Choosing Your True Path After Tenure

Have you ever questioned whether an administrative role truly aligns with your personal goals after tenure or if it's just the next logical step? Discover the transformative potential of building your brand and becoming a thought leader. 

Follow Dr. Sheena Howards' socials:
@drsheenahoward | Power Your Research

Chapters

• 0:00 Deciding What to Do After Tenure
• 4:10 Deciding on Future Paths After Tenure
• 7:42 Deciding Future Paths Post-Tenure

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All of these mindset issues that we develop as a part of the culture of higher ed tends to steer our decisions in terms of what we do after tenure. So really dig down to see what mindset issues, what scarcity issues, are framing this decision. I don't want my work to be stuck behind an academic paywall. I want to leave a legacy, I want to reach my potential and I want to change lives. This podcast, power your Research, is my attempt to help the smartest people in the world do that very thing. My hope is that you use the lessons I share to make more money than what your higher ed job can ever pay you. I've done it, my clients have done it, and so can you. My hope is that you'll apply what you learn here and one day join the Power your Research program, where you can work with me one-on-one. I'm happy to be here with you today talking about how to decide what to do after tenure. I work with a lot of tenured professors, a lot of professors who know they're going to get tenure within the next few months or who recently have received tenure, and it's an amazing thing. People find out that it's often anticlimactic, meaning they get it, and they don't feel the way that they thought they would feel. But naturally, when you get tenure, you begin to wonder okay, what's next? What am I going to do next? I achieved this big milestone. Now, one of the things that I found that I realized after I became a full professor was that, oh, this is the ceiling for my pay as a faculty member. So after you become a full professor, that's your income for the rest of your life in higher ed, unless you decide to do something else. In my case, it was to build a multi-six figure brand. But if you are at a crossroads which a lot of my academics inside the Power Year Research Program are, here are five things to think about in terms of deciding what next, because what you really need is clarity, but you need to get that clarity coming from a place of addressing any mindset issues, addressing just taking the easy route.

Speaker 1: 2:35

A lot of people actually go the administration route after tenure simply because they want to make more money, and we're smart, so we can convince ourselves that we're doing it for lots of different reasons, but one of the main reasons, if you're being honest with yourself, is to make more money, and I'm not mad at that. I'm just here to show you that there's a different way that might be more aligned with your passions, your values and goals. So here are five things you should think about in terms of making that decision. The first is document your goals and values. Really sit down with yourself and document what are your actual goals. Because if you've just gotten tenure, you haven't thought about goals outside of higher ed. You did what you had to do to get tenure, which is with the research, the committees, the service that you had to do, but also you want to think about your values, like what do you value? Surely you value things outside of higher ed, right, but being in it so long, we begin to take on the values of the industry, the values of higher ed, and those are not always your values. And so, in thinking about going the administration route, there's one very important question that I want you to ask yourself Do you want the life of the current administrator that has the current position that you want, or a current administrator that has a position that is adjacent to that? Is that what you want your life to look like? And if you're being honest with yourself, and that is what you want your life to look like, that's one metric to make that decision. But if you can't answer that question with a yes right away, let's keep moving down the list.

Speaker 1: 4:10

The second is, when you're making this decision of what to do after tenure, make sure you clear up any mindset issues. We don't want you to frame this decision that you're making if it's layered with mindset issues, imposter syndrome, not feeling like you can do something else, not feeling like you have value outside of academia. You know, all of these mindset issues that we develop as a part of the culture of higher ed tends to steer our decisions in terms of what we do after tenure. So really dig down to see what mindset issues, what scarcity issues, are framing this decision and getting to a place of clarity, to clear out some of those mindset issues so that you can really see the future that you want. Hey, everyone, real quick. I don't run any ads on this podcast, so I have to rely on word of mouth. If this podcast has helped you in any way, please share it with a friend and follow me, dr Sheena Howard, on LinkedIn, where I give more free content on building your brand as an academic. If you tell me you came to my LinkedIn from the podcast. I'll make sure I accept your request.

Speaker 1: 5:23

The next is really visualizing your future. Visualize yourself in that administrative position. Visualize yourself building a brand and making an impact and using your expertise outside in the real world. And when you visualize that future, what does it feel like? Does it feel good? Do you get excited? Do you get excited about sitting behind that desk as an administrator and doing the work? If it feels good, if it feels right, go for it. If it doesn't, visualize a different future for yourself, and how does that feel? Is there a big book that you want to write? Can you visualize yourself on a book tour, talking about this book and doing speaking engagements? Does that feel good? If that feels good, then maybe administration is not the route. But don't trick yourself into thinking that you can go out here and be administrator and have to work a lot more than you had to do as a faculty member and still be able to do some other things, because in my experience, from what I've seen, it doesn't work like that.

Speaker 1: 6:21

The fourth thing is to just be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself. Coming from a place of clarity involves just being brutally honest with yourself. Is this what you really want. Is it aligned with what you want your life to look like six months from now, one year from now, five years from now? Right, if you've just recently got tenure, you're in a beautiful place to really think about what you want the next phase of your life to look like. And be bold, maybe it's. It could be as simple as I don't want to live paycheck to paycheck anymore. I want to go out here and impact the world and monetize that. It could be hey, I want to be the first millionaire in my family. Be bold, but be honest.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Sometimes we can't be honest with ourselves because we actually feel like we might not be able to reach the vision for our life that we want. But that's not true. You have to have faith. You have to have faith that the thing that you want you can actually do. And the beautiful thing and why I don't teach people to just go ahead and leave your academic position and become an entrepreneur is because I want to give you the option to leave when you're ready. I want you to get to a place of making six figures so that you have the option to leave academe when you're ready, because having options is great. You can make decisions from a place of power as opposed to a place of desperation. So be honest with yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:42

And the last thing is the easy route is usually not the right route when it comes to making these types of decisions, and, from what I've seen, going from being tenured to getting an administration position at your current university or even at another one, is the easy route? Easy increase in pay, not much adjustments. You already know the university, pretty much know the people that you're going to be working with. Easy to figure out how to do the work, but the big goals and the big dreams and the big things that you want to do is not going to be easy. It's not going to be easy, but the reward in the future is bigger, the payoff in the future is bigger.

Speaker 1: 8:24

And so those are five things I would think about if I was trying to decide what to do after tenure. Now, for me, I decided to increase my visibility, authority and income, and it's worked out. That's what I teach people to do. I don't teach people to abandon their higher ed jobs. A lot of people in the program that I work with do get to the point where they see that this is possible and they do actually end up leaving their academic positions, and it's beautiful for me to see that they've created a pathway to have the option to do that. I'm still a faculty member, I'm still living my dreams and, you know, running two businesses, and so it's different for everybody, everybody.