University Leadership

The concept of the organisation needs to be clarified in exploring approaches to university organisational leadership, how it is formed and the strategic issue of challenge recognition that leadership typically needs to address. This chapter examines the relationships of organisational level leadership and processes that occur within the organisation, and the relationship of leadership and outside influences and broad external environment. Universities can differ in their organisational and environmental cultures and sub-cultures, traditions, enacting legislative frameworks, leader personality and impact differences of leadership on the individual organisations and on the environment.

This chapter reports and discusses challenges facing university organisational leadership and management in the immediate and longer-term future that were identified by interviewees in response to three sets of questions. Like the other interview questions, a number of characteristics of each interviewee were expected to influence their focus, and consequently, the breadth and detail of answers about challenges as both strategic and operational influences on leadership. The interviewees included experienced senior university leaders, public/civil servants from government agencies with responsibilities for university administration, professors without formal leadership or management positions, middle and junior university management and leadership holders, members of university boards, management consultants, and university administrative staff. This diversity of position and experience in the interview pool gave rise to responses that covered a wide range of challenges, both general to universities and peculiar to a single university and universities within one legislative jurisdiction. The findings are discussed using the broad headings in the core research questions.