Strategic Leadership

The Ambiguities and

Possibilities of Leadership

in Higher Education

I

f strategic leadership is to be an effective method, it has to pass several critical

tests. One is its ability to function effectively in the culture and systems of

academic decision making. In this chapter I will explore the norms, practices,

and expectations of academic governance and leadership. I will also analyze

some of the most influential interpretations of leadership of the past couple of

decades, principally concerning the college presidency. One of my primary goals

will be to relate these ideas to the contemporary models of leadership analyzed

in the last chapter. In doing so, I will ask several basic questions. How does a

particular form of leadership choose to address the complexities of academic

decision making, in particular, the protocols and norms of shared governance?

What methods and practices does a particular approach to leadership propose or

entail? What does it expect to achieve? What are its assumptions? As I pursue

the analysis, I shall also uncover the roots of strategic leadership in the decisionmaking systems of the academy, as well as the challenges it must surmount to be

robust and effective.

FORMS OF LEADERSHIP IN

HIGHER EDUCATION

Leadership as Knowledge and Skills

Higher education's leadership library is growing rapidly and will soon need

more shelf space. After a long period when the dominant focus was on presidential leadership, authors and publishers are now creating a long list of books with

"leadership" in their titles, often centered on the concerns of practitioners. Many 

22 Strategic Leadership

of them focus on the qualities, expertise, and skills required for effectiveness in

specific positions of authority, such as chief academic officer or department chair.

In this regard, they are close to the traditional motifs of management education,

and development, as a sampling of the enormous number of recent books makes

clear (see, e.g., Diamond 2002; Ferren and Stanton 2004; Gmelch and Miskin

2004; Green and McDade 1994; Gunsalis 2006; Hoppe and Speck 2003; Krahenbuhl 2004; Ramsden 1998; Ruben 2004b, especially chapter 8). Although these

works may consider broader findings and theories concerning leadership, their

primary attention goes to the tasks and operational responsibilities of a given

academic position. They may cover such topics as faculty appointment, evaluation, development and tenure, curricular change, affirmative action and equity,

legal questions, planning, budgets, compensation, group dynamics, and conflict

resolution. Especially useful for academic professionals who may have little or

no administrative experience, these books address one aspect of the leadership

equation: "What skills and knowledge do I need to exercise my responsibilities

effectively?" (The American Council of Education has led the way over many

years in developing materials, programs, and bibliographies on leadership development in this vein.1)

Interactive Leadership

The contemporary motif of leadership as a process of mutual influence between

leaders and followers that mobilizes commitment to common purposes also has

emerged clearly as a theme in the literature (see, e.g., Davis 2003, Kouzes and

Posner 2003, Shaw 2006). Peter Eckel and Adrianna Kezar (2003) describe

a transformational change model that parallels several aspects of interactive

direction-setting leadership. In using the motif of legitimacy as the threshold

condition for transformative presidential leadership, Rita Bornstein (2003) demonstrates how the concept answers to the multiple expectations of key campus

participants and other constituencies. The publications of the Institutional Leadership Project, directed by Robert Birnbaum (1988, 1992) in the late 1980s, also show

a clear understanding of many aspects of interactive leadership. In none of these

cases, though, have the implications of reciprocal leadership been fashioned into

a systematic method of organizational decision making and leadership (Bensimon,

Neumann, and Birnbaum 1991). Paul Ramsden (1998) comes close to doing so,

yet he also considers leadership as a set of qualities, skills, and characteristics.

As we shall see, the guidebooks to strategic planning in higher education move

largely within the orbit of management, though the motif of interactive leadership

is sometimes a tacit and emergent theme (Sevier 2000). Representative articles

and collections of studies from journals and other sources on governance, management, and leadership also reflect several of the motifs of interactive leadership

(M. C. Brown 2000; Kezar 2000; Peterson, Chaffee, and White 1991; Peterson,

Dill, Mets, et al. 1997). They offer a variety of insights on themes that have a

direct or indirect bearing on strategic leadership, such as symbols and sense 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 23

making, gender and multiculturalism, and strategic change. As descriptive analyses,

however, the primary aim of these publications is to provide research and findings

that have implications for leadership, rather than to propose a systematic method

for practicing it.

LEADERSHIP AS AUTHORITY: THE CASE

OF THE COLLEGE PRESIDENCY

The central issue of authority in collegiate leadership takes us logically to

a consideration of the college presidency, which has been the focus of the most

concentrated, systematic, and influential scholarship on leadership over the past

several decades. Books and studies related to the presidency continue to appear,

so the topic remains a focus of investigation (Association of Governing Boards of

Universities and Colleges 1996, 2006; Bornstein 2003; D. G. Brown 2006; Fisher

and Koch 2004; Keohane 2006; Padilla 2005; Shaw 2006).

We are drawn to this literature for several reasons. In the first place, it offers

a test case to scrutinize the theories and the language of leadership in higher

education, and in the second, it provides recommendations for the practice of

leadership. Most importantly, presidential leadership is the mirror image of the

campus system and culture of authority and decision making. It reflects the quite

particular ways in which academic organizations carry out their purposes through

the work of decentralized and autonomous groups of knowledge professionals. If

strategic leadership is to flourish in the values and practices of the academy, it

must first understand how academic governance works.

