Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education – serie

Sustainability is a complex concept, and the challenge of understanding it and applying it to a diverse, multi-agent, organisational setting with its potentially conflicting priorities cannot be underestimated. Leadership for Sustainability in Higher Education provides key learning from the authors’ extensive academic, leadership and professional experience in this area, supplemented with reference to key learning from other leaders and institutions.Janet Fraser-Haddock, Peter Rands and Stephen Scoffham bring together the wide range of influences and considerations to succeed, including:· an understanding of the core constructs of leadership theory and sustainability · the range of perspectives through which to view and value sustainability · successful activities and actions undertaken by sustainability leaders in the higher education sector · models and methods to successfully implement sustainability that are new to the sector· influencers on the sustainability agenda, whether policy- or demand-led, external or internal· barriers to and enablers of success for leaders at individual, institutional and sector levels These factors all combine to provide a framework for the reader within which to consider leadership for sustainability, both at an individual level and within the higher education culture and organisational norms. The authors provide a theoretical underpinning of key concepts, supplemented by examples of practice across the sector, both within the UK and internationally. Case studies from the UK, Australia, North America and India all bring to life the key opportunities and challenges of leading the sustainability agenda across a range of higher education institutions.

There is an abundance of research saying that not only is leadership in higher education ineffective but also that it actually undermines the essential work that should be happening in universities. Christopher M. Branson, Maureen Marra, Margaret Franken and Dawn Penney provide a new insight into leadership that has proven to be far more effective for all involved – the transrelational approach to leadership. This new way of leading places an emphasis on the importance of the relationships that the leader develops with each and every person they are leading. However, in order to apply this new way of leading, higher education institutions must change some of the key ways they work. This book provides direction in how this can happen, what benefits would result, and offers a view on what the future for higher education might be if such changes to leadership are not made.Leadership in Higher Education from a Transrelational Perspective both critiques the likely implications of adopting this transrelational form of leadership into a higher educational institution and discusses the implications of not doing so. Although a transrelational approach to leadership might seem daunting for higher education institutions to adopt, is there any other choice? The authors argue that it is inconceivable for institutions founded upon promoting human development as a consequence of research to ignore such research that not only questions the suitability of current leadership practices but also offers a more effective alternative.

Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education explores the idea that the nature of academic work is both creative and consensual. Higher education relationships, whether between managers, staff, learners or the public sphere, are at their most effective when rooted in partnership, teamwork, collaboration and collegiality. The term ‘consensual’ is used because it situates new leadership models as structures based on consent, reflecting tacit traditions in education alongside ideas of leadership in other settings, including emerging industries. The aim is to celebrate achievements, encourage engagement opportunities, and add to the problem-solving knowledge-base. However, issues and problems in participatory engagement are also considered, and the borderlines between consensus (collective assent and agreement) and ‘dissensus’ (widespread, serious, disagreement) are examined critically.The contributors offer a range of alternative perspectives on leadership, reflecting the diverse forms and ways of working practised in different national higher educational contexts and cultural settings. The volume incorporates a variety of approaches and points of view, including stories of leadership and change, innovation projects and case studies, key interviews and insights, and collective team writing.

This book explores what academic leadership in higher education might mean in the cosmopolitan and increasingly globalised 21st century through individual academics’ narrative accounts drawn from a range of international contexts. The book shows that academic leadership is key to an individual's development and that it could mean different things in different settings as academics operate across the levels of professional practice, institutional organisation, sector-wide systems and international networks. This book argues for the importance of cosmopolitan perspectives on academic leadership which are developed from the particularities of local and everyday situated experience.Part I of the book explores key theoretical perspectives; Part II provides first-hand accounts from the contributors of their own development as academic leaders; and Part III discusses some of the implications for those with responsibility for academic development and for all those concerned with developing the qualities necessary for leadership practices.

Higher education in the UK is in crisis. The idea of the public university is under assault, and both the future of the sector and its relationship to society are being gambled. Higher education is increasingly unaffordable, its historic institutions are becoming untenable, and their purpose is resolutely instrumental. What and who have led us to this crisis? What are the alternatives? To whom do we look for leadership in revealing those alternatives? This book critically analyses intellectual leadership in the university, exploring ongoing efforts from around the world to create alternative models for organizing higher education and the production of knowledge. Its authors offer their experience and views from inside and beyond the structures of mainstream higher education, in order to reflect on efforts to create alternatives. In the process the volume asks: is it possible to re­imagine the university democratically and co­operatively? If so, what are the implications for leadership not just within the university but also in terms of higher education’s relationship to society?The authors argue that mass higher education is at the point where it no longer reflects the needs, capacities and long­term interests of global society. An alternative role and purpose is required, based upon 'mass intellectuality’ or the real possibility of democracy in learning and the production of knowledge.

