Role of a Head

Pankaj Jalote

Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

In IITK, the Head of a unit (IIT, Department, Center, …) is the point of contact for all administrative matters relating to that unit who passes papers and information between his unit and rest of the organization through available and established mechanisms, and performs the statutory tasks. In short, the Head is viewed as, and is expected to act as, primarily an administrator.

There is no doubt that efficient administering is essential for smooth functioning of any organization. But, can an organization be vibrant and dynamic with the primary role of the Head being administering of his unit? If individuals and the organization are to achieve greater heights, the goals and aims of the organization, its units, and its people must keep getting higher, and a Head must play the role of the leader taking his unit to the higher goals. If this is viewed as the main role of the Head, and the performance of his unit is his primary performance indicator, then it matters less how productive a Head is himself; what matters more is how productive his unit is as a whole. Of course, it helps if the personal output of the Head is also good as besides contributing to the output of the unit it also gives him moral authority to head the unit.

As an academic institute/unit is not a cohesive unit with clearly defined unit objective, the best a Head can do is to facilitate achieving of higher goals by individuals, and facilitate development of groups to leverage complimentary strengths and expertise. A basic goal of an individual-oriented system should be to help individuals realize their potential through individual and group activity.

There is no doubt that most IITs have faculty and staff that have tremendous capability. But equally true is the fact that most have not realized anywhere near their potential, if we look at quality and quantity of the output. This is less of a failure of the individuals, but more a failure of its various Heads, and of the overall system that expects and encourages Heads to be mere administrators, and not leaders helping individuals to raise their expectation levels and encouraging groups to be formed.

The biggest challenge for a Head in IITs today is to encourage individuals and small groups to dream and then facilitate the transformation of dreams into reality. That is, encourage setting of high goals by individuals and groups of individuals, and then use administrative means to facilitate achieving of these higher goals. With this, administering becomes a tool and an aid to achieve higher objectives. Without a guiding vision, administering is an unexciting chore, making the Head essentially a glorified clerk.

Ultimately, the Head should be in a position where he takes pride in, and “boasts about”, not what he has achieved, but what his colleagues in his unit have achieved. This perhaps is the hardest task for a Head in an individualistic system like ours where individual aspirations are the basic driving force. But when given the role of a Head, the individual must rise above his self and view his success as the growth and rise of his colleagues.

This brings us to the question, why should a Head do this? This can only be done if suitable incentives and disincentives are systemically supported for a Head to perform as a leader of a group. This, unfortunately, is not easy given that we have few evaluative mechanisms in place, do not have clearly articulated roles and responsibilities, have no stated performance indicators for different Heads, etc. With the lack of clarity of purpose and lack of mechanisms to support it, Heads do seem to be encouraged to remain as administrators – as long as the papers are acted upon quickly and the general response time to requests is short, a Head is considered a good Head. This clearly is not enough – it is relying too much on individuals to take the unit and the organization to greater heights. Only if the fundamental difference between an individual faculty member and a Head is realized by most of the Heads, and is systemically supported, can our institute become one that helps individuals realize their potential, and in the process achieve greater heights.