The Weakness of the Presidency

The most influential analyses of the college presidency conclude that it is

structurally weak in authority, beyond whatever strengths and talents a given

individual may bring to it. In the words of the Association of Governing Boards

of Universities and Colleges' influential 1996 Commission on the State of the

Presidency, "University presidents operate from one of the most anemic power

bases in any of the major institutions in American society" (9). In language that

is even more pointed, Cohen and March claim in their classic study of the presidency: "The presidency is an illusion. Important aspects of the role seem to disappear on close examination. . . . The president has modest control over the events

of college life" (1986, 2). These arguments and the research that supports them

may be challenged, but they have set the terms for debate on the presidency for

several decades.

Loosely Coupled Systems

It is worth examining a series of structural characteristics of academic and

organizational governance, from shared authority to what Cohen and March 

24 Strategic Leadership

(1986) call "organized anarchy," that explain these sobering appraisals of

presidential authority and leadership. To begin, presidents preside over two separate systems of authority within the same institution, one for academic affairs and

one for administration. The administrative system is organized hierarchically

and operates with many of the same patterns of managerial authority, control,

and coordination that one finds in other organizations. In today's world, the

span of administrative authority itself includes an ever-expanding set of complex operations, from technology to athletics, from venture capital spin-offs to

arts centers. These activities may themselves be only loosely and incidentally

tied to one another, heavily complicating the contemporary tasks of university

management.

The academic system of governance is loosely coupled both within itself and

with the world of administration. The two systems have episodic, complicated,

and often controversial connections around issues like financial and physical

resources that are of critical importance in both spheres. The academic domain

functions through highly decentralized departments and programs that are largely

governed independently by academic professionals. The units embody intellectual and professional norms as well as territorial boundaries. Most academic units

do not need each other to do their work, and most faculty members do most of

their teaching and much of their research independently of one another. The

interaction of academic professionals in carrying out their tasks is unpredictable,

uncertain, and infrequent, the epitome of loose coupling (Birnbaum 1988, 1992;

Weick 1991).

Presidential authority over the academic system is usually a form of oversight

and is filtered through several layers of faculty committees and other protocols

of collegial decision making. Usually these collegial mechanisms themselves are

weakly related to one another, and they typically resist efforts to be more closely

connected.

In much of the president's work, responsibility is split from authority (cf. Birnbaum 1989). Presidents are often perplexed or frustrated because they are held

responsible for decisions or events over which they have little authority and no

control. For instance, they do not hire and cannot fire the faculty, most of whom

hold permanent appointments. The most important decisions about everything

from finances to student discipline are made through some type of participatory

process, which often gives the president little margin for independent action.

Faculty members who scuttle a worthy new academic proposal, sometimes working in the shadows, do not have to answer personally for their decisions, while

presidents seeking change without the authority to enact it are held responsible

for failing to achieve it. Presidents may be blamed by the trustees for the failures

of an academic program, by legislators for the offensive comments of a faculty

member, or by neighbors for the crude behavior of intoxicated students.

Leadership scholars can help presidents to understand, though not alter, these

circumstances. They suggest that most stakeholders and participants hold their 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 25

own image about what they can expect leaders to do and use it to evaluate the

president's performance, whether the attribution is relevant or irrelevant, accurate

or inaccurate (Birnbaum 1988, 1989; Hollander 1993).

Shared Governance

Many of the challenges to strong presidential leadership are summed up in

the practices of shared governance. The classic statement that often is taken to

be its charter is the 1967 "Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities." Ironically, the phrase "joint effort" is the touchstone of the document,

not "shared authority" or "shared governance." The statement defines expectations for joint effort on central matters of institutional purpose, direction, and

program. The notions of advice, consent, consultation, initiation, and decision

are the variable forms of shared authority depending on the type of question

under consideration. The initiation and approval of decisions differ in various

spheres of decision making, from academic areas, where the faculty will have

primacy, but not total control, to different administrative issues (facilities,

budgets, planning) where faculty members advise and, sometimes, also consent.

Institutions should determine "differences in the weight of each voice, from

one point to the next . . . by reference to the responsibility of each component

for the particular matter at hand" (American Association of University Professors, 1991; Association of Governing Boards, American Council on Education,

1967, p. 158).

Whatever else, the statement establishes the expectation that the faculty's

voice will be heard on all issues of consequence, even as it affirms the president's

ultimate managerial responsibility. The document portrays the president primarily

as a "positional," leader not as an intellectual and educational partner with the

faculty (Keller 2004).

The theory and the practice of shared governance are often at variance, since

faculty and administrative expectations about its meaning are in constant flux

and are often clouded by distrust (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges 1996; Tierney 2004; Tierney and Lechuga 2004). When decisions

are considered to be important regardless of their content, the expectation for

broad consultation is often stressed by faculty, and increasingly by staff members.

Failure to consult with all interested parties is perceived as arbitrary, even when

decisions are made by well-established protocols that include representatives from

various groups. As the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and

Colleges' report Renewing the Academic Presidency puts it, " 'Consultation' is often

a code word for consent. . . . Any one of the three groups [faculty, president, board]

can effectively veto proposals for action" (1996, 8). This leads to the conclusion

that "At a time when higher education should be alert and nimble, it is slow

and cautious. . . . The need for reform [in shared governance] is urgent" (1996, 7).

Many analysts and practitioners offer similar views of the challenges of shared 

26 Strategic Leadership

governance for leadership (see, e.g., Benjamin and Carroll 1998; Duderstadt 2004;

Keller 2004; Tierney 2004).

