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Face the change
New approach to academic leadership is required in times of change .
By Ehsan Gharaie
The higher education sector is going through significant
changes . Universities are facing financial losses and shifts in their teaching and research funding . The changes are so significant that some in the sector suggest that the purpose of higher education needs to be revisited and reviewed .
The changes will have considerable impacts on academics . They are being asked to respond to the new funding regime , to engage more with the community , to deal with the extra workload , to respond to the movement in the job market , to redesign the course deliveries , and to work across disciplines , schools , universities , and perhaps geographic boundaries .
Although academics are the ones who will need to adjust and rethink their practice , the current commentary in the sector is more focused on either the senior leadership or anecdotal stories of successful online deliveries .
But we have already been through rapid changes in the past few months . Thousands of courses went online overnight and thousands of academics went through professional development and rethought their course deliveries .
This was all done by agile decision making and topdown leadership . Perhaps because it has worked well , it is tempting to continue on the same path by designing new processes , coming up with new checklists , and prescribing what needs to be done .
This approach worked well because of the urgency of the situation . Everyone was eager to receive direction from the top and everyone understood that there was no best decision .
All decisions were made quickly and based on limited information . However , universities and society will eventually be out of the crisis . Calm will return .
To make the changes sustainable and the reform more effective , universities need to find better ways of implementing change that fits their complex organisations . They need to have a close look at their organisation and set the change agenda in line with the right organisational culture and structure .
Universities are complex organisations . They involve a large number of interacting elements and most of these interactions are non-linear . Academics are independent thinkers that act in silos and most of the time , independent from their team and their schools .
The relationship between academics and their managers is not hierarchical . The relationship is collegial , and , in most cases , the management role is seen as a necessity for making decisions and not a role instrumental to the quality of teaching or research .
Academics need autonomy within clear boundaries . Therefore , it will be paramount for universities to send a clear message to their academic community about what the new changes mean and where the boundaries are . If academics know their boundaries they will find creative ways of delivering outcomes .
Universities are also dynamic . Different faculties and schools may have different organisational structures . In this setting , a solution to a common problem may emerge from any of the schools and departments .
Universities need to develop the capability to set up the starting conditions , to monitor for the emergence of new solutions , and to capture these solutions and roll them out across the organisation .
Academics have multiple identities . They are members of the university , they belong to a global discipline , and they are closely related to a profession or industry . These identities impose various demands on their academic works that are not necessarily aligned . These complex and competing identities make the rollout of change more complex . However , it provides opportunities for learning from a global community .
In the corporate environment , the flow of information between organisations is constrained . They have to make extra effort to connect people across organisations and learning is confined within the organisation as a competitive advantage .
However , universities are built on the premise of a free flow of information . Academics are expected to share their experiences and the collegial culture is a strong foundation for sharing that information . In this environment , academics will be a source of learning from their colleagues in other universities and bringing that solution to their own organisations .
Finally , academics need to show leadership to enact their autonomy , to take advantage of their dynamic organisation and to initiate new solutions : a leadership that is far from the common understanding of leadership as a title .
This leadership is a rare find . The universities ’ role will be to support their academic community to develop their leadership capacities and to encourage leadership actions . With this support , they will have an academic community that leads the change that they want to see rather than being the subject of the change . ■
Ehsan Gharaie is an associate professor of project management and a member of the Academic Board at RMIT University .
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