What Exactly Is Academic Leadership?
Despite the fact we talk a lot about academic leadership my sense is that we have a pretty frail grasp on what it means. Actually, perhaps that is why we talk a lot about it. If you stuff a university with highly directed, individualistic iconoclasts, you can hardly expect leadership to be a simple thing. I would like however, to advance a straightforward contention, that leadership in an academic setting requires many different and, from the standpoint of an individual, largely incompatible attributes. Leadership is thus a property of an institution and not a property of a person.
Now, I know that there is a significant literature on leadership, and I have been exposed to some of the models and insights as part of my management training. I have gained relatively little from this, which reflects more on my own shortcomings than the training. I have however, learnt by observation and through experience and will attempt, at some risk, to generalise from this.
The most basic form of academic leadership is 'intellectual leadership'. This is the development of leading ideas and the formation of new academic directions. Most academics aspire to this, some achieve it. Necessarily, given the narrow and compartmentalised forms of knowledge in academia, such leadership has limited scope, at least within a single university, though it may embrace a broader subject community. A university needs to be able to recognise and reward this but cannot harness it much beyond the immediate context in which it arises.
Some, but not all, intellectual leaders also provide 'exemplary leadership'. This is leadership through the power of personal example. Insight, rigour, dedication, openness and generosity with ideas and time, mark the exemplary leader. It is vital that such leaders are nurtured and supported. Again the scope of such leadership is narrow, but it can be deep in the sense that its effects are profound and lasting. Exemplary leadership can be exercised across research, teaching, external engagement and service, but generally, given the nature of academia, research attainment is a prerequisite.
'Resource leadership' is a more contentious type of leadership in a university setting. The wheels of modern scholarship, at least in science and engineering, are oiled by money: research facilities, studentships, big groups that can tackle big problems and infrastructure on which all depend. Spotting opportunities and weaving together the case, generally through collaboration, that secures the funding and then project managing the whole to a successful conclusion. These all call for leadership of a high order and of a type that does not always correspond to a narrow conception of academic leadership but is nevertheless vital.
Universities are messy. Intellectual creativity at work often displays ragged edges, missing elements and ad-hoc (we call it flexible) organisation. Strategic leadership is at least as much about telling the story, as setting the direction, in truth perhaps more. I term this, for want of better words, 'narrative leadership'. The narrative leader renders the complexities of academic activity 'legible'. The story such a leader constructs must be true to the facts, appealing to the recipient and recognisable to those who are actors within it. This is a tremendously difficult thing to do and often thankless because the good narrative can be mistaken for the working of a prior intent rather than what it is, creative reconstruction.
Most universitites, certainly those I have experienced, are institutions not organisations. By this I mean they have their own culture - a system of values, symbols and meanings - that govern their operation to a larger extent than either strategy or managerial directive. Cultural leadership embodies, articulates and supports that culture. It can also act to subtly transform it. Cultural leaders are essential in creating the environment in which other forms of leadership can operate by fostering alignment.
There comes a time when it is important to step out boldly, without looking backwards over the shoulder, and to take a risk trying something new. This is 'innovative leadership'. The innovative leader disregards the established order and attempts something new. They muster the entrepreneurial energy, champion their innovation and, if required push past the forces of negativity. Innovative leaders may not always be successful each time they attempt something, but they plant a flag and they often catalyse larger changes. Innovative leaders are easy to spot but their predeliction for risk-taking may make them difficult to reward.
The direct complement to innovative leadership is 'sustaining leadership'. When the innovative leader has moved on to the next new thing, the sustaining leader moves in. They are the people who create the systems, processes and consensuses that make an innovation work on a continuing basis and allows the innovation to be disseminated more widely. Sustaining leadership requires patience and the ability to bring people along with you. Sustaining leadership is frequently undervalued, certainly by innovators, but it requires a fine balance of skills and attributes from the individuals concerned that make it a rare commodity.
Finally, 'external leadership'. Universities can tend to be inward looking, though we increasingly fight hard against the tendency. At the forefront of this fight are external leaders. They look outwards to society: the public, politics, industry, profession, the local community. They articulate the messages and values that the university adheres to and frequently they reflect back the voices of the stakeholders into the institution itself. This leadership can be manifested in many ways for example through science communication, through entrepreneurial engagement or through commitment to professional societies. Because we are so dependent upon these leaders for the leadership role of universities in society, or at least the leadership role we aspire to, they are essential contributors to acdemic leadership.
It should be clear then that we have many different forms of leadership and that no single person could be expected to embody them all. Indeed, they require mutually inconsistent behaviours and attributes. At best you could hope to move across a limited group of these types of leadership. Universities and teams need to embrace the different ways that leadership can manifest itself and have a vision of how they can cohere. That vision, necessarily collective, makes for institutional leadership.