ATEM Capability Framework
For over 50 years, ATEM has been at the forefront of guiding sector leaders – both locally and globally.
Shaping sector leadership
Central to our delivery approach is the ATEM Leadership Framework. It’s designed to help you review your current situation and plan for future professional and career development. The framework is based on extensive research and field-testing, and aligns with leadership frameworks used in tertiary education organisations across Australia and Aotearoa.
Three capabilities
Personal capabilities
- Deferring judgment and not jumping in too quickly to resolve a problem
- Understanding my personal strengths and limitations
- Admitting to and learning from my errors
- Bouncing back from adversity
- Maintaining a good work/life balance and keeping things in perspective
- Remaining calm under pressure or when things take an unexpected turn
- Being willing to take a hard decision
- Being confident to take calculated risks
- Tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty
- Being true to one’s personal values and ethics
- Having energy, passion and enthusiasm for learning and teaching
- Wanting to achieve the best outcome possible
- Taking responsibility for program activities and outcomes
- Persevering when things are not working out as anticipated
- Pitching in and undertaking menial tasks when needed
Interpersonal capabilities
- Deferring judgment and not jumping in too quickly to resolve a problem
- Understanding my personal strengths and limitations
- Admitting to and learning from my errors
- Bouncing back from adversity
- Maintaining a good work/life balance and keeping things in perspective
- Remaining calm under pressure or when things take an unexpected turn
- Being willing to take a hard decision
- Being confident to take calculated risks
- Tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty
- Being true to one’s personal values and ethics
Cognitive capabilities
- Diagnosing the underlying causes of a problem and taking appropriate action to address it
- Recognising how seemingly unconnected activities are linked
- Recognising patterns in a complex situation
- Identifying from a mass of information the core issue or opportunity in any situation
- Seeing and then acting on an opportunity for a new direction
- Tracing out and assessing the likely consequences of alternative courses of action
- Using previous experience to figure out what’s going on when a current situation takes an unexpected turn
- Thinking creatively and laterally
- Having a clear, justified and achievable direction in my area of responsibility
- Seeing the best way to respond to a perplexing situation
- Setting and justifying priorities for my daily work
- Adjusting a plan of action in response to problems that are identified during its implementation
- Making sense of and learning from experience
- Knowing that there is never a fixed set of steps for solving workplace problems
Two competencies
Role-specific competencies
Your role-specific competencies are reflected in skills, behaviours, knowledge, performance and experience.
Leadership competencies
- Knowledge of academic and administrative policies
- Knowing how change works in tertiary institutions
- Understanding how to develop and implement programs
- Understanding how to use organisational structures to achieve objectives
- Having high-level, up-to-date knowledge of relevant current developments in other tertiary education institutions
- Understanding of teaching and learning in a tertiary education environment
- Understanding the role of risk management and litigation in my work
- Understanding how tertiary education institutions operate
- Understanding of industrial relations issues and processes as they apply to tertiary education
- Being able to help my staff learn how to deliver necessary changes effectively
- An understanding of equity principles and their application in tertiary education
- Having sound administrative and resource management skills
- Knowledge of academic and administrative policies
- Able to chair meetings effectively
- Managing my own ongoing professional learning and development
- Using IT effectively to communicate and perform key work functions
- Organising my work and managing time effectively
- Making effective presentations to a range of different groups
- Writing effective business documents
Background
In 2008 a ground-breaking Australian Learning and Teaching Committee-funded study of experienced academic leaders in Australian higher education (Scott, Coates & Anderson, 2008) led to the development of an academic leadership capability framework and an associated 360-degree feedback tool.
Two years later, ATEM commissioned a similar study with a focus on professional leaders in tertiary education institutions in Australia and New Zealand. This led to the publication of the Leading Professionals in Australian and New Zealand Tertiary Education report in 2012 (known as the ‘Scott and McKellar report’). Our leadership framework is based on the model recommended in that report.