In my experience, someone with some teaching experience in a field should run operations for academic department—an NTT that teaches a course or two a semester, for example. And a tenure track chair should be the decision maker on the department’s direction.
However, I also find that academics make poor administrators and leaders more often than not. I think this comes down to experience. Academics often go from no or minimum leadership and management responsibilities to many and some are just not equipped to handle it. Being a chair is poor experience to becoming an academic Dean and even poorer experience to becoming a non-academic leader. Additionally, many have to learn the hard way that most challenges within a large organization require a ton of coordination and alignment and that there are very few instances where there is a silver bullet to solve business challenges.
However, I also find that academics make poor administrators and leaders more often than not. I think this comes down to experience. Academics often go from no or minimum leadership and management responsibilities to many and some are just not equipped to handle it. Being a chair is poor experience to becoming an academic Dean and even poorer experience to becoming a non-academic leader. Additionally, many have to learn the hard way that most challenges within a large organization require a ton of coordination and alignment and that there are very few instances where there is a silver bullet to solve business challenges.