. “The collaborative technologies that exist online are amazing.”

“If I understand corporate practice right, it’s about how quick I can get them up to capable speed,” McCormick added. “That is my challenge. They are swimming in information, and they have to figure out how to process it and apply it as quickly as possible to the current situation. Add the importance of building collaboration across multiple parties and multiple locations and you get a sense of the landscape.”

McCormick finds himself not only reading The Wall Street Journal online with his students, but also creating YouTube videos and interacting with students through the course blog.

“I want to be in the work flow of where they are looking,” McCormick said. “When that happens, you can more easily extend the class discussion beyond the classroom.”

Another sort of faculty development occurred in September 2010 during a one-day symposium to mark the 25th anniversary of the Center for Professional Selling. The event included invitations to 50 faculty and practitioners who focused on 10 different topic areas. Participants included sales executives; brand-new faculty members with success in publishing; mid-career faculty with tenure; senior faculty; and international faculty.

New faculty teamed with the mid-career professors as team leaders. Senior faculty acted as mentors, Tanner said. Each group developed a paper around a particular topic. Their work will be submitted to a journal and presented in spring 2011 at the Academy of Marketing Science annual conference.

“The idea was to provide mentorship to faculty, who then provide mentorship to others, and to encourage faculty to further a stream of research they had already started,” Tanner said. International participants provided working relationships and opportunities to Baylor sales faculty.

For several years, the business school also has engaged Yezdi Bhada, emeritus professor and co-director of the master teacher program at Georgia State University, to develop a workshop.

“These are not just war stories,” Tanner said. “They are evidence-based and very structured with specific techniques that faculty can use to improve teaching.”

The Hankamer School of Business has been emphasizing faculty development for years in both teaching and research, said Patricia Norman, who has chaired the business school’s Faculty Development Committee since 2006 and a universitywide Faculty Development Committee from 2004 to 2006. The business school panel creates opportunities for faculty to hear from other great teachers, Norman said, such as a Hankamer faculty lunch with the Robert Foster Cherry Professor for Great Teaching.

“We have seminars where we bring in noted experts on subjects such as how to better engage students,” Norman, an associate professor of Management, said.

In one session, two panelists, including a Wall Street Journal columnist, talked about how to engage students in ethics discussions. And in a series of both formal and informal sessions, faculty members converse about teaching challenges and suggest ways of improving.

Departments within the business school create their own development opportunities, Norman added, such as a collegial pre-tenure review process to look at how professors are performing in research and teaching. Participants work with mentors and get feedback, she said.

“The development that takes places at a department level is teaching-focused but also looks at research,” Norman added.

Also, new faculty audit the classes of professors noted for their teaching. This exposes the auditors to various ways of approaching subject material and students. In addition, tenured faculty members observe the teaching of professors new to Baylor and give feedback on what works well and what needs improvement.

Individual departments also bring in speakers and plan research seminars, Norman said.

“Both Accounting and Economics departments have done teaching development workshops,” she said.

The Faculty Development Committee includes representatives from each department and includes both new members and veterans to provide continuity.

“We try to get people who care about developing their colleagues to serve,” said Norman, who has been a member since 2004.

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2011

by Bill Thomas

It’s hard to believe that 40 years have passed since I joined the faculty at Baylor. My career, like most, has had its ups and downs, but I feel it’s been mostly “ups” since that day in the fall of 1971 that I first walked into a Hankamer classroom. I thank God that He has allowed, me, in some small ways, to help lead this institution that I love so much.

I’ve seen many leaders (both formal and informal) come and go at Baylor and other academic institutions during the last 40 years. Although I’ve held positions of formal leadership at various times, I prefer to be regarded as an “informal” leader, because it is earned through the respect of one’s colleagues and tends to endure longer than leadership by title alone.

As important as leadership is, very few people actually have formal leadership training. Most of us have learned it in the school of hard knocks. In my opinion, the attributes of good leadership in academia are really common to those of other organizations: values, vision, engagement, communication, caring, and stewardship. Although there are other leadership attributes, these are the ones that stand out most in my mind, because they have been demonstrated so prominently in the lives of most effective leaders that I have observed. Conversely, one or more of these attributes have been lacking in formal leaders that I have regarded as less effective.

Values

Integrity, honesty, and humility are life-defining values of every effective leader I have known at Baylor or elsewhere. There are no substitutes for these core values. Without them, persons placed in positions of leadership eventually fail, and in extreme cases have caused their organizations to fail. The other aspects of leadership flow from these internal values that serve as moral guideposts. They foster trust, which is an essential element in moving the organization forward.

Vision

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Without a vision, the people perish.” No institution, public or private, religious or secular, gets better by remaining the same. Vision requires members of an organization to see beyond the here and now and to envision how things can and should be. Good leaders must supply that vision and provide the spark that inspires others to see it as well. Weak leaders merely manage the status quo, and eventually the organization begins to weaken.

