Why and how you matter: learning development as everyday leadership

Abstract

For the learning developers, operating within the third space in higher education (between academic-faculty positions, and professional/learning services and administration) brings its rewards through supporting students and staff to succeed. However, well-documented challenges, such as uncertainty around own professional identity; own place in the institutional culture and infrastructure; entitlement to CPD; and career progression trajectory (Silvey, Pejcinovic and Snowball, 2018; Obexer, 2020; Clark, 2021). Learning Developers who often are employed as both academics and professional services may find themselves grappling with finding ways to capture and evidence impact of their activity on their students’ academic and broader experience and proving their worth to their institution and the sector on the whole (Riggio, 2020). Our institutions may feel like worlds of academic standards and managerial constraints, neither of which helps reinforce the feeling of empowerment and belonging among learning developers.

Everyday leadership, as a position and behaviour of choice, can help navigate these challenges, at individual, institutional and LD community levels. Everyday leadership has links with a stronger sense of empowerment, self-fulfilment and belonging – to the collective LD community, and to the institution (Drury, Evripidou, and Van Zomeren, 2015). Everyday leadership implies influence, and therefore, impact. In this session, we applied our thinking from Cashman (2017) and Whitelaw (2020) and define leadership as extending your energy into “things that matter” (Whitelaw, 2020. NP), to create value for others. Everyday leaders are all individuals, notwithstanding of their status, who “influence others to achieve shared objectives for the good of the collective” (Riggio, 2020, NP). Our participants also explored, and reframed their activity from the angle of everyday leadership – such as influencing peers and students, mentoring peers, initiating or leading a project, speaking up, acting as an active bystander. Finally we referred to broad themes from the ALDinHE Leadership Community of Practice. Participants shared practice and came up with a range of everyday leadership ‘expressions’ which are meaningful to them, within the context of their value and purpose; empowerment and belonging; influence and impact. Participants were encouraged to commit to one new everyday leadership action/ behaviour.