Destructive Politics

As head of an institution, the well-being of the institution should be the top priority of the Dean. Just because one has the power to do what one wants, and make others do what one wants them to do, one must not be vindictive, taking pleasure in giving irrational orders. I initially thought that the Dean was troubling me because I had expressed inability to take her daughter's private tuition. I had two reasons for doing so: the most important one was that it was prohibited by University and our service rules, The other was that it put tremendous pressure on me, and I could not stand the stress. I gave her the second reason, saying my health did not permit me to take tuitions. She had not become Dean at that time. But after she did, she mentioned this, just to remind me of what I had said, and that she remembered it too. I must say the time of reign of the Head of department before me had been good for those who loved to have parties and picnics, and taking coffee-breaks every now and then. It had been good for those who licked ass, since the rules would change to suit their needs and situations. I even have a document stating that the decision in any situation would be that of the Head, not a natural (democratic) privilege of anybody, as based on any existing rules. But the new Dean even topped this. She did this in all departments, but I came to know about it much later. She decided what work should be assigned to whom, in each department. she stripped Heads of decision-making rights. She gave prestigious projects to people she liked. She divided departmental staff so that the Head would not become too powerful. She destroyed interpersonal relationships of staff members, so that the in-fighting between staff members would keep them busy and prevent them challenging her authority in any way. This sort of thing is OK in politics, but not in an academic healthcare-institute. In case of my department, she did something even worse. She called the ex-Head for the meeting in which she decided who did what. She kept all of us waiting, while she conferred with the ex-Head. Then she did the distribution, in the style of a king/queen giving territories to his/her favorite court members. She did this without consulting me, the real Head of my department. I had not read Covey at that time, so it hurt. Now I know one can get hurt by someone only if one gives the power to hurt to that someone. Now I don’t hurt anymore. But the fact remains that the two years that I had to spend undoing the damage those two women jointly did to my department, thinking they were damaging me! The loss was not mine, but of the institute I served, because two years of time and effort of the leader of the team were lost. If the Head of institute did not care, why should I? Anyway I did care, and continued to make efforts, because I am a doer, not one to give up. In my next post, I shall write about the final blow that the Dean dealt my department before retiring from the institute.