Knowing your subject is important, but it is only part of what makes someone an effective faculty member. Over the years, I have come to believe that the faculty members who make the greatest impact share several habits and qualities that have little to do with how much they know about their discipline.
The qualities of a successful faculty member include initiative, integrity, adaptability, good professional habits, and a willingness to keep improving. These qualities are not reserved for a select few. They can be developed over time through reflection, practice, and a willingness to change when something is no longer working.
Here are five qualities that I believe can make a meaningful difference in the work we do as faculty.
1. They Take Initiative
Successful faculty members do not wait for every problem to be solved for them. They anticipate challenges, prepare alternatives, and look for ways to improve their courses before circumstances force them to act.
Taking initiative might mean revising an assignment that is no longer producing the results you want, learning a new technology before you urgently need it, or developing a contingency plan when a course does not unfold as expected.
It also means remaining actively involved in the work that matters most. Publisher resources, technology, teaching assistants, and other support tools can be extremely useful, but they should support our work rather than replace our responsibility for course design, preparation, assessment, and student learning.
Good faculty members use available resources wisely while remaining personally invested in the learning experience they create.
2. They Lead With Integrity
Leadership is not limited to administrators or people with formal titles. Faculty members lead every time they make a decision that affects students, work with colleagues, serve on a committee, or contribute to a department.
That makes integrity especially important.
Faculty members who lead well tend to:
- Give colleagues credit for their contributions.
- Treat students and coworkers fairly and consistently.
- Follow through on commitments.
- Make decisions as transparently as circumstances allow.
- Support the success of others rather than viewing every accomplishment as a competition.
Professional credibility is built gradually. People learn whether they can rely on us by watching how we behave when there is no particular advantage to doing the right thing. That trust can influence our effectiveness as teachers, colleagues, and leaders.
3. They Learn to Adapt to Change
One framework I have found useful comes from J. Stewart Black and Hal Gregersen’s work on organizational change. They describe three barriers that often prevent people from changing: failing to see the need for change, failing to move once the need becomes clear, and failing to carry the change through to completion.
Those barriers are easy to recognize in higher education. A teaching method may have worked well for years. A familiar process may feel comfortable. A new technology may seem unnecessary until students, employers, or the profession itself begin changing around us.
One practical way to think about the process is as a cycle:
- We learn to do something well.
- Conditions change, and what once worked may no longer be the best approach.
- We try a new approach, knowing that we may not do it perfectly at first.
- With practice and reflection, the new approach becomes part of what we do well.
The difficult part is often accepting that competence in yesterday’s approach does not guarantee success tomorrow. Adaptable faculty members are willing to become beginners again when circumstances require it.
4. They Develop Habits That Support Good Work
Good intentions matter, but our daily habits often determine how effectively those intentions translate into action.
Several professional habits are especially valuable for faculty:
- Vision: Pay attention to changes in your discipline, student needs, technology, and the larger environment surrounding higher education.
- Optimism: Recognize problems without allowing every obstacle to become a reason that improvement is impossible.
- Dedication: Give students, colleagues, and professional responsibilities the attention they deserve.
- Flexibility: Be willing to adjust when a lesson, process, technology, or approach is not producing the intended result.
- Time management: Protect time for teaching, service, professional responsibilities, and your own development rather than allowing the most immediate task to consume every available hour.
- Action: Reflection is important, but eventually we have to make a decision, try something, and learn from the result.
None of these habits requires perfection. What matters is developing systems that make good professional choices easier to repeat.
5. Successful Faculty Members Keep Improving
One of the easiest traps in any profession is becoming comfortable once we learn how to do the job reasonably well. Teaching the same course, using the same assignments, or following the same routine can become efficient, but efficiency and effectiveness are not always the same thing.
Strong faculty members periodically ask themselves whether what they are doing is still working. They look at student learning, seek useful feedback, reconsider assignments, learn from colleagues, and continue developing their professional knowledge.
Continuous improvement does not mean changing everything every semester. Sometimes reflection confirms that an existing approach still works very well. The important part is making that decision thoughtfully rather than continuing a practice simply because it is familiar.
Final Thoughts
Some of the most effective faculty members I have known were not people who had everything figured out from the beginning. They were people who continued learning long after they had become experienced educators.
They took initiative. They acted with integrity. They adjusted when circumstances changed. They developed habits that supported good work, and they remained willing to improve.
That may be one of the most important qualities of all. Becoming a successful faculty member is not a destination we eventually reach. There is always another course to improve, another student population to understand, another skill to develop, and another opportunity to become better at the work.
Well, I hope you found this post useful. If you did, I’d be grateful if you’d help spread the word by sharing this with friends or colleagues on LinkedIn or wherever you connect with other educators.
Reference
Black, J. S., & Gregersen, H. B. (2002). Leading strategic change: Breaking through the brain barrier. FT Press.
