Seeing the Unseen: Authentic Leadership Within Faculty Struggle

If you’ve read my last two blogs (see here and here), you know what I’m all about: Authenticity and the undergraduate disabled student community. That is my thing. And, since stretching out my baby research legs after my dissertation a few years ago, my passion for this underrepresented population has only grown. I was on a roll doing what faculty do; teaching, serving, and researching (and never having enough time to do any of it, lol). I thought my personal journey with physical disability was a great nuance to my research and my philosophical classroom pedagogy. I even felt comfortable socially “naming the elephant” in any room in which I entered due to my very visible disability (absence of my right hand and forearm). I was good with being the elephant and I was good with handling it – I’ve had over 40 years to work it all out. In the words of my almost 13-year-old, I was chill.

But then something happened. Back in October 2023, I had a little accident. And it really was a very non-dramatic situation; I was walking backwards in my driveway, tripped over the base of our basketball hoop, and fell backwards onto the bar, my back hitting it so hard it bent. I didn’t see it coming – literally.

But since then, there have been doctor appointments, X-rays and MRI imaging, pain management, physical therapy, medication, and injection procedures. There is compression-related fall damage which seems to have flared up a degenerative disc at L5-S1 and arthritis in my lower facet joints. There is no fix, no cure. Ultimately, the point is that in some degree each day I am in pain – chronic pain.

Chronic pain. Now, there’s a plot-twist to my story, isn’t it? For the last 16 months, the elephant has brought a friend into the room. And no one can see her. And that – I’m learning – is the thing with chronic pain; it’s quiet. It’s silent. Unseen. No one can tell that while I’m my usual, upbeat self on the outside, inside I’m aching.

A survey conducted in 2023 indicated that chronic pain affects 24.3% of U.S. adults.¹ Considering that in 2022 there were approximately 1.5 million faculty at traditional degree-seeking and granting institutions,² the chances are high that there are more than a few faculty at your university right now, who are silently struggling with chronic pain. The Cleveland Clinic defines chronic pain as any “aching, burning, shooting, squeezing, stiffness, stinging, throbbing” to any part of the body lasting more than three months.³ While there is no cure for chronic pain, treatment options include various medical procedures, physical therapy, medication, stress management, and lifestyle changes.⁴

And that’s the thing. Chronic pain can cause life changes. With the potential of this condition leading to depression, fatigue, irritability, insomnia, and anxiety,⁵ university faculty silently experiencing this phenomenon are struggling. In fact, within the context of disability, faculty experience a duality; while the teaching and research schedule is flexible, the demands and academic expectations upon faculty are overwhelming.⁶ Common complaints among faculty struggling with chronic illness include difficulty in finding institutional resources, unbalanced notions of fairness, lack of deadline flexibility, confusion and stigma over physical and mental disability, feeling the need to compensate through achieving, and lack of colleague empathy.⁷

But really, even if faculty aren’t experiencing chronic pain or illness, they are or they have experienced something in their life. Professors are people, too, right? In fact, researchers have identified the existence of Burnout Syndrome (BS), resulting from chronic stress in the academic workplace.⁸ Key factors leading to BS include not having a hobby, exhaustion, salary dissatisfaction, lack of time in personal life, and self-esteem issues.⁹  And honestly, faculty experience just normal day-to-day challenges before they walk into the classroom all the time. Before I arrive on campus at 8:30 am, I have already survived the morning battle (routine) of dropping off two pre-teen boys to school – it’s not for the faint of heart. But that’s the thing, whether we spilled the sugar all over the kitchen floor, had a flat tire on the road, forgot to update a slide deck, or are having a flare-up with chronic illness – faculty experience life and then they enter a classroom full of expectant students who are (for the most part) ready to learn.

So then, what can we do? Well, I realized that I needed to take a dose of my own research medicine. Within my work, I identified how authentic leadership (AL) could be effectively utilized in the classroom setting within the undergraduate student disability community.¹⁰ As a refresher, AL is a multidimensional phenomenon of leader behavior informing positive psychological capabilities and a practical, ethical climate providing enhanced “self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency.”¹¹ My qualitative case study research confirmed that stigma and marginalization of the disabled community are still alive and well but that faculty can implement AL qualities and characteristics that can mitigate misperception and make a real difference in the lives of disabled students.

So, what if faculty – especially faculty who are struggling – utilized the tenants of AL to help themselves in the classroom setting? What would it look like if I was self-aware enough to discern that my pain level was a bit high entering the classroom and that I might need to sit down a bit more? How could I balance my cognitive processing between the task at hand (teaching my students) and my ability to concentrate in the midst of the pain? What would happen if I was genuinely honest with my students and shared with them transparently that today was a hard day? What would be the ethical consequences of my prioritizing the values of honesty and health over the equally important value of excellence?