Authority in "Organized Anarchies"

If we are to grasp the depth of the issues concerning leadership and shared

governance, we need to go below the surface to understand other dimensions of

academic processes of choice. In their classic study of the presidency, Cohen and

March (1986) use the mordant phrase "organized anarchy" to describe several

of the defining features of university decision making. This does not mean that

universities are filled with marauding bands of teachers and students, but that

they have several formal "anarchic" properties, one of which is having problematic goals (Cohen and March 1986). What this means in a collegiate context is

explained in two lines worthy of immortality: "Almost any educated person can

deliver a lecture entitled 'The Goals of the University.' Almost no one will

listen to the lecture voluntarily" (Cohen and March 1986, 195). Why? Because

in order to gain acceptance and avoid controversy, the goals have to be stated so

broadly that they become ambiguous or vacuous.

Another defining characteristic of colleges and universities is that their basic

educational processes are unclear (Cohen and March 1986). There are no standard methods of collegiate education, but rather a vast number of divergent and

autonomous approaches to teaching, learning, and research. As these are carried

on by custom, trial and error, preference, and intuition, professors do not really

understand the effects of their methods of teaching and learning and resist efforts

to assess the results (cf. Bok 2006).

Colleges and universities also are characterized by fluid participation in their

systems of governance. Many professors show minimal interest in organizational

matters and prefer to be left alone to do their work. They wander in and out of

the decision-making process depending on circumstance and inclination. Cohen

and March conclude that these characteristics do not "make a university a bad

organization or a disorganized one; but they do make it a problem to describe,

understand, and lead" (1986, 3).

Decoupled Choice Processes

Cohen and March also offer an influential analysis of a decoupled pattern

of organizational choice making that they refer to as the "garbage can" process. Organizational decision making is not simply what it appears to be, that

is, a set of rational procedures for making decisions and for resolving conflicts

through rational argumentation and negotiation. It may be these things, but it is

something quite different as well (Cohen and March 1986).

The graphic image of garbage (a better metaphor might be baggage) is used

to indicate that the opinions, problems, and solutions that are always flowing

through an organization typically do not have a necessary connection to a specific 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 27

choice under consideration. Due to their ambiguities of purpose, the absence of

an authority to define rules of relevance, and fluid participation in governance,

universities exemplify decoupled patterns of choice.

On many, if not most, campuses, for example, virtually any specific decision,

from relocating a parking lot to issuing a new admissions pamphlet, can become

a heated debate about shared governance. The search for a vice president for

development may lead to lively exchanges about the true meaning of liberal education. In other words, people tie their passions and preoccupations to any likely

proposal or decision, whether it is relevant or not.

Multiple Constituencies: The President

as Juggler-in-Chief

Trustees are often bewildered as they come to discover that a president's

leadership is highly circumscribed by a large variety of interests on and off the

campus. Not only does the president answer to many internal participants and

external constituencies, but many of the groups have an influential voice or a

formal role in the decision-making process. Most of them—faculty, staff, alumni,

athletic boosters, students, parents, legislators, the media, local residents, and

public officials—expect the president to advance their interests, and he or she is

evaluated by his or her capacity to do so. Increasingly those who have an ax to

grind with the president make their complaints public though e-mail networks,

anonymous opinion blogs, and Web sites. If the president takes a tough stand,

there is no guarantee that the board or the faculty will support the decision. "As

a result, presidents run the risk of being whipsawed by an ever-expanding list of

concerns and interests. Instead of a leader, the president has gradually become

juggler-in-chief " (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

1996, 9–10).

These structural features of split authority and shared governance, decoupled

systems, anarchic organization, disconnected choice processes, and multiple constituencies together define the dense set of organizational realities within which

presidential leadership is exercised in higher education. These factors explain

why the president's leadership through authority can be interpreted as strictly

limited and even illusory, even though the position is at the top of the institutional hierarchy.

These interpretations do not mean that the work that presidents perform is

insignificant. They are the most influential individuals on a campus and play

important administrative, legal, and symbolic roles. If the president tries to do the

right things in the right ways, the benefits of presidential leadership will operate

at the margin for the good of the institution. But the influence of the individual

is not likely to be decisive or to last long after the president's term (Birnbaum

1988, 1989, 1992; Cohen and March 1986). The position is essential but can

be played by many individuals with comparable results. As March once put it,

presidents are both necessary and "interchangeable," like lightbulbs (quoted in 

28 Strategic Leadership

Kerr and Gade, 1986, p. 11) Humility about the role and its possibilities is the

beginning of wisdom.

LEADING WITH LIMITED AUTHORITY

Tactics of Administration

What finally, then, becomes of leadership when it is so limited and fragmented?

The answers come in several different forms, one of which is the systematic and

detailed counsel to employ "tactics of administrative action" (Cohen and March

1986, 205). These tactics display "how a leader with a purpose can operate within

an organization that is without one" (Cohen and March 1986, 205).

The proposed tactics are conclusions drawn from the characteristics of the

university as an organized anarchy. In this case, knowledge gives birth strictly to

tactics of administration, not to processes of leadership. To gain advantage in decision making, administrators should (1) spend time on issues, because most people

will tire of them; (2) persist because circumstances may change; (3) exchange

status for substance and give others the credit; (4) involve the opposition and

give them status; (5) overload the system, ensuring that some things will pass;

(6) create processes and issues (to serve as garbage cans) that will take free-floating

interest and energy (the garbage) away from important projects; (7) manage unobtrusively; (8) reinterpret history, since interest in the record of campus events is

usually minimal (Cohen and March 1986).

It is compelling that the recommendations of a highly influential study of

presidential leadership consist of potentially cynical tactics to manipulate the

practices of decision making. They represent the repudiation of most conventional ideas of leadership, no matter how they are defined. The transactional,

transforming, engaging, interactive, or strategic forms of leadership described

in studies of political leaders or business executives are nowhere to be found.

