This proverb can be hard to accept because the person in the role of chair may very well be your friend and the institutional role of chair has a vested interest in seeing you succeed.

Nonetheless, being a chair (and especially the chair of an English department) is the hardest job in the academy. Chairs are trapped in an unrelenting pinscher move: squeezed from above by the upper administration: squeezed from below by faculty and staff and their endless needs. Chairs must get a set of courses ready and out the door, each and every semester, find people to teach them, promote research, solve problems, and raise money. All at the same time.

Trapped by these pressures, it is incredibly difficult for a chair to examine an issue from your point of view. They are trapped in the big picture and its endless negotiations.

As a result, you need to learn to manage your chair. Learn to recognize when you can learn from his or her big picture view of the university and when that view is likely to work against what you want to accomplish.