It has become a cliché to note the constancy of change in the environments in which we lead, but it is anything but a cliché to experience as a leader the unpredictability, contingency, and constant sense that something for which you could not have been prepared is about to blindside you. I have been in senior level leadership in higher education for 35 years, 24 as a president, and can assure you that this experience is real. Year to year shifts in funding priorities, unstable governance and rogue board members, intrusive state mandates, bizarre and embarrassing personnel issues, litigious students and employees, instant infamy on the internet, refractory organizations with deep fault lines between different constituents, unintended consequences of policy decisions made far from the college experience, and all manner of human foolishness threatens the capacity of the leader to guide the ship without foundering
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Responsible leadership is rare. It is not that most leaders are irresponsible, but responsibility in leadership is frequently defined so that an important connotation of responsible leadership is ignored. This article equates responsible leadership with virtuousness. Using this connotation implies that responsible leadership is based on three assumptions—eudaemonism, inherent value, and amplification. Secondarily, this connotation produces two important outcomes—a fixed point for coping with change, and benefits for constituencies who may never be affected otherwise. The meaning and advantages of responsible leadership as virtuous leadership are discussed.
A few decades ago it was possible for most business leaders to do their jobs blissfully unaware of issues pertaining to societal welfare, conditions in the natural environment, the health and work-life concerns of employees, and human rights in nascent global supply chains, among numerous other matters. They were largely unaffected by activist NGOs and shareholder resolutions, the threat of protests and boycotts, not to mention calls for greater transparency and the dramatic increase in exposure by the Internet.
ABSTRACT. I argue in this article that responsible leadership (Maak and Pless, 2006) contributes to build- ing social capital and ultimately to both a sustainable business and the common good. I show, first, that responsible leadership in a global
stakeholder society is a relational and inherently moral phenomenon that cannot be captured in traditional dyadic leader–follower relationships (e.g., to subordinates) or by simply focusing on questions of leadership effectiveness. Business leaders have to deal with moral complexity resulting from a multitude of stakeholder claims and have to build enduring and mutually beneficial
relationships with all relevant stakeholders. I contend, second, that in doing so leaders bundle the energy of different constituencies and enable social capital building. Social capital can be understood as actual or potential resources inherent to more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual recognition (Bourdieu 1980). By drawing on network analysis I suggest,
third, that responsible leaders weave durable relational structures and ultimately networks of relationships which are rich in ties to otherwise unconnected individuals or groups.
This research study is a phenomenological exploration of academics from one Canadian university who either are participating in a phased retirement pro- gram or have delayed their retirement beyond the normal retirement age of 65. It is based on face-to-face interviews with 24 professors, male and female, between the ages of 55 and 69, from an array of disciplines. The results indcate that teaching may be a primary reason why academics choose to retire, that female academics seem to align their retirement plans with those of their partners, and that academics who postpone their retirement feel as though they
possess a significant amount of respect within their fields. Since this re- search is based upon a small sample, it provides a starting point for future research studies, particularly concerning how gender affects the issue of academic retirement.
The results of the latest MetLife Survey of the American Teacher confirm what many of us are experiencing and seeing in the depressing descent of the teaching profession. In the past two years, the percentage of teachers surveyed who reported being very satisfied in their jobs has declined sharply, from 59 percent to 44 percent. The number who indicated they were thinking of
leaving the profession has jumped from 17 percent to 29 percent. Imagine being a student knowing that every other teacher you encounter is becoming less and less satisfied, and close to one in three would rather be somewhere else.
Ensuring a good match between skills acquired in education and on the job and those required in the labour market is essential to make the most of investments in human capital and promote strong and inclusive growth. Unfortunately, in the OECD on average, about one in four workers are over-qualified – i.e. they possess higher qualifications than those required by their job – and just over one in five are under- qualified – i.e. they possess lower qualifications than those required by their
job. In addition, some socio- demographic groups are more likely than others to be over-qualified – notably, immigrants and new labour market entrants who take some time to sort themselves into appropriate jobs – or under-qualified – notably,
experienced workers lacking a formal qualification for the skills acquired on the labour market.
A role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders proposes that perceived incongruity between
the female gender role and leadership roles leads to 2 forms of prejudice: (a) perceiving women less favorably than men as potential occupants of leadership roles and (b) evaluating behavior that fulfills the prescriptions of a leader role less favorably when it is enacted by a woman. One consequence is that attitudes are less positive toward female than male leaders and potential leaders. Other consequences are that it is more difficult for women to become leaders and to achieve success in leadership roles. Evidence from varied research paradigms substantiates that these consequences occur, especially in situations that heighten perceptions of incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles.
For college and university presidents, the process of apologizing after high-profile missteps can seem to take as long as a tortoise walking a mile.
As a result, the actions Wednesday of University of California, Irvine, Chancellor Howard Gillman stand out as noteworthy. Days after news broke that the university revoked admission offers from 499 students, Chancellor Howard Gillman issued a public statement offering a personal apology. The university would admit all accepted students except for those who dropped below its academic standards, he said.
The relative speed and decisiveness with which Gillman acted raise the question of why more university presidents don’t step in so swiftly. Higher education’s recent history is littered with instances of leaders who seemingly hesitated to offer forceful apologies. Instead of pleasing the public by uttering two little words and a promise to fix
things, such presidents have been seen as incompetent, stonewalling or hemming and hawing.
