Every learning institution needs great leadership — from presidents to vice presidents of student affairs, business, and external relations, to all the competent individuals reporting to them. The IDEA Center’s web-based Feedback for Administrators system solicits input on 10 pivotal administrative roles. The administrator survey tool gathers impressions on leadership styles and personal characteristics, job performance, and ratings of confidence in future leadership, while also identifying areas for improvement as observed by core constituents.

Combined with the administrator’s self-assessment, the resulting gap analysis can further guide deep personal reflection. Administrator and faculty responses are collected online and analyzed by The IDEA Center. The resulting report provides direction on specific areas of strength and strategies for improvement. Custom questions are available to further assess unique departmental and personal goals.

This instrument is intended to serve many types of administrators and distinct constituencies and is unique in higher education today. Both the Administrator Information Form and the Survey Form are requested and administered online for convenience, speed, efficiency, and confidentiality.

Confidentiality permitting, the respondent sample can be stratified on the basis of a number of roles and relationships, providing a useful demographic breakdown of responses.

Features of the System

• Includes opportunity for administrator to provide self‐assessment of administrative roles and personal characteristics, (self‐assessment can be omitted to accommodate local policies)
• Results in a gap analysis allowing chairs to reflect on comparisons of their self-ratings to that of their faculty
• Rater subgroup results can be provided as an option. This allows an administrator to reflect on any possible differences that specific constituencies may have.
• Provides ratings of 10 administrative roles
• Assesses strengths and weaknesses associated with leadership style and personal characteristics and is designed to offer suggestions for improving administrative performance
• Summarizes ratings of overall job performance and confidence in the administrator
• Includes detailed statistical information about how faculty responded to each question, permitting an in-depth analysis of specific concerns
• Provides a report of responses to open-ended comments
• Option to add up to 20 custom questions. Contact The IDEA Center for possible questions for Academic Deans and Chief Academic Officers. We can also assist you in crafting position specific questions for other administrative positions.