There is a clear lesson to be learned from this methodology and its conclusions.

If we presuppose that holding authority is the defining form of leadership, it

becomes difficult to discern and describe the interactive and strategic forms of

leadership that are at work throughout collegiate organizations. We may be left

only with administrative tactics unless we change our assumptions about the

nature of leadership.

Lessons for Leadership

Having found limitations in the authority of the president that broadly concur

with the conclusions of Cohen and March, Birnbaum (1998, 1989, 1992) offers

a decidedly different set of interpretations about the possibilities of presidential

leadership. He presents his ideas as cognitive insights derived from empirical

studies of presidential attitudes, performance, and relationships with key constituencies. They are lessons that can serve as guides to more effective presidential leadership, though they are offered as prudential principles rather than laws 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 29

or systematic methods. They are rooted in a concept of cultural leadership that

involves "influencing perceptions of reality" by creating a shared understanding of

the values, traditions, and purposes of the organization (Birnbaum 1992, 55). In

this cultural context, appraisals of presidential performance by trustees, staff, and

faculty are taken to be reliable measures of presidential success. More quantifiable

indicators of organizational performance may be less valid since they could be the

results of the efforts of others or of circumstances over which the president has no

real control (Birnbaum 1992).

Birnbaum's principles of leadership suggest ways to use the real but limited

authority of college presidents contextually within their distinctive cultural and

organizational worlds. So, presidents should make a good first impression, learn

how to listen, balance governance systems, avoid simplistic thinking, deemphasize

bureaucracy, affirm core values, focus on strengths, evaluate personal performance,

and know the right time to leave (Birnbaum 1992). This approach makes clear

that the use of authority by itself is not leadership but can be a key resource in the

larger cultural task of shaping a shared sense of values and purposes. It is clear

that Birnbaum's cultural and cognitive lessons may help presidents to achieve

organizational equilibrium, but they do not add up to a method of leadership for

strategic change (Birnbaum 1988).

Differentiating and Affirming Presidential Authority

We found that the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges' report Renewing the Presidency (1996) offered a perceptive diagnosis of the

complications of presidential leadership. When it turns to proposals for action

to address the problems, it recommends the reform of shared governance by a

careful differentiation of the process. "It should not be impossible to clarify and

define areas where faculty decision-making is primary, and subject to reversal

only by justifiable exception [curriculum . . . , appointment, tenure]. In important areas like the budget and planning, faculty should be involved and consulted, but will not have determinative authority. In other areas, faculty will

not be involved, but will be kept informed of developments" (Association of

Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges 1996, 26). Following its own

example, in 1998 the Association of Governing Boards issued a new Institutional Governance Statement, which makes clear assertions of the board's ultimate

authority in governance.

As to the president's authority, no new structural elements or decision-making

powers are proposed, either by the 1996 commission or the 2006 Association of

Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges Task Force on the State of the

Presidency. The reports of both bodies, each chaired by former governor Gerald Baliles of Virginia, strongly advise governing boards to support and evaluate

presidents systematically and regularly. Presidents are counseled to exercise the

full authority of the office that they hold and to find "the courage to persist with

initiatives . . . for change" (27).

30 Strategic Leadership

Consistent with our emphasis on strategic leadership, it is interesting to note

the following central recommendation concerning the role of the president:

"It is . . . to provide strong and comprehensive leadership for the institution by

developing a shared vision of its role and mission, forging a consensus on goals

derived from the mission, developing and allocating resources in accordance with

a plan for reaching those goals" (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges 1996, 19). Several of the emphases in the 2006 report have the

same strategic focus. The president's role includes "pursuing a shared academic

vision" with the faculty and developing a strategic plan as key components in

what the report calls "integral leadership" (Association of Governing Boards of

Universities and Colleges 2006, 9). It is worth emphasizing that these responsibilities cannot be accomplished simply by reaffirming the president's authority,

no matter how much the role is clarified and strengthened. Effective methods

of collaborative strategic leadership have to be joined to the president's formal

role to fulfill each set of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and

Colleges' recommendations.

The Strong Presidency

The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges commission's belief in the desirability and possibility of stronger presidential leadership

is not a solitary view but has confident echoes in the literature. James Fisher and

James Koch argue in their 1996 work, Presidential Leadership: Making a Difference,

that much of the research that plays down presidential influence and authority

is misleading and inaccurate. In a striking reversal of most of the views we have

examined, they claim: "The effective leader will learn how to use authority and

recognize its value. . . . To lead, to influence, and to use authority is to be powerful" (Fisher and Koch 1996, 22). In coming to these conclusions, they draw

on research and personal experiences that contradict the interpretations of the

weakness of the presidential office (Fisher 1984; Fisher, Tack, and Wheeler 1988).

They argue that presidential vision and inspiration should be central components

of leadership, which does not have to detract from collaborative processes. A vision

is decidedly of the president's own making and is given to the campus more than

derived from it. A number of personal traits are important for the president as

well, including charisma. The ability to keep a proper social distance and manage

campus appearances, even while projecting an image of warmth and friendliness,

is a valuable skill and an important part of a systematic effort to manage the

presidential image (Fisher and Koch 1996). Ironically, Birnbaum (1992) explicitly

singles out each of these points as a myth of presidential leadership.

In The Entrepreneurial College President, Fisher and Koch (2004) continue to

develop their case concerning the significant impact of presidential leadership,

this time using the notions of entrepreneurial and transforming leadership as their

key categories. Based on statistical analyses of questionnaires from "effective" and

"representative" presidents, as defined by peer nominations, they argue that 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 31

leaders who are willing to pursue change, take risks, and challenge the status quo,

and who do not let organizational structures discourage their efforts, are typically more successful and effective collegiate leaders. They pointedly repudiate

Birnbaum's systematic critique of strong presidential leadership.

