behaviors do you think are most important to the effective execution of the role of editor in chief? (Table 6, Question 6)
Panelists were not limited in the number of items they reported. Although journalism competencies and skills were easily distinguished and were reported
separately, that distinction for leadership characteristics was sometimes ambiguous. For this reason leadership competencies and skills were treated as one category
Leadership competencies and/or skills, for the purpose of this study, are defined as having “knowledge based on education and/or experience and having requisite or adequate expertise” or “a learned power and/or dexterity.” Behaviors are defined as “manner of conducting oneself or response to environment.”
The expert panel identified 27 leadership competencies and/or skills and 31 behaviors an incoming editor in chief or managing editor should have to be successful. There was widespread reporting of most of the 27 competencies and/or skills (Table 15) and 31 behaviors (Table 16). In order to insure the most accurate representation of panelists’ replies, the panelists’ actual wording was used in compiling the list.
A total of 58 leadership competencies and/or skills and behaviors were returned for consensus building in Round Two.
Table 15. Leadership Competencies and/or Skills Identified by Top College Newspaper Leaders
Members of the expert panel identified the following 27 examples as leadership competencies (skills) most important to the effective execution of the role of a top newsroom leader.
1. Ability to reward and reprimand 2. A preparedness for ethical situations 3. Knowledge of media law
4. Demonstrates journalism competencies 5. Ability and willingness to educate your staff 6. Ability to communicate
7. Ability to set goals 8. Ability to build a team
9. Ability to identify the paper’s strengths and weaknesses 10. Ability to make tough decisions (independent)
11. Ability to gain your fellow worker’s respect 12. Expect results from staff
13. Separating people from problems 14. In touch with the student community 15. Organized
16. Preparedness
17. Understand the staff also has classes and a life outside the paper 18. Secure enough to give and receive critiques
19. Leads by example 20. Accessibility
21. Ability to learn from and admit mistakes 22. Ability to listen to staff
23. Participates in workshops, conferences, and courses to develop skills 24. Ability to motivate
Table 15. Continued 26. Communicates with newspaper’s managers and leaders 27. Ability to delegate
Table 16. Leadership Behaviors Identified by Top College Newspaper Leaders Members of the expert panel identified the following 31 examples as leadership behaviors most important to the effective execution of the role of a top newsroom leader.
1. Open minded 2. Creative 3. Mature 4. Courageous 5. Decisive
6. Unflappable, excellent anger management (mature) (self controlled) 7. Patient
8. Dedication to the paper and staff (loyal) 9. Fair
10. Exhibit positive attitude 11. Determined 12. Long-term vision 13. Inspiring 14. Honesty 15. Straightforward 16. Trusting 17. Tolerant 18. Enthusiastic 19. Consistent 20. Motivated 21. Dependable 22. Prompt (dependable) 23. Firm 24. Flexible (cooperative) 25. Intelligent 26. Self-confident
27. A passion to improve and develop newspaper 28. Nurturing
29. Supportive 30. Compassion 31. Sense of humor
While the panel identified 58 competencies that are clearly specific to leadership in their answers to this question concerning leadership competencies, they also listed 30 competencies that were specific to management or journalism. These competencies are listed in Tables 17 and 18.
Although most panelists indicated they understood the differences between leadership and management skills, they none-the-less cited 16 competencies that are specific to management in their replies to leadership skills. Leadership experts agree that “although there are clear differences between management and leadership, or managers and leaders, there is also considerable overlap” (Yukl 1989 in Northouse 2001, p. 10). Panelists indicate they rely on management skills in the daily execution of their jobs as leaders. The management skills that panelists cited are listed in Table 17. They were not included in the list returned to panelists for consensus.
Table 17. Management Skills Misidentified as Leadership Skills Management skills misidentified by panelists as “leadership” competencies necessary for effective execution of the role of editor in chief.*
1. “Ability to mediate disputes and step in when things are getting rocky” 2. “Problem solver” (“Problem solving”)
3. “Good public speaking ability” 4. “Very skilled time manager” 5. “Basic managerial skills”
6. “Ability to get people to change bad habits without pissing them off “
7. “I think the most important leadership skill is the ability to handle major concerns skillfully, especially when presented with harsh criticism”
8. “Delegation of tasks”
9. “The ability to know when to delegate”
10. “An editor needs to be organized” (“organized”) (“organization”) (“order”) 11. “Strict on deadlines and tasks”
12. “Common sense” 13. “Planning” 14. “Consistency” 15. “Controlling”
16. “Rewarding and reprimanding”
Also, in identifying leadership competencies, panelists gave 14 examples of functional competencies—competencies that are specific to the journalism craft (Table 18). They listed these examples, in spite of the fact that journalism competencies were addressed in question 1 and a definition of leadership was provided before they answered this question.
