Dear Emad Abu-Shanab,

An administrative position may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you begin your post-graduate job search, but they can offer many benefits. For one, administrative jobs allow you to stay in an academic setting without the pressure of ongoing research and teaching in pursuit of tenure.

Regards, Shafagat

https://careerservices.princeton.edu/graduate-students/exploring-options-inside-academy/administrative-positions

The Head of the departments / school is the vital point to the educational system. They occupy the central position and all the activities of the school revolve around them. An efficient system of school management to a great extent depends upon the efficiency of the head's. The multifaceted role by them to lead with a vision as a crusader to achieve certain goals of the school with a zeal. The balancing position of the Head is to effectively lead, manage and participate in all the activities to make the teaching learning process in the schools most effective, which is quite demanding and is possible only when the head has a passion for that role.

Very interesting. This statement could be hypothesised with the riders that leaders are born, or built or nurtured! There are instances where academicians have shown greater leadership traits.

Maybe I do not agree with this opinion. From my long term experience in academic work, I see that  academicians with engineering background usually do much better than others in administrative jobs.  

It's not always true that academics fail in administration,however some may fail because of their background. They have spent much time to develop their academic competencies and once they switch to administration they fail to adjust tothe  new roles.

Those academicians succeed in administration, who

1. devote much time to the workplace

2. keep attention to every micro to macro event

3. are good listener

4. have patience

5. have acceptance from all corners

6. are intelligent enough to read the inner-meaning of an event

7. have guts to stand in front of all staff

8. have connections to every staff, vendor and stakeholder

9. have good personality and are well-behaved

10. have vision

11. are dynamic

12 have the ability to act as a finisher

I am giving this answer from my personal experience. These qualities can never develop by only nurturing. Leadership is a born quality.

My dear friend and colleague,

You are differentiating between administrative jobs (HR, finance, center ...) and academic admin jobs (head department, vice dean ...). I guess in the later type, in general we are OK but for the former you are dealing with non-academic staff. You need proper training in such areas and understanding the psychology of your staff and  how they operate. Most probably they are not accepting and academic to be their line manager and most probably would say he should leave this post for us and go and teach students. They will not cooperate with you and whatever admin style you use they will always criticize. I think this is the wrong place for an academic to be in. In western universities they look for someone to accept such role as they try to avoid it. Don't forget that taking such a risky role could affect your future carrier and cause unneeded discomfort that you could avoid.

Mohammad

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shafagat_Mahmudova 

I guess it is important to diverse you experience, but still, you need to keep your research track and focus on your future lans. I did not mean those who work in universities as administrators, but academics (mainly PhDs) who handle an administrative job (full load)

Shaz Alwy:

I guess we have a problem with conferences in Summer as we are not allowed to mix summer semester with travel. I guess also that I work in IT, which might make this a little bit far. Still, I will send the CFP to a friend of mine tin COBA to circulate...

Good luck

Mohammad Hamdan.... Dear Dr. Mohammad: I guess you are correct, it needs some training. Still, what you are saying is indicating that part of failure reasons is based on leadership failure or change management failure.

Krishnan Umachandran, I guess I commented, I am targeting administrative but not academic positions. It might be strange to see a head of dept or Dean with no PHD or non academic background....

Universities frequently promote successful academics into administrative jobs and the requirements of the administrative positions are very different than the requirements of scholarship, research and teaching. As well as the knowledge gaps that need to be acquired somehow, there are also significant challenges at many universities, such as, budgetary constraints, changing labour relation environments, and governments which change their relationship to the universities when the party in power changes. My PhD in Philosophy did not prepare me to be the chief negotiator for collective bargaining which I had to do while I was a Vice-President Academic at Provost at a university. So, the knowledge of leadership, law, governance, labour, finance and management to name but a few areas in administrative leadership has to be acquired independent of the educational background and experience that one is required to have as a teacher and researcher. Having said all of this, when universities try to hire individuals from outside of the educational sector, it is often an unsuccessful experience because those who do not have experience in a university do not understand the organizational culture of universities. Universities can only be led by moral suasion because they are populated by highly educated personnel who frequently are anti-authoritarian by disposition and experience.

Fawzi Al-Naima...

I guess I respect what you said, this was one of my reasons for this question, to see how far can academicians do in administration... I also, see what you mean from Engineering background, but sometimes, PhD with business or public administration fail to administer... 

Solomon M. Wambua

it is great to here conflicting views.. this means we are learning... I go with this opinion, and What dr. Hamdan said about training... Still, we judge from our experience...

I would also post an idea... Would environment influence such statsu (like developing countries or developed...) 