Engagement

Vision is not of much use unless the leader can inspire others to see it and to engage in fleshing it out. Nowhere is this more evident than in academia. I have often likened colleague engagement in academia to “herding cats,” because with the freedoms we enjoy, we academics often come to view ourselves as self-employed, as erroneous as that impression might be. So, whenever changes must be made, leaders must first demonstrate the capacity and willingness to engage in change themselves. Additionally, they must be role models, not only by showing others by example how engagement in the process can work, but by persuading, rather than dictating, others to engage.

Communication

Good leaders must be effective interpersonal communicators. Many, if not most, of the problems that occur in organizations are the result of poor communication on the part of the leader. The most common modern example of weak organizational communication I can think of is “management by e-mail.” I must confess, I abused e-mail terribly as department chair. It seemed so much more efficient to communicate by sending a multiple-recipient e-mail than to pop into people’s offices to chat. One click of the mouse and it was done (or so I thought). I slipped into the habit of communicating most of my thoughts and those of others (the “fwd” button), by e-mail. I soon found that, despite my misplaced feelings of accomplishment in passing so much wisdom along, faculty members began to alienate me from their conversations because they felt I had no time for them personally. It took me a few years to realize that, when there are important issues to address, sometimes e-mail (and its newer counterparts Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) are weak substitutes for face-to-face conversations. True leadership involves learning how to express vision and engage participation through regular, persistent, human communication.

Caring

As the old saying goes, “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.” Effective leaders must show, rather than tell, others how much they care. At least two facets of demonstrating a caring attitude include listening to and serving others.

I have found that students and faculty colleagues alike are far more likely to listen to my ideas when they know that I am reciprocating. Effective listening is a key toward demonstrating a caring attitude. There is always a temptation to set others straight by telling them how their thinking is wrong. No matter how wise and appropriate my advice is, I have found that sometimes people just want me to listen, not talk. This takes time, willingness to postpone expressing my own ideas in deference to listening to the ideas of others, no matter how off base I might initially think those ideas are. In fact, I have often been astounded to discover that, when I take the time to listen, those wacky ideas have often proved better than mine! Waiting until others ask, “What do you think?” is often hard, but it pays off because it demonstrates respect and tolerance for the views of others.

Service to others involves both words and actions: speaking words of encouragement, comfort and apology; and giving both of money and time to help students, faculty and the institution achieve their goals. These attributes demonstrate a servant’s heart, a willingness to follow our words with our actions, which is an essential element of leadership.

Stewardship

The wisest leaders soon discover that they are mere stewards, rather than owners, of the academic institutions they serve. I feel that three of the most important aspects of stewardship are holding on with open hands, grooming successors, and knowing when to let go. One of my mentors, former Dean Richard Scott, told me, “If you want an illustration of how essential you are to an organization, fill a bucket with water, insert your finger and pull it out. You’ll find that there are ripples for a moment, and then they’re gone.” No matter how seemingly indispensable academic leaders are, there comes a time for them to step down. After they depart, it doesn’t take long for them to fade into obscurity, while the organization moves on. I believe that effective leaders don’t hold on to their positions too tightly, because when they do so, they may egocentrically confuse personal and organizational goals. Effective leaders should also take time to identify promising successors, and to groom those successors by encouraging them to develop leadership attributes. Finally, discerning leaders develop a sense of timing that helps them know when to step down and let others take the reins. While they eventually disappear from the landscape, their values, passion, and ideas remain.

We are blessed at Baylor to have had visionary leaders in the past. Our current administration and faculty are role models of leadership. Because of that, Baylor University and the Hankamer School of Business will remain an institution that develops Christian leaders who are capable of “lighting the ways of time.”

————————————–

Bill Thomas currently serves as professor of Accounting, holder of the J.E. Bush Professorship in Accounting, holder of the KPMG/Holton Chair in Accounting, and the chair of the Ben H. Williams Distinguished Speaker Series. He holds a BBA and MBA from Baylor University and a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

A member of the Hankamer School of Business faculty since 1971, Thomas was recognized as an Outstanding Faculty Member at Baylor in 1984 and presented with the Outstanding Faculty Award for the Executive MBA Program in Dallas for both 2000 and 2001. He was named a Master Teacher in 2004.

Thomas’ scholarly work focuses on fraud prevention and detection, as well as ethical issues among accountants in public practice. He serves as the accounting and auditing editor of Today’s CPA, the journal of the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants. He is the author of a textbook in auditing, as well as many articles in auditing, financial accounting and reporting, taxation and accounting education.

Prior to becoming a professor, Thomas was an accountant with the firms of KPMG LLP, and BDO Seidman LLP. He is a member of the American Accounting Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants.

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Spring 2011