The methods and assumptions used to study the entrepreneurial approach raise

many questions, starting with the authors' ambiguous connection of entrepreneurial with transforming leadership, which are very different things. The content

of their questionnaire is also problematic, since it tests a relatively narrow set of

self-attributed attitudes as opposed to more objective assessments of presidential decisions and achievements, or the evaluations of others within the institution. One also has to wonder how presidents acquire the qualities necessary for

entrepreneurial leadership if they do not already have them, particularly since

they appear to be personal characteristics that are hard or impossible to acquire.

Entrepreneurial leadership does not seem to be a method or process of decision

making that can be learned. It also appears to be the norm of leadership under all

circumstances, rather than having to do with the match between the leader and

the situation of the organization.

Our primary interest in the study, however, concerns not its accuracy but what

it represents in the study of leadership. Unlike the "weak" presidential theories,

the focus here is on the way the legitimate authority of the presidential office

can be combined with the personal characteristics, expertise, and skills of the

president to create a strong form of leadership. More than other analysts, Fisher

and Koch offer a perspective that integrates different dimensions of leadership,

including self-managed behavior, into a single theory.

THE MULTIPLE FRAMES AND STYLES OF LEADERSHIP

Students of organizations have developed theories about the ways that the

structures, politics, people, and cultures of organizations are woven together into

complex patterns. In Reframing Organizations, Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal

(2003) describe what they call four frames, each of which describes a dimension of

an organization, as well as a cognitive lens, a "way of seeing," that privileges that

dimension in our thinking and experience. This perspective has been adapted and

applied to the analysis of presidential leadership by investigators such as Birnbaum

(1988, 1992), Estella Bensimon (1991), and William G. Tierney (1991). The four

modified frames are (1) the bureaucratic (or administrative), (2) the political,

(3) the collegial, (4) and the symbolic. They are illuminating categories with clear

implications for practice.

As the research suggests, and as experience confirms, individuals apprehend

organizational life and decision-making processes in quite different ways. Some

leaders look through cognitive windows and see political interactions as primary

and pervasive, while others are partially blind to the issues of power, persuasion,

and influence. For other leaders, nothing is more self-evident than formal organizational authority and structures, and the dependence of effective leadership on 

32 Strategic Leadership

good administrative systems and controls, especially in today's complex organizations.

Administrative leaders often think and act in these terms, while many of their

faculty colleagues are far more sensitive to the procedures and protocols of collegial decision making, which is reinforced by its own system of professional values

and norms. Academic leaders who understand and respect those norms are able

to motivate change through collaborative processes. Other leaders in academic

communities are especially concerned with the values and expectations of the

organization's culture, its symbolic frame. By drawing on its stories, metaphors,

norms, rituals, and traditional practices, they make sense of the world and influence others to move in a common direction.

Leadership Styles: Using Multiple Frames of Interpretation

It is worth emphasizing that interpretive frames are not just a way of understanding organizational experience, for they also shape decisions and actions. If

we regard the world as essentially political, for example, we shall act on it in those

terms. Since organizations cannot, in fact, be reduced to a single dimension, leaders

will be more effective to the extent that they can master the skills and cognitive abilities both to understand and to make decisions with regard to multiple

frames and dimensions. In interviews with presidents of thirty-two institutions,

Bensimon (1989) has shown that most presidents—about two-thirds—conceive

of their responsibilities by combining two or three of the leadership orientations.

This greater conceptual complexity seems to be associated with experienced presidents who may have served as chief executive in more than one institution, as well

as those who serve in the larger and more complex four-year universities.

Interestingly, as we focus on frameworks of interpretation, we shift our attention away from seeing leadership primarily as formal authority toward the cognitive capacities and orientations of individuals. In turn, these characteristics relate

in various ways to the needs and values of other participants in the organization,

so they become aspects of a reciprocal process of leadership. Because of these

multiple characteristics, we can think of the frames as contributing to particular

styles of leadership.

From the perspective of leadership education and development, it also becomes

clear that gaining awareness of one's own orientation to the tasks of leadership

is a valuable form of self-discovery. It provides insights about self and circumstance that help a leader to understand the characteristics of his or her strengths

and weaknesses, problems, and frustrations. Most importantly, the process of selfawareness can initiate steps to correct imbalances in order to create a more integrated method of leadership.

INTEGRATIVE LEADERSHIP

Our discussion of the frames of leadership has suggested that leaders with only

one or two sets of cognitive abilities will find it hard to respond effectively to the 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 33

multiple realities that they face. Those, for example, who live by political insights

and skills will be confounded by the unyielding commitment of faculty members

to academic values and to collaborative processes. To lead through administrative authority and expertise alone is to force managerial methods beyond their

proper domain, and to reduce every human and academic problem to a rational

one or to a cost-benefit analysis. Whatever else, the studies of the presidency show

the severe limitation of authority alone as a model of campus leadership. Yet to

emphasize the inspiration of symbolic leadership to the exclusion of other abilities

can lead to a worship of the past and to a sentimental celebration of the artifacts

of community. If administrative systems are dysfunctional, the celebration will not

last very long. The collegial model may function well by itself in a static world, but

its tendency toward insularity and stasis requires other models of decision making

to deal with the realities of change and competition.