Comprehensive list by 

Sarada Mandal 

I guess still they fail... The same things can be done by administrators 

There are a lot of data out there if you wish to look at it. There was just a study done in Canada that reported that 25 percent of University Presidents do not complete their normal 5 year contract as President. These are very tough jobs. The real issue here is :who best represents the integrity and values of the university? Of course, administrators have to be competent but if they don't understand or respect the common good in educating students, don't understand the importance of the creation of new knowledge and don't understand the public purpose of a university, do you really want them in leadership positions? We aren't making widgets here, we are creating the next generation of educated workers and leaders in our nation states.

It is important to know wether the academic is assuming a job within the university or outside the university setting. It is true that academics find it a challenge to settle in on managerial jobs that are outside the university settings compared to persons who are already in the non academic setting. Academics tend to reason in more idealistic manner than non academics at least in my country 

If an academic does not possess managerial competencies (given below) it is more likely that he or she fails.

1.       Technical Competency: This is the ability to use tools, techniques and methods to perform a task or an activity. It involves your ability to develop or prepare appropriate policies, procedures, rules, and budgets in a specialized field. It is one’s capability about the relevant field (that may be accounting, engineering, production, human resource management, marketing etc). For instance, if you are a human resource manager you must have the capability of performing functions such as human resource planning, recruitment, selection, induction, performance evaluation, training and development, rewards management, discipline management, management of employee movements, career planning and development, grievance handling, and management of labour relations. You must possess sufficient technical competence to accomplish the job for which you are responsible. You must be able to perform the mechanics of your job. 

 2.      Human Relation Competency: This is the ability of understanding and dealing with people without creating disorders, conflicts and confusions. It involves your ability to work with people well. It is the employee’s ability to work effectively as a team member and to build cooperative effort in the unit/department/organisation. If you are a manager, you must possess abilities in communicating, motivating and leading your subordinates.

 3.      Conceptual Competency: This is the ability to understand the organization as a total entity. It includes your ability to comprehend all activities and interests of the organization where you are working. It includes comprehending interdependency and interrelation of various parts of the organization, and environmental forces and their impact on the business. Also it is your capability of defining phenomena, imagining, analyzing, synthesizing, theorizing, planning and organizing.

Also appropriate personality is a major determinant of administrative or managerial success. Personality is about values, preferences, likes, and dislikes of a person. It includes your talk, your physical appearance, your walk, and other unique features. It is your ability of adjusting your thinking and behaviour to relevant environment/occasion/job appropriately. It focuses on a set of personality traits which have more potential to lead to successes, namely locus of control (the degree to which you believe in that your decisions and actions determine your destiny); authoritarianism (the degree to which you believe in that there should be a clearly defined structure of authority and status); dogmatism (the degree to which you are closed-minded with tightly held beliefs); Machiavellianism (the degree to which you focus on obtaining and using power to further your own ends, regardless of the impact on others); type A/B trait (the degree to which you choose to work aggressively under pressure with an impatient and competitive approach to others) (adapting from Dunham, 1984); self-monitoring of behaviour (the degree to which you can observe and control the images and perceptions that others form about you) and extraversion (to degree to which you are very active, lively, assertive and social). It has been observed that internal locus of control, less dogmatism, less authoritarianism, less Machiavellianism, type A-, high self-monitoring and extraversion personality trait inclinations are positively associated with managerial excellence. 

There may be other factors in addition to what I mentioned above. However, the mentioned ones are critical.  

I have done both. And am currently in admin whilst still publishing. The key to me is that admin jobs require a totally different mindset and organizational approach than academia. I am not trying to be cruel, but academia's focus on teaching and research in no way prepares you for admin work. Teaching is about interpersonal interactions and presentation of course material you are (or should be) expert at. research is about asking questions, performing analysis to know "why" (sometimes "how") something is, and then transmitting that as some sort of pure knowledge. Admin work is about doing tasks that further some type of work, or assists decision making, usually a "what". That is, admin work is about a concrete result where the theoretical aspect is not very important. The modes of communication are totally different. Academic work is based on your qualifications, networks and reputation derived through your research and publications (taken broadly). Academic work requires communications based on your position in the organization (not hugely important in academia), your specific role in how the university runs (specific in admin and quite general in academia), and your hierarchical relationships (tightly defined in admin an both tight and loose in academia - by that I mean an academic has a specific role, teach course x, and relative freedom to do whatever they want at the same time). So academics have totally different work styles and learnt behavior that lead to success. E.g. An academic gets multiple goes at a paper. An admin person gets one go at a paper. The audience for the academic paper is peers, probably sympathetic to the work. The audience for the admin paper is senior people that expect a certain template of work, done in a certain way leading to certain answers in a set timeframe.

