Transformation to Academic Leadership: The Role of Mentorship and Executive Coaching

The transition to academic leadership entails learning to utilize an enormous new collection of skills. Executive leadership coaching is a personalized training approach that is being increasingly used to accelerate the onboarding of effective leaders. Vanderbilt University Medical Center has invested in a robust coaching strategy that is offered broadly to institutional leaders. This case study details the early transformational learning of leadership skills by one new institutional leader in the first two years in an academic leadership role, telling the first-person account of the experience of being coached while independently leading a division of hematology and oncology at a highly ranked medical center. Over two years' time, assessed in 6-month intervals, the academician transitions into the role, and using scenarios from regular practice in this position, learns to incorporate core leadership principles into the daily activities of running a division. The transition to academic leadership involves a transformation; a conversion that can be accelerated, guided, and applied with a greater deal of sophistication through intentional coaching, and the application of principles of behavioral science and psychology. Much like the process of coaching a high performing athlete, an elite academician can be trained in skills that enhance their game and succeed in creating a winning team. The academic medical center (AMC) is an interesting social organization, made up of highly accomplished and well-educated people, brought together around a variety of missions and motivations: education, patient service, research, community building, financial margins, and citizenship to name a few. Moreover, the leadership of AMCs almost entirely comes from within this community, drawing people with talents in science, teaching, clinical research, and service into roles that industries reserve usually for MBAs, lawyers, and other professionals who undergo rigorous guided training. Fortunately, academics are well-equipped with skills in lifelong learning, focused curiosity, and tend to be ambitious to a fault. Thus, there is a steady pipeline of budding leaders in AMC's eager to tackle new challenges that will further their missions. Like major industries in the public and private sectors, the demands of leadership are significant. How to navigate the transitions from physician, teacher, or scientist to academic leader is not covered easily in any text. Vanderbilt University Medical Center has adopted a model of Leadership Coaching, akin to the Trusted Leadership Advisor model (Wasylyshyn, 2017). This case study details the experience of one new leader (first author), freshly plucked from the medical science proving ground. Accounts and description of the experiences and intentions of the leadership coach, Dick Kilburg, provide insight into the processes applied in facilitating this transition. Finally, observations of the transition from the vantage point of the primary supervisor (Department Chair, Nancy Brown) provide a further description of the coaching effect on the early development of an AMC leader. The experience of the client, Kimryn Rathmell (Kim), is told in first person narrative format-fitting for the intense and personal experience that accompanies the transition to a leadership role.