Clearly, both adequately describing and leading organizations of higher learning requires the integration of the various frames. Integration means more than

deploying a serial combination of skills and insights, using political abilities for

one set of issues, and shifting to other frames as circumstances dictate. Such an

approach might create a stable organization, but it cannot produce a coherent

form of leadership. Nor can truly integrated leadership be achieved by another

common pattern, that in which one approach becomes dominant while others

play supporting roles. Such a model would produce less than a true integration,

since some elements of a situation would be distorted to fit the dominant orientation (Bensimon 1991).

Yet if complexity in both thought and action is likely to be more effective as a

form of leadership, we should press harder to consider an integration of the different models of leadership. To be integrative, the model of leadership will have to

draw elements from the various frames into a new and coherent whole. To find a

new integrative logic for their relationship to each other, the cognitive frames will

need to be situated within a different and larger perspective on leadership. We will

have to find methods of leadership that enable an institution to be true to its deepest values at the same time that it deals effectively with change and conflict.

A Cybernetic Model

Birnbaum proposes an integrative theory that he calls cybernetic leadership.

A cybernetic system is self-regulatory and automatically adjusts the activity that

it controls to stay within an acceptable range. Birnbaum (1988) uses the example

of a thermostat, which is a cybernetic device since it keeps a room's temperature at

a given setting by automatically turning the heating system on or off. Translating

this idea to a university, we see that each sphere of administration uses a series of

monitors to regulate its performance. So, if a department overspends its budget,

its purchase orders may be refused until steps are taken to bring things back into

balance. Similarly, if an admissions office misses its enrollment target of first-year

students, it adjusts automatically by accepting more transfers. As we have seen, in 

34 Strategic Leadership

a loosely coupled administrative system, decisions and actions in various units are

often quite independent of one another. Self-regulation can usually accomplish its

purposes because it does not affect the total system. One key role for leadership

is to make sure that the monitoring systems are effective. Leaders need to make

sure as well that a good communications system is in place so that signals about

problems get to the right people, especially if issues in one area have a ripple effect

on other units (Birnbaum 1988).

At times, leaders may need to intervene more dramatically in the system.

Processes may have to be shocked or reengineered to come back into balance.

Nonetheless, it is always advisable to exercise caution in disturbing a cybernetic

system too drastically. "Good cybernetic leaders are modest. . . . They adopt three

laws of medicine. 'If it's working, keep doing it. If it's not working, stop doing it.

If you don't know what to do, don't do anything' " (Konner, quoted in Birnbaum

1988, 21).

The Limits of the Cybernetic Model

Does the cybernetic model offer an integrative approach to leadership, as it

proposes to do? After a fashion it does, but not with the type of interpenetration

or systematic relationship of the frames that one might expect. "The objective of

the bureaucratic administrator is rationality. The collegial administrator searches

for consensus, the political administrator for peace, and the symbolic administrator for sense. But the major aim of the cybernetic administrator is balance"

(Birnbaum 1988, 226).

This is leadership as oversight. Cybernetic leadership does not involve an internal restructuring or reorganization of the four cognitive frames, for they continue

to function as discreet systems. Integration produces an equilibrium in which

the frames have a proportionate influence. They operate as a series of separate

approaches triggered by a control mechanism that balances their activity without

a content of its own. So, the integration of cybernetic leadership is a passive one,

if we can speak of integration at all.

As Birnbaum claims in several places, cybernetic leadership is modest. Except

under special conditions such as a crisis, or in smaller colleges, or when there is ripeness for long-deferred change to take place, leaders should not delude themselves

by expecting transforming change (Birnbaum 1988). Since cybernetic leadership

responds to signals of operational problems, it does not have the capacity to create and implement "disruptive" new possibilities, or to motivate others to set new

directions in response to change. It provides cognitive insights and wise counsel

about methods of administration and management, not processes of leadership.

A Story: From Cybernetics to Strategy

These final points can be made through a simple story. Take the example of the

thermostat as a self-regulating device. No matter where one sets the temperature, 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 35

the thermostat will work. The more interesting issue is what the temperature

means to the family who lives in the house, not just as a measure but as a value,

as part of a way of life, as an indicator of purpose. Assume that the family is trying

to save money on energy costs, so they lower the temperature to sixty degrees in

winter and raise it to seventy-five in the summer. The parents and teenage children argue constantly among themselves about the settings, framing the issues in

different ways.

As debates about the best temperature unfold, it becomes evident that the

problem is not the temperature at all, nor the old furnace, and certainly not the

thermostat. The family finds itself involved in a decision that keeps expanding to

encompass wider issues of values, priorities, and purposes. It turns out that the

temperature is only symptomatic of much larger concerns. The region's cold

winters, high-energy costs, and low salaries surface as the real problem. Given

their vision of the life they want to live, they decide to move to a warmer climate

with a lower cost of living.

This example suggests how strategic thinking probes issues to find the source

of the problem. If we translate the family's situation into the admissions example

used earlier, we can see the parallels. What may appear to be a minor operational

problem with a lower number of entering students could be a strategic indicator

of the need for a basic change in the college's academic program. The response to

competition in the marketplace may require not just new programs, but a refashioning of the frame of collegial decision making as well. Cybernetic balance cannot provide the integrative leadership required to anticipate and to address these

broader forms of change.

In these examples, we learn that the fragmentation of operational decision

making gives way to the systemic patterns of strategic thinking and leadership.

