The new consultancy service allows you to receive help developing concrete ideas or addressing challenges related to practising educational leadership. Regardless of whether your leadership responsibility is formal or informal.

The term 'educational leadership' is used as an umbrella term for a variety of roles and responsibilities in education and teaching. Therefore, it is not a requirement that words like 'director', 'manager', or 'head of' appear in your specific job title.

Consultancy supported by solid research

Assistant professor at the CED, Sanna Lassen, is behind the new offer. She leads the EDULEAD research project, which focuses on educational leadership in universities. Over the past 20 years, she has been involved with leadership in various ways. Among other things, she has served as project manager on various municipal leadership development projects, functioned as a consultant for management teams, and taught on the diploma degree programme in leadership at VIA University College.

"The reason the CED is now offering this consultancy service is that I interviewed various educational leaders and their immediate managers. From the data I have collected, I have found that both educational leaders and their immediate managers are expressing interest in consultancy—preferably with a neutral, external consultant.

At the same time, she emphasises her role in the dialogue:

I am not going to tell anyone how they should do something. It will be a reflective dialogue about ideas or challenges."

A valued offer of reflective dialogue

Christiane Marie Høvring is an associate professor at the Department of Management. She views the new consultancy offer as a welcome opportunity to gain a fresh perspective on her role as an educational leader:

"I think it would be a privilege to have the opportunity to speak with a researcher in educational leadership who also has practical experience in the field, but at the same time is not part of my everyday environment. I see the opportunity as a valuable way to get an external perspective on my role as a coordinator, which allows for reflection and can help me further develop my competencies," she says.

In addition to her teaching and research, Christiane Marie Høvring has held a number of different educational leadership roles, including line coordinator and programme coordinator. Drawing on her experience in navigating these roles, she considers the new collaboration opportunity to be highly relevant.

A course for those who wish to delve deeper into the topic of educational leadership

Christiane Marie Høvring is a former participant of the course Educational Leadership, which is designed for academic staff with specific responsibilities for coordinating and developing education and teaching, but without any formal managerial responsibility.

"I have participated in different educational leadership courses outside AU. These have focused on different types of educational leadership roles. The Educational Leadership course was interesting because it explicitly focuses on the role of, for example, programme coordinator or line coordinator, and the opportunities and challenges associated with a position without formal executive authority," she says.

When asked which elements of the course Christiane Marie Høvring found most valuable, she points to topics such as course evaluation and meeting facilitation. She particularly emphasises the course topic of aligning expectations as a valuable theme for navigating and interacting with various stakeholders:

"The distinctive aspect of my roles as a coordinator is that I focus on supporting the coordination and development of degree programmes through collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders. There are the students, the other teachers—who are also colleagues—the formal management, the administration, and the external partners and prospective employers linked to the programmes. Aligning expectations is essential to effectively fulfil the role of a coordinator, and this particular element is one of the core themes of the course."

The next step

Are you in need of consultancy related to your role as an educational leader? Or do you wish to discuss specific ideas or initiatives related to your leadership practice?

• Contact Sanna Lassen at sanna@au.dk or +45 93 50 82 41.

Are you a professor or associate professor who would like to delve deeper into the role of educational leader?

• Learn more about and sign up for the course Educational Leadership.