CHRISTINA

I started as a faculty member in philosophy. I have always been eager to learn more about teaching and learning and continually improving my practice. I have been particularly interested in and affected by the work of the Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver related to Indigenous engagement, equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and open education. I have learned a great deal from staff in our centre on these and other topics, and I was excited to be able to contribute to and lead a unit that upholds values that I hold deeply by becoming the academic director.

ANNE-MARIE

I started working in IT project leadership roles in education and grew into being a learning technologist. I describe educational technology now as both my discipline and my profession. I enjoy getting things done and using knowledge for practical purposes, so I have actively pursued administrative roles rather than academic ones; however, I have always tried to be scholarly in my approach and my work and take opportunities to research and publish since I think that they are a way to reflect on and improve my work. I have deliberately pushed myself into senior management roles because I think that you can either shout from below or roll up your sleeves and try to do better yourself. I am a very values-driven person, so if I have career ambition then it is about doing work that I believe aligns with those values and has the impacts that I think are important. Ultimately, I think that my values and wanting to have a certain impact comprise my leadership practice, and reaching for leadership roles has been the mechanism by which I can put those things into action.

MICHELLE

For me, geography and distance have often created barriers to accessing education, so my initial student experiences with distance education highlighted how structures and policies of most traditional institutions of higher education are embedded in inflexible and often unreasonable frameworks that reflect organizational or process requirements rather than the needs of students. A focus on removing barriers to access has led to leadership roles in which I can try to find the nooks and crannies within institutional structures. My leadership has been primarily in a chairperson role, working with colleagues and teams to focus on finding spaces and people where pockets of innovation can be found. Networking and building relationships with others with shared values have helped me to push for change in policies, practices, and processes.

ELIZABETH

Growing up in a rural tourism setting taught me much about the value of cultivating relationships, building community, and demonstrating care for others across all ages and stages of life. It also instilled in me an entrepreneurial mindset and a deep respect for the various ways in which people come to know what they know, an acute awareness of the inequities inherent in systems, and the power of possibility in working creatively to address them. Transitioning from K–12 educator to corporate training and learning designer to consulting on online and blended learning, I have had the privilege to work on several local, national, and international projects focused on increasing flexibility and access to education and building capacity within systems for alternative approaches to teaching and learning. Reflecting on my professional journey thus far, I believe that relationships, collaboration, care, and curiosity have guided my work and enabled me to influence change at practical and systems levels.

TANNIS

I started as an instructional designer in a distance education unit, largely motivated by the experiences of family members who benefited, in life-changing ways, from open universities and distance education. This role allowed me to focus on technology as a means to remove barriers to access to education, leading me to technology-supported design and delivery. When I changed institutions, I was motivated to occupy more of a leadership role to have some degree of influence over the direction of technology-supported teaching and learning. I was eventually responsible for an institute-wide strategy that included openness as part of a plan for technology-supported teaching and learning. This helped to guide the activities and focus of the centre, and it was motivating and rewarding to see the tangible impacts made in those areas. In my current role, my focus is on helping to make significant shifts in institutional practices. If I reflect on this trajectory, then I find a common thread and set of values that guide how I approach the role: greater access to education as a goal, openness as a means to do the work, and leveraging technology in thoughtful ways to create meaningful experiences for students.

Taken together, our professional journeys provide insights into a set of shared values and beliefs consistent with the time-proven practices of distance education itself: access, equity, community, relationships, and care as highlighted in the introduction of this book.

TANNIS

I think of leadership as big L and small l. This has been defined in various ways in different disciplines, but in the context of the work that I do big L leadership includes large and visible efforts often associated with the position, whereas small l leadership comprises the less visible and tangible efforts often associated with care and capacity building. For me, the two types are in constant negotiation. I do not know whether this is a gendered experience, but I have never been in a role in which only big L leadership was required, and I think that it would be a lot easier if that was the case. Small l leadership can be more hidden, time consuming, and less rewarding, but the impact can be equally important.

MICHELLE

I have been pondering the question “do you need small l (and perhaps more distributive models of leadership) and big L leadership to make transformative change?” Recent research on the institutional implementation of open education (Morgan et al., 2021) highlights the importance of both senior leadership and grassroots distributed networks as essential.

CHRISTINA

A policy or initiative promoted only from the big L level likely will not go very far if it is not supported at the grassroots level. Connecting those levels seems to be critical. This also makes me think about how in my role I am in a middle space that can be powerful.

ANNE-MARIE

I am thinking about the leadership role that one plays in an organization by being a connector of many others. We all know someone in our institutions who knows everyone else there. Often those people are not in positions of hierarchical power, but they have immense social and cultural power and are vital to things getting done. So the kinds of middle-level leadership roles (Latchem & Hanna, 2001) that a few of us hold are important in terms of a similar function: that is, knitting together the various parts of our institutions.