This means that we have to reveal and bring to awareness the values and purposes

that are embedded in the forms of organizational life and in the ways we do business as usual. At the strategic level, leadership means systematically making sense

of our organization's identity and its place in the wider world in order to define its

best possibilities for the future. Along the way, monitoring systems of all sorts

are needed to tell us whether we are reaching our goals, but in themselves they are

mechanisms of management, not leadership. These conclusions make it clear that

it is essential to develop a process of strategic decision making that can effectively

integrate the complex patterns and frames of organizational decision making.

While making sense of purposes and values, it will also have to bind together

complicated forms of knowing and acting. As a form of leadership, it also will be

expected to create a vision of the future and translate it into reality.

DIVERGING AND CONVERGING CONCLUSIONS

Several of the influential sources that we have consulted see the college presidency as weak in authority, albeit for different reasons. In the views of organizational theorists, the reasons for the weakness are given with the structural elements 

36 Strategic Leadership

and choice processes of academic organizations. Although the president's role

is administratively essential, it is an illusion to expect the dominant forms of

leadership that may appear in other types of institutions. The responsibilities of

symbolic interpretation and legal authority, of administrative coordination and

collegial facilitation, are necessary forms of leadership that come with the position. Add to these shrewd political insights and tactics, and presidents will be able

to get things done. So, personal characteristics, knowledge, and abilities as well as

authority count in the leadership role. Nonetheless, except in periods of crisis or

in a few special kinds of organizations, modest and passing presidential influence

is all that is possible. Rhetoric, nostalgia, and desire notwithstanding, the basics

of the situation cannot be changed.

Not everyone shares the same interpretation of the president's authority and

leadership. The 1996 and 2006 reports of the Association of Governing Boards

of Universities and Colleges suggest that the weakness of the presidency and the

confusion of shared governance are real but remediable. Presidential authority can

be affirmed and asserted, governance clarified, strategy processes implemented,

a vision adopted, and the influence of politics reduced. A summons to moral and

professional responsibility can motivate change. The presidency may often be

weak and ineffective, but it can be made stronger to achieve integral leadership

(Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges 2006).

According to Fisher and Koch, the assertion of presidential authority does not

need remediation of the powers of the office. They describe the effectiveness of

presidents who have entrepreneurial characteristics and who know how to use

the power inherent in their role. They believe that when charisma, expertise,

confidence, and risk taking are combined with legitimate authority, the result is

transforming and entrepreneurial leadership.

Leadership. Governance. Authority. Decision Making.

As we look below the surface of the various studies, analyses, and proposals

that we have reviewed, we find several central themes: leadership, governance,

authority, and organizational decision making. In many ways, the challenge of

understanding leadership in higher education reduces to ways of reconceptualizing

these interwoven themes, both to grasp each more fully in itself and to consider

the relationships among them. Taken together, these factors produce a number

of ironies for the study of leadership. Whereas we might expect that concepts of

distributed and reciprocal leadership would be dominant, we find instead a central

focus on leadership as the exercise of the responsibilities of the presidential position, whether it is conceived as weak or strong. In terms of leadership practices,

the research primarily proposes administrative tactics to manipulate and cognitive

principles to interpret an otherwise daunting system of shared authority. Recent

literature offers practical guidance about how to manage the responsibilities of

academic positions, yet analyses of more encompassing and systematic processes

of influential and engaging leadership are not in evidence. A genuine integration 

The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 37

of different styles or frames of leadership also waits be achieved, as does the

articulation of a method of strategic leadership that touches the deeper currents

of organizational narratives and values. In sum, the agenda for understanding

leadership needs to be enlarged, and the methods for practicing it more robust.

To achieve these goals we have to find new intellectual bearings. Some of

those new ways of thinking have come to light in our review of the concept of

relational leadership in contemporary scholarship, and we will put these findings

to good use. As we do so, we shall examine what we take to be the deeper roots of

the perennial challenges of shared governance in higher education. Much of the

problem of leadership in academic institutions resides in the need to reconceptualize and to reconfigure collegial authority and decision making. In tracing these

new conceptual elements, we shall also be setting in place the framework for an

integral approach to strategy as a process and discipline of leadership.

NOTE

 1. For a good bibliography on the tasks of academic management and leadership in various positions, see the American Council on Education's workshop notebook on "Chairing

the Academic Department" (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 2004),

which is periodically reissued.

CHAPTER 3

The System and Culture of

Academic Decision Making

We have learned that leadership is a complex phenomenon and is doubly so

if we seek to understand it more fully in order to exercise it more effectively.

As we have explored the literature to address these issues, we have not

found fully satisfying answers. In part because it is an interdisciplinary field, leadership

studies often has a difficult time creating an integrated set of conclusions, especially

concerning the transition from knowledge about leadership to the practice of it.

WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP

We have also discovered that interpretive methods and models produce powerful insights but also distort what they study. They serve as filters for what counts as

significant but only give us access to the aspects of experience that they privilege.

Models like entrepreneurial leadership, cultural leadership, organized anarchy,

garbage-can processes, and cybernetic leadership all seem to function in this way.

Empirical studies that help to produce or support the model provide valuable

knowledge about leadership, but they can only control two or three variables at

a time. As a result, their conclusions often seem to reach beyond their specific

findings, giving rise to theories that take on a life of their own. As this occurs, the

integrated aspects of human experience and leadership that do not fit the model

of analysis become distorted or lost from view.

Playfulness and Foolishness

It turns out that there is an illuminating irony in a concluding section of Leadership and Ambiguity that hints at the possibility of leadership as a contextual process 

40 Strategic Leadership

of sense making rather than as the exercise of authority. Cohen and March (1986)

describe a "technology of foolishness" and a reflective "playfulness" that expands

on some of their earlier suggestions about the limits to rational decision making.

