The Path to Department Chair: Arriving and Thriving (Part 2)

Indeed, leadership styles do vary with the individual, and it is up to each chair to determine what works best for them. The keyword here is “authenticity.” “People know when you’re trying to take on a persona that is not native to who you are,” Dr. Lin said. “If someone determines that you’re not ‘for real,’ then they can’t connect to you. I’ve had to figure out what works for me as a person, and to pay attention to what resonated with my team and what didn’t.”

Despite their best efforts and intentions, a department chair will inevitably and repeatedly encounter pushback. “I always prided myself on getting along with everybody, and in the past usually avoided conflict,” Dr. Collins said. “In leadership, however, I have realized that you will often get challenged. Those challenges may come from within the department, but they also come from other departments, the hospital, or external competitors. It took me a while to realize that my job is to advocate for the department, and that might mean standing up to others. There have been a few instances in which another department chair or institutional leadership tried to ‘slip one past us,’ and I had to push back, which is historically not my nature.”

Whether a leader can calmly navigate such curveballs is a key prerequisite for the job. Still, Dr. Varvares expressed a positive point of view. “In the end, the most challenging aspect of the position is also the most rewarding: to manage and solve issues that arise—even when you think you have seen it all—while at the same time trying to guess where the puck is going to go next,” he said. “What has surprised me is just how enjoyable it is. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I didn’t realize just how much the job, the department, and its people give back in return.”

Parting Advice

Serving as department chair is not a part-time venture, and ENTs who are interested in assuming the position should be prepared to sacrifice their time and other professional pursuits while holding the reins. For all intents and purposes, the chair is the department, and vice versa. One cannot thrive without the other.

“As academic otolaryngologists, we all develop personal metrics of success. In my opinion, however, once one becomes chair, the marker of success is the success of the department,” Dr. Varvares said. “One’s own clinical and research interests take a back seat to this priority.”