These slides talk to how to be an effective leader and encourage innovation. These slides were presented as part of my keynote panel presentation at the Asian Conference on Education (ACE) 2018 in Tokyo, Japan.

1. ACE 2018 Leadership Panel Overview
Good leadership can make the difference between merely surviving and fully thriving in any setting. Educators in Japan and
around the world have been facing numerous changes over the past two decades, but for many this is the time to crumple or
break out. Long running trends are leading to both crises and opportunities; innovative leadership will separate the educational
institutions and programs that thrive from those that eke out survival or, perhaps, even fall.
This panel brings together leaders in creating new, innovative programs in higher education; who either find creative ways to
work within constraints or who move beyond those constraints to create something new. Peter McCagg and Kay Irie are
leaders in two Japanese universities, Akita International and Gakushuin, Kristin Palmer is leading new developments for the
University of Virginia in the United States, and Ljiljana Markovic is Dean of the Faculty of Philology and has helped forge many
international partnerships with various universities.
It may be argued that education can be too cautious and slow to change, thus leaving it vulnerable to economic and
demographic changes. Sometimes a lack of resources, fiscal and social capital, means that even a will to change cannot be put
into action. This means that we need to look to educators who are currently facing challenges that we are all likely to face as
the demographic pyramid, advances in ICT, and political trends common in the host country for this conference become
common throughout developed economies. Likewise, in Japan we should learn from efforts in and across developing countries
in making good use of ICT as another way forward.
No matter the challenge or opportunity, institutions must nurture developing leaders within and be open to them from
without. How exactly can we do this?

2. What works?
•Honesty
•Transparency
•Trust
•Do the work
•Connect people
•Build teams and give them ownership

3. What doesn’t work?
•Knowing your way is the right way
•Working alone
•Not communicating
•Power plays
•Disrespect
•Throwing people under the bus

4. My challenges
•New leadership
•Speed of change
•Organizational resistance to change
•Supporting early adopters
•Decentralized systems
•Who reports to who

5. My opportunities
•Need for lifelong learning
•Tools that solve real problems
•Power of data
•My amazing faculty, staff and students

6. What does leadership mean to you?
•Communicating a vision
•Being a role model
•Challenging others and supporting them to be
successful

7. What is innovation?
Being willing to try new things which will
sometimes be amazing successes and other times
be dismal failures. Then learning and trying
again.

8. How does innovation link with value
and values?
You must trust your team to come up with ideas,
support your team to make those ideas a reality,
and then celebrate whether it’s a success or a
failure and do it all again over and over.

9. How do you cultivate innovation and
innovative thinking?
I am not sure. I am trying to do this by creating
safe places and processes for people to bring
ideas and then supporting their ideas and being a
champion for the process.

10. How do you cultivate leaders and
leadership in others?
Having an open office door, being a role model,
offering challenges, supporting your team, and
encouraging professional development and career
planning.

11. Stay in touch with me:
Kristin Palmer is the Director of Online Learning
Programs at the University of Virginia (UVA)
Twitter: @kpatwork
LinkedIn: Dr. Kristin Palmer
Email: kristin@virginia.edu