While these journalism competencies were not returned for consensus in this question, the term “demonstrates journalism competencies” was included in the list of leadership competencies returned to panelists for consensus. For the purposes of this study, and in keeping with Kouzes and Posner's definition of leadership competency, journalism competency was treated as one dimension of leadership competency and was addressed in question 1, where functional competencies were returned for consensus.
Table 18. Journalism Competencies/Skills Misidentified as Leadership Competencies/Skills
Journalism competencies/skills misidentified by panelists as “leadership” competencies.* 1 “News sense is essential, editors have to be good journalists to lead a newspaper” 2 “At least one professional internship”
3 “At least a year on staff”
4 “Have the skills to write, copyedit and report well are key. If the editor can’t do the job of almost 5 everyone in the newsroom, there is no one for others to ask questions of” (“The editor must be
capable of doing almost every job in the newsroom”) (“Be competent in aspects of journalism, but understand there is always room for growth”)
6 “A strong knowledge of the process and all aspects of the process of creating and publishing a 7 newspaper”
8 “News sense is essential, editors have to be good journalists to lead a newspaper”
9 “Knowledge of current news events nationally, state wide, city wide and community wide” 10 (“Current events”)
11 “Strong writing skills” (“Know how to write”)
12 “Strong editing skills” (“Editing quickly became one of the top priorities in my life”) 13 “Knowledge of layout and design”
14 “Be experienced in how to write stories, columns, features” 15 “Know what questions the reporters should ask during interviews” 16 “Know where the reporters should go to get information for their stories” 17 “Know how to write cutlines for photos in case the photographers don’t do it” * The list contains panelists’ verbatim responses
In Round Two, the 27 leadership competencies (skills) and 31 leadership behaviors identified in Round One were returned for the panels' consensus. Using a 4- point Likert Scale, the panel rated each item from “least” to “most” important. The results are presented in Tables 19 and 20.
Table 19. Leadership Competencies (Skills) Rated by Panel Members
The expert panel rated the leadership competencies (skills) and behaviors they previously identified as most important to the effective execution of the role of a top newsroom leader. (Table 8, Question 2)
Leadership Competencies (Skills) Mean Std. Dev. Rank
Ability to communicate 3.96 0.20 1
Ability to make tough decisions 3.83 0.38 2
Ability and willingness to educate your staff 3.83 0.38 3 Communicates with newspaper’s managers and leaders 3.79 0.41 4
Ability to set goals 3.75 0.44 5
Ability to listen to staff 3.71 0.46 6
Ability to learn from and admit mistakes 3.71 0.46 7
Leads by example 3.71 0.46 8
Ability to delegate 3.67 0.48 9
Ability to identify the paper’s strengths and weaknesses 3.67 0.56 10
Preparedness 3.63 0.49 11
Expects results from staff 3.63 0.49 12
Ability to gain your fellow worker’s respect 3.63 0.49 13
Ability to motivate 3.58 0.58 14
Ability to build a team 3.58 0.50 15
Secure enough to give and receive critiques 3.54 0.51 16
Separating people from problems 3.54 0.51 17
Ability to reward and reprimand 3.52 0.59 18
A preparedness for ethical situations 3.52 0.51 19
Accessibility 3.50 0.59 20
Organized 3.46 0.66 21
Demonstrates journalism competencies 3.42 0.58 22
In touch with the student community 3.29 0.62 23
Experience holding other newsroom positions 3.25 0.61 24 Understand the staff also has classes and a life outside of the paper 3.21 0.78 25
Knowledge of media law 3.08 0.65 26
Table 20. Leadership Behaviors Rated by Panel Members
Leadership Behaviors Mean Std. Dev. Rank
Dependable 3.96 0.20 1
Dedication to the paper and staff 3.92 0.28 2
Honesty 3.88 0.34 3
A passion to improve and develop newspaper 3.79 0.41 4
Motivated 3.71 0.46 5 Fair 3.71 0.46 6 Decisive 3.71 0.46 7 Consistent 3.58 0.50 8 Mature 3.54 0.66 9 Open minded 3.54 0.51 10 Straightforward 3.50 0.66 11 Determined 3.50 0.59 12 Supportive 3.46 0.59 13 Intelligent 3.46 0.66 14 Prompt 3.46 0.59 15 Self-confident 3.38 0.58 16 Trusting 3.38 0.58 17 Long-term vision 3.38 0.49 18 Inspiring 3.25 0.61 19 Firm 3.21 0.88 20
Exhibits positive attitude 3.21 0.83 21
Patient 3.21 0.66 22
Creative 3.21 0.51 23
Flexible 3.13 0.61 24
Unflappable, excellent anger management 3.13 0.68 25
Courageous 3.13 0.68 26 Enthusiastic 3.08 0.93 27 Tolerant 3.08 0.83 28 Compassion 3.04 0.75 29 Sense of humor 2.96 0.95 30 Nurturing 2.63 0.88 31
Panelists’ responses were tabulated and the mean and standard deviation for each item was calculated. Only those responses from panelists with a mean score of 3.58 for competencies (skills) and 3.54 for behaviors were returned for consensus building in Round Three. These correspond to scores of 89 percent and 88 percent respectively or approximately the top 10 percent in each list. The low-rated items were removed from further consideration because the study is interested in the most important characteristics.