Urban provides an intellectual history of Harvard presidency of James Bryant Conant (1933-1953), situating it within the broader international landscape and drawing out the implication for the current state of higher education with reference to specific leadership policy issues in the sector. Throughout this volume, Urban explores the ways in which Conant achieved largely successful attempts to modernize Harvard by upgrading both its student body and its faculty. He explores the intellectual excellence agenda that Conant pursued both with students and academics, and the ramifications of this. He also considers the nature of Conant’s part-time handling of the role of president, the way he delegated campus control to his Provost, Paul Buck, and the ways the two operated together and separately. Urban also looks at Conant’s own intellectual breadth, as scientist and humanist, which showed itself prominently in his activities in pursuit of general education reform. Conant’s combination of intellect and agenda was unusual for a president in his own time, and is exceedingly rare, if not completely missing, in contemporary university presidencies. In exploring this innovative president’s time in office at Harvard, Urban offers pertinent ideas to today’s leaders of higher education.

There is an abundance of research saying that not only is leadership in higher education ineffective but also that it actually undermines the essential work that should be happening in universities. Christopher M. Branson, Maureen Marra, Margaret Franken and Dawn Penney provide a new insight into leadership that has proven to be far more effective for all involved – the transrelational approach to leadership. This new way of leading places an emphasis on the importance of the relationships that the leader develops with each and every person they are leading. However, in order to apply this new way of leading, higher education institutions must change some of the key ways they work. This book provides direction in how this can happen, what benefits would result, and offers a view on what the future for higher education might be if such changes to leadership are not made.Leadership in Higher Education from a Transrelational Perspective both critiques the likely implications of adopting this transrelational form of leadership into a higher educational institution and discusses the implications of not doing so. Although a transrelational approach to leadership might seem daunting for higher education institutions to adopt, is there any other choice? The authors argue that it is inconceivable for institutions founded upon promoting human development as a consequence of research to ignore such research that not only questions the suitability of current leadership practices but also offers a more effective alternative.

What is the future of the contemporary university and for those who lead them?Considering leadership in the broadest sense, including academic leadership (teaching and research) as well as leadership practices of those in formal management positions, Jill Blackmore outlines how multiple pressures on universities have produced leadership practices in management and research which are more corporate than collegial, and which discourage many academics from aspiring to leadership. She uses a range of theoretical tools, informed by critical and feminist organisational studies, to unpack higher education and how it is being transformed in ways that undermine its core work of teaching and research. Drawing from three Australian university case studies, this book uses leadership as a lens through which to investigate the effects of restructuring of the higher education sector which have impacted differently on academic identities and careers.

Sustainability is a complex concept, and the challenge of understanding it and applying it to a diverse, multi-agent, organisational setting with its potentially conflicting priorities cannot be underestimated. Leadership for Sustainability in Higher Education provides key learning from the authors’ extensive academic, leadership and professional experience in this area, supplemented with reference to key learning from other leaders and institutions.Janet Fraser-Haddock, Peter Rands and Stephen Scoffham bring together the wide range of influences and considerations to succeed, including:· an understanding of the core constructs of leadership theory and sustainability · the range of perspectives through which to view and value sustainability · successful activities and actions undertaken by sustainability leaders in the higher education sector · models and methods to successfully implement sustainability that are new to the sector· influencers on the sustainability agenda, whether policy- or demand-led, external or internal· barriers to and enablers of success for leaders at individual, institutional and sector levels These factors all combine to provide a framework for the reader within which to consider leadership for sustainability, both at an individual level and within the higher education culture and organisational norms. The authors provide a theoretical underpinning of key concepts, supplemented by examples of practice across the sector, both within the UK and internationally. Case studies from the UK, Australia, North America and India all bring to life the key opportunities and challenges of leading the sustainability agenda across a range of higher education institutions.

Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education explores the idea that the nature of academic work is both creative and consensual. Higher education relationships, whether between managers, staff, learners or the public sphere, are at their most effective when rooted in partnership, teamwork, collaboration and collegiality. The term ‘consensual’ is used because it situates new leadership models as structures based on consent, reflecting tacit traditions in education alongside ideas of leadership in other settings, including emerging industries. The aim is to celebrate achievements, encourage engagement opportunities, and add to the problem-solving knowledge-base. However, issues and problems in participatory engagement are also considered, and the borderlines between consensus (collective assent and agreement) and ‘dissensus’ (widespread, serious, disagreement) are examined critically.The contributors offer a range of alternative perspectives on leadership, reflecting the diverse forms and ways of working practised in different national higher educational contexts and cultural settings. The volume incorporates a variety of approaches and points of view, including stories of leadership and change, innovation projects and case studies, key interviews and insights, and collective team writing.

Urban provides an intellectual history of Harvard presidency of James Bryant Conant (1933-1953), situating it within the broader international landscape and drawing out the implication for the current state of higher education with reference to specific leadership policy issues in the sector. Throughout this volume, Urban explores the ways in which Conant achieved largely successful attempts to modernize Harvard by upgrading both its student body and its faculty. He explores the intellectual excellence agenda that Conant pursued both with students and academics, and the ramifications of this. He also considers the nature of Conant’s part-time handling of the role of president, the way he delegated campus control to his Provost, Paul Buck, and the ways the two operated together and separately. Urban also looks at Conant’s own intellectual breadth, as scientist and humanist, which showed itself prominently in his activities in pursuit of general education reform. Conant’s combination of intellect and agenda was unusual for a president in his own time, and is exceedingly rare, if not completely missing, in contemporary university presidencies. In exploring this innovative president’s time in office at Harvard, Urban offers pertinent ideas to today’s leaders of higher education.

What is the future of the contemporary university and for those who lead them?Considering leadership in the broadest sense, including academic leadership (teaching and research) as well as leadership practices of those in formal management positions, Jill Blackmore outlines how multiple pressures on universities have produced leadership practices in management and research which are more corporate than collegial, and which discourage many academics from aspiring to leadership. She uses a range of theoretical tools, informed by critical and feminist organisational studies, to unpack higher education and how it is being transformed in ways that undermine its core work of teaching and research. Drawing from three Australian university case studies, this book uses leadership as a lens through which to investigate the effects of restructuring of the higher education sector which have impacted differently on academic identities and careers.

This book draws on interdisciplinary social science and philosophical frameworks to offer new dimensions to debate about intellectual leadership and higher education. The chapters are focused on provoking readers to think critically about intellectual leadership in precarious times. The contributors frame critical questions about the unevenness, ambivalences, and disruptions that now mark everyday life and interactions. Rather than thinking about ‘freedom from precarious times and precarity’ they consider ‘freedom from within’ and how the sovereignty and autonomy of the individual to think and speak within the public realm might be retained, if not reclaimed. In the precarious present and in times of precarity, what has changed and why? What might now be the new social reality within which we work?Each of the contributors have been invited to take up their own perspective on what is precarious, and to examine the impacts on intellectual leadership. What does it mean to do intellectual work and be an intellectual leader? What are the implications for intellectual work and leadership if the academy itself is in precarious times?

This book draws on interdisciplinary social science and philosophical frameworks to offer new dimensions to debate about intellectual leadership and higher education. The chapters are focused on provoking readers to think critically about intellectual leadership in precarious times. The contributors frame critical questions about the unevenness, ambivalences, and disruptions that now mark everyday life and interactions. Rather than thinking about ‘freedom from precarious times and precarity’ they consider ‘freedom from within’ and how the sovereignty and autonomy of the individual to think and speak within the public realm might be retained, if not reclaimed. In the precarious present and in times of precarity, what has changed and why? What might now be the new social reality within which we work?Each of the contributors have been invited to take up their own perspective on what is precarious, and to examine the impacts on intellectual leadership. What does it mean to do intellectual work and be an intellectual leader? What are the implications for intellectual work and leadership if the academy itself is in precarious times?

This book explores what academic leadership in higher education might mean in the cosmopolitan and increasingly globalised 21st century through individual academics’ narrative accounts drawn from a range of international contexts. The book shows that academic leadership is key to an individual's development and that it could mean different things in different settings as academics operate across the levels of professional practice, institutional organisation, sector-wide systems and international networks. This book argues for the importance of cosmopolitan perspectives on academic leadership which are developed from the particularities of local and everyday situated experience.Part I of the book explores key theoretical perspectives; Part II provides first-hand accounts from the contributors of their own development as academic leaders; and Part III discusses some of the implications for those with responsibility for academic development and for all those concerned with developing the qualities necessary for leadership practices.