So many academics fail because they bring academic work and communication styles to admin work. this means they are slow, inaccurate/sloppy (as defined by the admin work), and often communicate in a way that conflicts with how the place runs.This in no way indicates that academics are inferior in any way. It is simply how academics are taught to work, think and communicate.

Most admin/business people won't succeed in academia because they don't think in the right way. they don't explore the why issues. They approach things with the attitude that so long as 'that bit of work is OK then 'what's he problem'? When to an academic there is no linkage to broader theoretical frameworks, structures of empirical findings in the area and modes of communication in invisible colleges.

Hope that makes sense. Many people work well in both areas. But the logic of success is so different.

There are many instances of academics successfully handling administrative jobs. What is essential is the proper mental orientation, it should not be a case of academics teaching/ researching first and administering second. A research oriented academics may work alone, but while in administration, he/she will have to work with team. Therefore an academics, while in administration must possess qualities of : organizing ability, team working, getting along with people, situation analysis, decision making ability, foresight and being result oriented.  

• I guess mental orientation and the training that is needed are the major responses. The reasons behind such failure can be the power separation with administrative people. They think that these areas are booked for them... some resistance arise.

I think academics, in the search of doing thing rigorously, fail in the delivery on time.

I agree it is mind set of  both disciplines. One difference I see is that in administration the dead lines set by the peers and supervisors etc but for academics you have your own dead lines.

I have done both. Being a PhD, I continued teaching in the colleges and as a permanent staff of central bank, I handled the office job. Fro management job, we need better planning, effective communication, ability to get things done by other subordinate staff, effective dealings and encouraging. In teaching, we require effective preparation of what we want to deliver to the students and ensuring that they get the right message. I have enjoyed both roles so far. I look forward to a similar role after my retirement in July from my central bank career.

I have see few academicians succeed in both roles like Binod Atreya, but most have filed by scattering their energies all over. I wish it was possible to work like Binod.

I have handled both types of jobs ie executive job in MNCs where you have to take decisions, meet time deadlines, as well as achieve targets, without which you can not survive and grow in the job. You have to be good at multi tasking, time management, both focus and broader perspective, to understand the implications of decisions on all stake holders. Academic and research work requires totally different abilities of focus and deep thinking, interaction with experts in the area to develop new ideas. Creativity and hard work are essential for being successful in this profession. Ultimately academics is more satisfying profession in life ,if you are nit enamored by power and status.

Congrats for putting up an interesting question on the discussion table. All academics not necessarily fail in administrative jobs; but some do. Flexibility and nuance to understand what the profession and job demand are most important. If one can do this, he/she can do better in both.

Thanks for the interesting issue you've raised

This has been an interesting discussion. As a full professor who has been an administrator for most of my career including as a Provost and as a Vice-Chancellor I have seen that one of the greatest challenges for academics in administration is stress and having to make unpopular decisions. Some faculty treat you, not like a colleague who has assumed an administrative position for a period of time, but as "The administration" or "The President". You are treated as a role rather than as an individual who has degrees, like them, including a doctorate, who teaches and does research but are rather perceived as an un-individuated administrator rather than an individual person. I taught and did research throughout my career but some treat you as 'merely an administrator.'I have seen many of my colleagues fail as administrators because it was just too personally costly to their health and their psychological well-being.

Dear Sir/Ma'am, I not experienced as you all, but i really want to answer this question. In Administrative Jobs, people requires experience, confidence, having respect towards seniors and Organization and have ability to Handle situations. In that case, no matters what they got in their academics.

           I am a student Bachelor of Technology, from Jodhpur (Rajasthan), India. My Aggregate percentage of academics till 5th Semester is just not good but not bad also. I'm not good enough in academics but I have one thing and that is my confidence and dedication to my work. Again I'm not experienced but I know if in future, i will get placed in any administrative workplace, i can do it with all my confidence, dedication and by showing respect towards my work and Organization.

The Best Qualities of successful professionals on both the careers are, (and these qualities are more needed for administrative jobs)  :

Team Oriented, Ability to create and utilize ideas, Good Character, how to work with others, Lead, motivate  and control the  subordinates, How to convince the top management, SMART GOAL focus, and practical

The administrative role contains more management pressure and less freedom than academic role.

Having been in both industry and academia, one observation is: a corporation may provide leadership and managerial training whereas academic institutions often provide little to no training for folks to become administrators.

The key is 'adaptation'. Academicians are trained to think is certain ways over the years to solve problems. In an administrative position they have to change their mindset and outlook to think and act in a different way to get their jobs done. Those who can adapt can do well but not everybody can. Another reason is time. In an administrative position, academicians cannot think about their research problems all the time. They have to put their minds to other mundane matters like office files and funds raising, which to them might seem less important than their personal growth as seeker of knowledge.

