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Identity is About us: Leadership Lessons Learned During an Accreditation Journey
Author(s) -
Thwaite Sapna V.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of leadership studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.219
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1935-262X
pISSN - 1935-2611
DOI - 10.1002/jls.21694
Subject(s) - accreditation , parallels , identity (music) , accountability , professional development , psychology , process (computing) , public relations , engineering ethics , sociology , pedagogy , political science , medical education , medicine , law , computer science , engineering , mechanical engineering , physics , acoustics , operating system
The current paper describes a university administrator and her academic unit's professional journey through a first time accreditation process. Drawing upon her professional background as an educational psychologist, the author uses the lens of identity to draw parallels between the experience of a young organization undergoing processes of change in response to accreditation and an individual undergoing the typical developmental issues and challenges we commonly associate with adolescent identity development. The current article details multiple ways that identity can serve as a useful lens for studying the development and growth of an organization, and offers practical suggestions that might benefit individuals in leadership roles whose units are undergoing similar external accountability processes.