Institutional Influence and Strategy: Confidential Peer Consult for Academic Neurology Leaders*
Date: October 19, 2026
Time: 7:00 am to 8:30 am
Room: Coral 3
Track: Professional Development Workshop - Department Chair Level
Session Description
Neurology leaders operate in increasingly complex environments where clinical, academic, and financial priorities intersect, and where institutional influence is essential but not always easily achieved. Despite delivering high-value clinical care, education, and research, neurology departments may struggle to ensure their contributions are fully recognized in institutional decision-making. This session addresses a timely need for strategies that translate academic excellence into institutional influence.
This session will combine strategic framing with real-case peer coaching through a structured “Confidential Peer Consult” format. Participants will submit brief, real-world leadership dilemmas in advance. Following a short orientation to the central question—how neurology departments translate academic excellence into institutional influence—the session will focus on three selected cases presented by participating leaders.
Cases will reflect high-stakes challenges commonly faced by academic neurology leaders, including cases such as senior faculty undermining leadership, managing high-revenue but disruptive clinicians, tensions between clinical or scientific priorities and non-clinical leadership, underfunded mandates, FTE and space allocation conflicts, mission versus margin decisions, and evolving relationships with deans and health system leadership. Additional themes may include faculty morale, DEI-related tensions, and the evolving identity of the chair role.
Using a facilitated, confidential discussion model, attendees will engage in structured peer coaching, generating practical, experience-based strategies. This session moves beyond general leadership principles to applied problem-solving, with actionable insights relevant across diverse academic and health system environments.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this session, attendees will be able to:
- Identify strategies to translate neurology departmental value into institutional influence.
- Apply structured peer-coaching approaches to complex leadership challenges.
- Evaluate common pitfalls that limit neurology’s effectiveness within health systems.