Great Captains: The Dean as a Military Commander

It will be argued that an academic dean, in common with most middle managers who deal with highly skilled professionals, must switch seamlessly from one role to another and fixate neither upon on the comptroller-like aspects of the post, nor upon its ceremonial aspects, nor upon its philosophical ones. Instead, the dean should behave rather like a military commander and pay enormous attention: (i) to bonding with the troops; (ii) to assigning tasks which are rational, unambiguous, and performable; (iiii) to issuing visible rewards and demerits; (iv) to choosing objectives wisely and acting decisively; and (v) to leading by example.