HubSpot is 9 years old. I consider that we spent our first 6–7 years in “startup” mode, where we got through
product/market fit and got our customer economics to work. Over the last few years, we’ve been in “scale-up” mode, where we’re adding fuel into our engine and growing fast in a great market with nice barriers to entry. It turns out that many of the skills I need as the leader of a scale-up are much different than the skills I needed as the leader of a startup. This article attempts to lay out some of the skills and tools I’ve needed to develop in this scale-up phase.
Educational decentralization is a worldwide phenomenon, but as a concept it hides more than it reveals. It often refers to the devolution of some authority to the local school and community level, but two large problems remain. First, in all cases, key aspects of authority are retained at the regional and central level. In this sense, decentralization is a misnomer. Second, when decentralization does occur, it usually refers to structural elements (such as site- based councils), thereby missing the day-to-day capacities and activities that would make it work for school improvement.
Keywords Schools, Leadership, Development, Educational philosophy, Integration
Abstract This paper looks at the central role of school leadership for developing and assuring the quality of schools, as corroborated by findings of school effectiveness research and school improvement approaches. Then, it focuses on the growing importance placed on activities to prepare school leaders due to the ever-increasing responsibilities they are facing. In many countries, this has led to the design and implementation of extensive programs. In this paper, international trends in school leader development are identified. As regards the aims of the programs, it becomes obvious that they are increasingly grounded on a more broadly defined understanding of leadership, adjusted to the core purpose of school, and based on educational beliefs integrating the values of a democratic society.
In their aptly named book on organizational management, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton write about Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense. A hard fact is something for which there is solid evidence. A dangerous half-truth is when this fact is superficially applied. And total nonsense is often the outcome of not knowing the difference.
We can gain insight about the current state of school leadership by applying this organizational thinking to two of education’s hard facts: The principal is crucial to school success, and professional learning communities are more effective than individual professionals working in isolation. In doing so, we should remember that the danger in the half-truth is not just that it is incomplete or misleading, but that its proponents are unaware that it is not true.
This scoping study was conducted as part of a boarder study funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Fellowship (ALTC) on Building Leadership Capacity for Undergraduate Students. The present scoping study is phase one of the project (see aim below).
Before outlining the current study, it is important to briefly summarise the literature on leadership development and theories.
Background information: Literature on leadership development and theories
Since the late 1970s scholars have criticized the traditional theories of leadership (e.g., Greenleaf, 1991). From the literature (see reports from Anderson & Johnson, 2006; Marshall, 2008), these more traditional theories include: personality theories (which propose that leadership depends on traits that are either inherited or emerge in early life development), trait theory (which involves the assumption that there are characteristics for leadership deeply embedded in the personalities of leaders), and finally theories of power and influence (which assume that leaders are people in positions of formal responsibility within an organization).
The engagement, productivity, and vitality of the faculty are extremely important to the success of academic institutions in fulfilling their missions. This paper presents data from a survey of 1,775 tenured associate and full professors at seven public universities, showing that many are frustrated about leadership turnover and the corresponding shifts in mission, focus, and priorities, and also about salary. In addition, associate professors are less satisfied than full professors on critical factors such as support for research, collaboration, and clarity of promotion, and women are less satisfied than men on numerous dimensions including mentoring support for research and interdisciplinary work, and clarity of promotion.
Has there ever been a worse time for faculty and university administrators? Faculty and administrators alike are under siege on multiple fronts—huge budget cuts have been made in most states with more expected, collective bargaining has come under attack in some states, and an underlying threat to tenure permeates academe. A historian might simply attribute this to a poor economy and conclude that such conflicts, cyclical in nature, will pass. But it is far from clear that this storm will subside as others have. Higher education is at a critical juncture and many legislators, donors, trustees, and tuition-payers are fed up with academe’s perceived excesses and excuses.
The university reward structure has traditionally placed greater value on individual research excellence for tenure and promotion, influencing faculty’s allocation of time and definition of worthwhile labour. We find gender differences in Canadian natural sciences and engineering faculty’s opinions of the traditional criteria for measuring academic success that are consistent with an implicit gender bias devaluing service and teamwork. Most women recommend significant changes to the traditional model and its foundation, while a substantial minority of men support the status quo. However, this comparative qualitative analysis finds more cross-gender similarities than differences, as most men also want a more modern definition of success, perceiving the traditional model to be disproportionately supportive of one type of narrow research scholarship that does not align with the realities of most faculty’s efforts.
Thus, this study suggests a discrepancy between traditional success criteria
and faculty’s understanding of worthwhile labour.
Grounded and reliable measurement instruments grounded in theory are essential to move the field of servant leadership forward.
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between unionization and academic freedom protections for sessional faculty in Ontario universities. Specifically, we compare university policies and contract provisions with a view to determining whether unionized sessionals hired on a per-course basis have stronger academic freedom protections than their non-union counterparts.
We then explore whether particular kinds of bargaining unit structures are more conducive to achieving stronger academic freedom provisions. Finally, we consider whether academic freedom can be exercised effectively by sessionals, whether unionized or not. We conclude that unionization does help to produce stronger academic freedom protections for sessional faculty and that faculty association bargaining unit structures are most likely to help deliver this outcome. We further conclude that academic freedom is difficult to exercise for sessional faculty, regardless of union status, but that unionization offers greater protections for sessionals facing repercussions as a result of asserting their academic freedom.
Keywords: academic freedom, sessional instructors, contract faculty, faculty associations, unions, bargaining unit structures