I can tell you what would happen. The students would see me as a human. They would understand my hard day, because they have hard days, too. They would see my consistency, honesty, vulnerability, and desire to still make class the best possible class, as me being real, authentic, and relatable. Because while I might be the only one-arm professor on my campus, I am not the only one in my classroom struggling with pain – I know that because of class conversations. Because students have come up to me and have shared their stories with me. And don’t get me wrong here – just because there are hard days doesn’t mean quality, capability or excellence suffers. It just means that the road to excellence on any particular day might require a few more rest stops along the way.

Let’s go one step further. If we’re going with the road metaphor – and we are – let’s pull over to the scenic overview and take a look at the bigger picture.

I know you’ve heard the self-care application of first applying your oxygen mask in the event of an emergency landing before helping others. We can’t teach, serve, and research if we’re half-dead. We need to take care of ourselves. And if you need a (more) reliable source, allow me to point you to Jesus. Yes – Jesus took care of himself. Within the three years of his ministry, we see evidence in Luke 4:1-15, Mathew 14:1-13, and in John 4:1-8 that Jesus would leave the crowds and his followers to pray, grief, and prepare – he even sat down and rested.¹² I say, if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

Why then, is all of this so hard? If being authentic and managing myself when I’m struggling is all it takes, why does it feel so…weak and impossible? Trust me – I have asked myself this question for the last 16 months. And, I don’t have the full answer yet. I’m still figuring it out. I do know one thing – people are watching and it’s hard to hide (ok, that’s two things). The disciples were watching Jesus and our students are watching us. How we handle ourselves on our worst days should not be too different from how we handle ourselves on our best days – especially if we understand that there is strength in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10, anyone?).

That’s the thing. There is paradox in pain, and it’s linked to authenticity. While we think there’s weakness in admitting we’re struggling, and we think that naming the elephant in the room – even the one no one can see – will needlessly point out a vulnerability, will diminish our progress, our work, and our excellence, it does something else instead. I have seen that transparency illuminate a truth I didn’t see coming; there is a beauty and a strength in letting others see your pain, and it helps them accept their own. One of our core purposes as faculty, besides equipping our students academically to succeed professionally, is to give them the tools to be able to do so; to help them put on their oxygen mask, they need to see us doing it first. [/efn_note]

1. Lucas JW, & Sohi I. Chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain in U.S. adults, 2023. NCHS Data Brief, no 518. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2024. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc/169630.
2. National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Post secondary faculty. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/csc/postsecondary-faculty
3. Cleveland Clinic (n.d.). Chronic Pain. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4798-chronic-pain
4. Cleveland Clinic (n.d.). Chronic Pain. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4798-chronic-pain
5. Cleveland Clinic (n.d.). Chronic Pain. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4798-chronic-pain
6. Samantha Bassler (2009) “But You Don’t Look Sick”: A Survey of Scholars with Chronic, Invisible Illnesses and their Advice on How to Live and Work in Academia. Society for Music Theory, 15(3 & 4). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.09.15.3/mto.09.15.3.bassler.html
7. Samantha Bassler (2009) “But You Don’t Look Sick”: A Survey of Scholars with Chronic, Invisible Illnesses and their Advice on How to Live and Work in Academia. Society for Music Theory, 15(3 & 4). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.09.15.3/mto.09.15.3.bassler.html
8. Jean Paulo Farias, Arthur de Sá Ferreira (2024) Mapping evidence on burnout syndrome in university professors and its relationship with ergonomic and biopsychosocial factors: a scope review, Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy, Volume 28, Supplement 1, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjpt.2024.100784
9. Jean Paulo Farias, Arthur de Sá Ferreira (2024) Mapping evidence on burnout syndrome in university professors and its relationship with ergonomic and biopsychosocial factors: a scope review, Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy, Volume 28, Supplement 1, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjpt.2024.100784
10. Anna L. Sinclair, Disability and Authentic Leadership: A Qualitative Phenomenological Undergraduate Case Study (Order No. 30639327). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global; Publicly Available Content Database. 2023 (2861560113).
11. Fred O. Walumbwa, et al. “Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure,” Journal of Management, 34, no. 1 (2008): 89–126,https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307308913
12. He Gets Us. (n.d,). Jesus practiced self-care. https://hegetsus.com/en/articles/jesus-practiced-self-care