The Path to Department Chair: Arriving and Thriving

Although every department chair has their own style and approach to the job, current chairs stress the importance of certain attributes in becoming an effective leader:

Ability to see the big picture. “Know your own importance as well as your department’s role in the bigger institution. As a chair, you have many competing missions and you must decide which of them rise to the top,” Dr. Collins said. “Is pure clinical productivity more important than resident surgical training? It is the leader’s job to see that big picture, have established principles, and lead according to those principles.”

Strong listening skills. “We all get so tunnel-visioned, so siloed into the nuances of our individual practices, especially in academics, and there are things you are not going to know off-hand,” Dr. Chandra said. “You need to listen, ask questions, and pay attention, because as a chair you must have a darn good grasp of how the entirety of the specialty is practiced.”

Empathy and respect for others. “As a leader, you want to support everyone to the greatest extent, but it isn’t always possible. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions that you wouldn’t have to make in an ideal world,” Dr. Agrawal said. “I think that being respectful and empathetic by acknowledging how people feel and not minimizing those feelings is an important skill.”

Authenticity. “You may not be the same type of leader as someone else, even if you have the same goals,” Dr. Lin said. “You need to be authentic to yourself, to understand your own strengths and weaknesses and how to use what you have to get from A to B.” In a job where interpersonal skills are so clearly essential, Dr. Lin has come up with an acronym that she has dubbed CHARM. “You need to be Collaborative, Humanistic, Authentic, Realistic, and to Make an effort,” she explained. “Sometimes by doing all these things, you can turn a difficult situation around.”

Linda Kossoff is a medical journalist based in Los Angeles.