The Kind Academic

Ah, academia… You beautiful space of deep thinking, life-long learning, and seemingly-inevitable imposter syndrome…

As the academic year and the busyness of teaching, grading, writing, meetings winds down, I find myself entering end-of-year reflective mode. I’ve been looking back on 2025, thinking about what I’ve achieved, what surprised me, what motivated me, and what still feels like a work in progress.

While playing back some key moments in my mind, I’ve noticed something interesting: many of the things I once saw as weaknesses have quietly become the very things that support me, shape me, and help me do my work with more purpose.

My PhD felt “less-than”

For a long time, I felt like my PhD didn’t measure up. Working in the amazing UNSW Business School, rated globally as a top research and teaching business institution, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my PhD in Higher Education just wasn’t enough. I’d sit in presentations with world-class business scholars and struggle to follow their research. I felt like my disciplinary home didn’t match the prestige of my professional one.

But this year, something shifted.

I started noticing how often my education background helped me understand my teaching practice more deeply. I noticed how it gave me language for the ideas that matter most to me, like relational pedagogy, belonging, and kindness. I noticed that my knowledge of education theories, frameworks and methodologies allowed me to support my colleagues with their own scholarship of teaching and learning.

I realised that what I once thought made me less legitimate actually gives me something distinctive and meaningful to contribute.

My PhD was never less-than. It was exactly what I needed.

The gift of slow thinking

Another insecurity I’ve carried is the idea that I struggle to make strong decisions. I’ve never been the person who picks a position and defends it fiercely. I linger. I reconsider. I pause. For years, I saw this as evidence of indecisiveness, a lack of confidence, something to fix.

Only recently have I started to see it differently.

In a workshop on developing a sustainable mindset I attended this week, I was introduced to Barry Johnson’s Polarity Management Framework which urges us to systematically recognise and balance strategic tradeoffs as a way to achieve better outcomes. This is what I do! I’ve also been engaging with my colleague Josh Keller’s thought-provoking work on paradox thinking, which highlights the benefits of embracing paradox to deepen thought and action.

So maybe I’m not just a prevaricating slow-poke. Maybe what I’ve previously framed as indecisiveness is actually a core skill for navigating the complicated, nuanced spaces where ethics, sustainability, and human behaviour intersect. I’m not bad at deciding. I’m good at thinking. And thinking takes time.

What if our “weaknesses” are actually strengths?

This made me wonder: what other insecurities do we carry that might actually be strengths in disguise?

• Sensitivity that becomes empathy
• Overthinking that becomes deep analysis
• Caution that becomes care
• Uncertainty that signals we’re paying attention

Seeing ourselves this way requires a generosity that many academics extend easily to others yet rarely offer ourselves. We give colleagues and students the benefit of the doubt. We assume good intentions. We celebrate the quirks that make them who they are. Yet when it comes to our own imperfections, we’re often far less forgiving.

Practicing kindness toward ourselves

As I look back over the year, I’m realising that part of practicing kindness in academia may be learning to view ourselves with the same gentleness we try to bring to others. It’s acknowledging that our insecurities are often the raw material of our strengths. It’s the courage to believe that we’re not failing – we’re becoming.

Maybe you’ll find something similar in your own 2025 reflections. Maybe the traits you worried about all year were, quietly, the very strengths holding you up.