Mainz University presents first JGU Leadership Team Awards

Excellent teams implement the university’s management guidelines providing for efficient leadership as well as constructive and successful teamwork

16.01.2015

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has conferred its JGU Leadership Team Awards for the first time. The recipients are Professor Matthias Schott of the Experimental Particle and Astroparticle Physics work group (ETAP) together with his seven-member team at the Institute of Physics in the category Science and Science Management as well as the Integrated Campus Management System team of the Office for Learning and Teaching with its 32 employees headed by Anke Kamrath in the category Administration and Central Services. "Both teams represent best practice with regard to the implementation of the JGU management guidelines when it comes to effective leadership activities and constructive and successful team work," said the President of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Professor Georg Krausch. "As part of its human resources development strategy, Mainz University has been providing support for nearly ten years to those in managerial posts to help them carry out their duties. The goal is to create a shared concept of leadership in our university and establish standards for leadership behavior. With the help of the JGU Leadership Team Award, we hope to encourage our staff to continuously improve their activities in this area and to thus contribute to the further development of the management culture at JGU."

Professor Matthias Schott of the Experimental Particle and Astroparticle Physics (ETAP) work group and the seven members of his team have established a new field of research at Mainz University. Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and the German Research Foundation, Schott’s Lichtenberg Research Group on "Precision Measurement of the W boson using the LHC" currently focuses on two projects on the analysis of large amounts of data and the development of new detector concepts for future measurements. These projects are coordinated by postdoctoral researchers who act as team managers. "We were impressed by the many innovative ideas produced by this team," stated the jury in its decision. "In addition to being required to undertake independent research in the junior research group, all team members have the opportunity to propose their own research projects and work on it one day a week in order to enhance and extend their own academic profile and to generate new ideas." Moreover, the team represents a successful combination of researchers of different nationalities.

The jury was also impressed by the effective structure and the way in which areas of responsibility are clearly defined at the Integrated Campus Management System unit of the Office for Learning and Teaching headed by Anke Kamrath. The unit comprises 32 employees who are members of JGU's campus network CampusNet, its hotline, and its modeling competence team. "The CampusNet team is required to work with an extensive array of different areas within the university and its work is facilitated by means of efficient communication," stated the jury. New members are successfully incorporated into the team "using a very elaborate strategy that covers organizational regulations, structures, and arrangements, the social and cultural aspects of the team, and provides for an introduction to the subjects by the relevant responsible persons." The team head provides opportunities for job enrichment and job rotation so that team members can be assigned to new and modified task areas. "The team has the task of ensuring the smooth functioning of the campus management system and of dealing with ever new challenges. Although it is a large team, it pulls together and is able to achieve its aims without conflicts arising," the jury explained its decision.

The JGU Leadership Team Award has been designed to complement the Shaping Change – Developing a Culture of Leadership at JGU project that was implemented at Mainz University from 2011 to 2013 with the help of funds provided by the Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation. The aim was to create a leadership concept specific to JGU, to integrate this in the leadership development programs already in place at the university, and to subsequently incorporate the concept in other areas of human resource development. The Team Award is just one of many instruments at Mainz University to promote its management culture and help anchor over the long term the leadership guidelines on which it is based.