In Round Three, participants were asked to choose the three most important competencies/skills and the three most important behaviors from the list of 15 competencies/skills and 10 behaviors. The results are shown in Tables 21 and 22.
Table 21. Leadership Competencies (Skills) Ranked by Panel Members The expert panel identified the following 15 leadership “competencies” and 10 leadership “behaviors” as important for an incoming editor in chief.
Leadership Competencies (skills) Score Rank
Ability to communicate 11 1
Ability to make tough decisions 10 2
Ability to motivate 8 3
Ability and willingness to educate your staff 6 4
Ability to build a team 4 5
Ability to delegate 4 6
Leads by example 4 7
Ability to listen to staff 4 8
Preparedness 3 9
Ability to identify the paper’s strengths and weaknesses 3 10
Ability to learn from and admit mistakes 3 11
Ability to gain your fellow worker’s respect 2 12
Expects results from staff 2 13
Ability to set goals 2 14
Table 22. Leadership Behaviors Ranked by Panel Members
Leadership Behaviors Score Rank
A passion to improve and develop the newspaper 16 1
Dedication to the paper and staff 14 2
Dependable 8 3 Honesty 7 4 Open minded 5 5 Fair 5 6 Motivated 5 7 Consistent 4 8 Decisive 4 9 Mature 1 10
The panelists indicated that when forced to choose three from a list of 15
leadership competencies and/or skills necessary for a top newsroom leader’s success, the “ability to communicate” (11) and the “ability to make tough decisions” (10) led the list. The panels’ ranking of these items may indicate their understanding of the role these items play in their success with the next highest ranked roles, “ability to motivate” (8) and “ability and willingness to educate your staff “(6) both of which experts explain require effective communication skills. The next four items “ability to build a team,” “ability to delegate,” “leads by example,” and “ability to listen to staff” all received a ranking of four. This is consistent with panelists’ original responses concerning leadership competencies where they were emphatic about team-building, delegating, setting an example, and listening as being critical to the top leadership position. The relative ranking of these four items may be more of a reflection of the panelists being asked to choose the most important competency and/or skill. The panelists’ replies may be an indication that they regard the two top ranked items as essential to success in all other competencies and/or skills.
When asked to chose three leadership behaviors from a list of 10 they considered most important to the role of top newsroom leader, 70 percent selected “a passion to improve and develop the newspaper” (16) and 61 percent selected “dedication to the
paper and staff “(14) as the top two leadership behaviors. The high score these top two leadership behaviors received reflect the importance panelists’ place on the level of commitment and loyalty they believe are necessary for success in this role. The next highest rankings were “dependable” with a score of (8) or 35 percent followed by “honesty” with a score of (7) or 30 percent.
Although “honesty” ranked among the top four, its percentage score of 30 is not consistent with the results of Kouzes and Posner’s study of all leaders which ranks honesty, at 88 percent, as the top characteristic of admired leaders. It may not be that college newsroom leaders do not place a high value on honesty, only that the college newsroom culture, with its unique demands on student leaders, places a higher emphasis on commitment to the newspaper and loyalty to the staff to succeed.
Leadership Competencies Panel Members Lacked
In Round One, Question 7, members of the expert panel were asked to identify leadership competencies they “lacked” that would have helped make them more effective in their roles as newsroom leaders.