In the business world and in the academic world the audience is different. When we communicate, we as academics need to adapt or change based on the audience.

When handling an Administrative role, it is necessary to have HRM knowledge. May be some academics don't have the HR skills

Dear Udaya:

I also can apply this to Financial departments and they have a PhD in Finance or accounting and they fail still. :)

Att. Deborah:

I guess you are right in what you said. It is interesting that Academicians feel they are a position and neglect their academic or researcher's roles... Interesting

لانه ليس لديهم الخبرة الكافيه لادارة المكاتب ومهارات الاعمال الادرايه اومهارات السكارتاريه

Because they don't have enough experience in office management, management business skills or secretarial skills.

Not all academics are unsuccessful in administrative and leadership work, even if they are. When there were advanced universities. Knowing that administrative leadership depends on personal characteristics.

When talking about personal traits, they posses (I mean both academics and non-academics) the same opportunity... Yet nice view..

I guess they might lack experience as they are focused in their early career on academia and study, but they still can acquire such skill...

I think the root of the problem is the specifics of the activity. In administrative work, especially in a commercial organization, the efforts are aimed at obtaining quick results. At the same time the field of knowledge is usually quite wide, you have to work with different people, data, tasks. When doing scientific research, you usually choose a narrowly focused area and go deeper into it. Often, the work is done more because of scientific interest rather than practical goals. This is why people from academia do not cover the full range of work when they enter an administrative position, but delve into the first task and overdo it. Although the requirements in its implementation may not be so high and the goals are short-term, fast. Accordingly, it is also difficult for people from the administrative field to enter the academic environment and engage in deep research in a narrowly focused area of scientific knowledge. The second factor is the natural predisposition of people to a certain field of activity. This, too, must be reckoned with.

I think the administration skills depend mainly on the personality of the manager, so he can develop new skills by the time.

Some times the job need to think out of the box..

The academian can't do that because they have no professional experience. However, the manager with real experience can solve any problems even in different way.

I can conclude that most of academian people thinking in one way.

It depends on the mentality of your manager and the working environment.

Based on my personal experiences holding both academic and professional accountancy qualifications;

1. Accounting required competency, therefore, workers need to get accounting experience as much as possible in order to enhance competency (perhaps also increase salary). We work in an environment in which we are making our quick decisions daily. We do not necessarily understand the accounting concept or accounting framework due to our main goal is to finish our accounting paperwork as quickly as possible for a company to make the decision (to sustain in the competitive environment, to enhance shareholders' values and etc.)

2. These working experiences, eventually, one day, make us feel bored (or burn out maybe?) every day we might do the same tasks. For those who are high achievers, routine jobs have become their enemy, in which, at this time, they might take the extra mile, further study, learn finance (for example, how to find the more source of funds), use previous experiences as the stepping stone to the understanding business world and improve industry performance. All of this requires a research background (Ph.D. / Academic).

My accountancy professional body, The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) always encourages us to study for Ph.D. due to we can view both, academic and practical industry. We can acquire accounting / administrative skills as well as research skills. Before we decided to move higher in academics, all ACCA graduates are required to complete at least three years of relevant working experiences in the field of accounting, audit, or taxation, of course, to acquire these working experiences, we as the ACCA graduates need to learn to do accounting administration as well.

From my viewpoint, I feel fortunate because I am currently attached to the global professional accountancy bodies in which they guide us to gain relevant working experiences plus they support us with Continuous Professional Development so that we are still relevant to the industry although we are still studying Ph.D. They provide the guideline of competency, so that, we know which part we need to perform well.

لو أردنا إجراء مقارنة بسيطة بين العملين نجد أن في كليهما يكون الاستاذ (الأكاديمي) والمسؤول الإداري صاحب القيادة والواجهة والقدوة التي ينظر إليها كجهة إصدار الارشادات والتوصيات الاختلاف بينهما أن القرارات التي تصدر من الإكاديمي والتي إعتاد على إصدارها تكون مجرد قرارات ذات طابع توجيهي علمي في حين أن العمل الإداري يترتب عليه قرارات تشغيلية ذات طابع تنفيذي يؤثر على كيفية وطبيعة التسيير والتنفيذ لذلك قد يملك الأكاديمي الجودة والكفاءة العلميتين لكن الادارة تتطلب إلى جانب ذلك جودة التسيير والكفاءة التي تمنح صاحبها القدرة على التدخل متى استلزم

@الأمر لتصحيح مسار العمل