When considering the roles that big L leadership plays, Anne-Marie and Christina highlighted the challenges that can be faced when there is a level of distrust in more senior roles.

ANNE-MARIE

In some cases, being the connector in the middle is immensely political, and recently I have found myself on the receiving end of some pretty harsh vitriol ultimately targeted elsewhere, but I am right in the line of fire. It hits me hard because it absolutely hits me in my values.

CHRISTINA

That sounds really challenging! At times, I struggle with the vitriol aimed at senior leadership. I think that some of the distrust might come from a lack of transparency, which can be a complex issue. I have had the experience of wanting to say more about something that also hit me deep in my values, struggling a lot, and being quieter than I would have wanted. It was one of the most frustrating and difficult things of my career so far.

Navigating the tension between what can and cannot be made transparent, Elizabeth highlighted the role that an external consultant can play in supporting leadership at both levels.

ELIZABETH

You have certain liberties and operate within different power dynamics (as the external) that facilitate the ability to influence change and navigate big L and small l in different ways from someone embedded in the institution. At its core, the end users and their contexts are central to the overall approach taken, and the use of a participatory approach to the work of gathering, involving, and moving forward with multiple perspectives can be facilitated by working with someone from outside the organization.

Distance education leadership requires both big L and small l leadership, and in many respects navigating between the two is the leadership “dance” that we have experienced in our careers.

TANNIS

Leadership is about executing change systemically, provided that the rationale for the change is sitting on a foundation in which I believe. This is why it is easier for me to get behind initiatives that relate to open education, distance education, and access to higher education. A tension point for me is that I am working toward significant change, so small successes do not actually feel like successes, but maybe they should.

CHRISTINA

Large changes (usually) do not happen quickly. It is challenging for me to remember this and to try to celebrate the smaller changes.

ANNE-MARIE

Small steps are important because they are many people’s first steps. I am reminded of adrienne marie brown’s (2017) description of the repetitious/fractal nature of small changes. Lots of them add up to something much bigger.

MICHELLE

How do you manage when you need to support initiatives or spend your time on tasks on which your values or interests do not necessarily align?

CHRISTINA

This can be very challenging, though depending on the role one can have the ear, as it were, of some of the folks who make higher-level decisions. It is true that there might be times when leaders end up having to do things that do not fully align with their values, and that can feel like having an ethical rift inside oneself. Working toward change at the same time might help one to start to heal.

Leadership for me includes balancing priorities and working to put in place the structures, communication channels, and resources necessary for people in the unit that I lead to do their best work, to collaborate with other units, and to work with faculty members and students to support and improve teaching and learning. I think of myself in part as a facilitator and a champion for others, and I spend a lot of time working fairly quietly behind the scenes.

TANNIS

In my current role, I do not see myself as a facilitator and champion so much as helping to steer a ship, but facilitators and champions are very much needed.

CHRISTINA

I agree that a clear plan and direction are needed. Perhaps because my role is sort of a middle level, I need to steer our unit within broader roadmaps, such as strategic plans and priorities at the institution, while negotiating our own goals as well.

MICHELLE

To extend the ship metaphor, without this overt steering through the establishment of priorities/guidelines, and finding the resources to support them, I think that teams feel rudderless and adrift. I think that this also relates back to the discussion where the idea of transparency came up. I think that, if senior leaders can be as transparent as they can about the direction, rationale for change, and the why/how of priorities and outline how they align with both institutional and personal values (realizing of course that not everything can be shared), then change is more likely to be embraced.

ANNE-MARIE

It is incredibly important to be open and transparent when things are not going well. Leadership work is not composed of 100% successes; neither are we some kind of superhuman beings. I think that it is important to talk about what is not going well when we can, to talk about the things that are hard, and generally to be open to being a little vulnerable as a leader. That can be an incredibly difficult and sometimes risky thing to do as a woman in a digital leadership role, but I think that it is important in terms of making our roles accessible to women who might want to come after us. The confidence to accept a bit of failure as part of the job is key.

ALL

There is an inherent need to establish boundaries and priorities and not to compromise personal needs and wellness so that one can be effective in creating a thriving environment for others. At all levels, putting effort into participating in creative and fun projects is valuable, for they are personally and professionally fulfilling, and they foster relationships, networks, growth, and motivation.

Distance education leadership is about promoting change, systematically and incrementally, and providing direction as well as the structures, supports, and resources for people to do their work. It is also about providing support for the imperfect big L and small l leadership acts done each day.