In questioning the rational model, they emphasize the unpredictability of translating goals into actions.

Reflective playfulness involves the idea that goals should be seen more as

exploratory hypotheses to be tested than as rigid objectives to be achieved. They

suggest as well that our goals might arise more from our actions than the reverse.

They affirm that planning may be more of a discovery of the meaning of the past in

the present than the definition of future outcomes. This involves treating "experience as a theory," meaning that past events are subject to reinterpretation as a way

to gain new self-understandings (Cohen and March 1986, 229). In keeping with

these notions, they see leadership more as a journey of search and discovery than

as the calculated voyage of ships marshalling their resources for battle.

These perspectives are entirely consistent with leadership as an interactive

process that is focused on the complex interplay of human rationality, values, and

narratives. In their pursuit of "foolishness," Cohen and March have touched on

some of the deeper layers of human experience and agency.

Toward Contextual Leadership

Were we to start with contextual questions about the actual patterns and

processes of leadership at work in organizations rather than with authority, our

conclusions would be decidedly different. How is influence actually exercised

by presidents and by others throughout the organization when universities or

programs within them achieve the goals that they set for themselves? How are

effective strategies for change actually developed and implemented? Whether in

the leadership of presidents or, as likely, in leadership and decision-making processes distributed throughout colleges and universities, something has happened

in much of the world to create institutions of higher learning that are purposeful

and productive centers of learning. To be sure, purpose cannot be preconceived

to be like a monarch in exile waiting to be summoned home by college presidents to perform a sovereign's duties. Purposes are often buried in the work being

done and need to be attentively excavated from that source. In spite of enormous

challenges, complexities, and deficiencies, many academic organizations, and

especially specific programs and the people within them, continue to respond

effectively to change. How is this possible without various forms of contextual,

distributed strategic leadership?

HUMAN AGENCY AND VALUES

We have described leadership as an integrative process of sense making, choice,

and action that influences groups and individuals to pursue shared goals in the

context of change and conflict. Some aspects of the process are so contingent on 

The System and Culture of Academic Decision Making 41

personal characteristics and expertise, on context and culture, and on authority

and power, whether formal or otherwise, that they resist easy appropriation for use

in other settings. Yet many features of the leadership relationship lend themselves

to translation into methods of strategic decision making. Aspects of leadership can

be taught and learned if we can find the right conceptual framework with which

to interpret and apply them.

To locate those features of leadership, we need to shift our intellectual gears

toward the conceptual model of human agency, and to values as patterns and

norms of self-enactment. The word "values" itself is slippery and is used to refer to

many things, including opinions on controversial moral questions or, at another

pole of usage, personal preferences. I intend a different yet common meaning.

As persons, as agents of our own lives, we make choices in the name of centered

values, in spite of the continuous change and conflict in the values that we hold.

Even though we are not always conscious of our values as the standards of our

choices, we can easily find them by asking a basic question that comes in many

forms. To locate our values, we must ask ourselves: what matters decisively to us as

we give shape to our lives and form to our experience? We can block this question

from our thoughts, but not our lives.

Values provide the standards of choice that guide individuals, organizations,

and communities toward satisfaction, fulfillment, and meaning (Morrill 1980). As

a consequence, they have critical importance for both understanding and practicing relational leadership. Although values may seem to be abstractions because

we often use abstract terms to name them, they are inescapably immersed in the

choices we make and the lives we lead, more gerunds than nouns. Whether august

values such as liberty and equality, or more earthy pursuits like ambition and status, they orient and shape our thinking, feeling, and acting. Our values are both

expressed in and influenced by what we believe, feel, and do. We find them in the

ways that we push ourselves this way and that, in bestirring ourselves to have more

of whatever attracts us, whether love, justice, knowledge, pleasure, wealth, or

reputation. We know them as claims on us, as sources of authority over us, as well

as forms of desire and aspiration. Each type of value, whether moral, intellectual,

aesthetic, personal, or professional, has its own weight and texture, but as a value

it both attracts and judges us. No matter how we touch the life of a person or of

an organization, we find values as demands and goals. In real life they do not fall

easily into neat hierarchies, as much as we wish they would, for we both wisely

and unwisely shift our values in different situations.

Respect as a Value

A quick example may help to illustrate these points. Consider a value such as

respect for others, a pattern of comportment that many would see as central to

leadership. As a value, respect is the activity of respecting, so it is a form of agency.

It is a specific pattern of valuing another person as an end in him- or herself.

Respect as a value involves a pattern of choice and action that determines how 

42 Strategic Leadership

a self constructs relationships with others. In this account, respect does not fully

exist as a value for us as selves, nor as leaders, unless we shape our intentions and

actions by it, no matter how much we know about it, espouse it verbally, or feel

positively about it. As a value, respect provides a pattern of intentionality and

motivation that shapes our actions.

For a leader, or for anyone, valuing the other as an end rather than an object

is not a simple possibility. The self as agent is constantly and forever solicited

by thoughts and feelings—anxieties, insecurities, obsessions, stereotypes—that

push and pull away from the enactment of respect. In effect, the self is continuously offered emotional, psychic, and ideological chances to satisfy other needs or

compulsions that may be disrespectful and harmful to the other. If it is to prevail

as a way of valuing another person, respect has to exercise sovereignty over the

self's choices among the conflicting possibilities that flood a person's intentions

and actions.

Values and Identity

As we consider the full reach of personal agency and fulfillment, it becomes

clear that the choice of a specific constellation of values defines an individual's

identity as a self. The constitution of the self coincides with the choice of a set

of values (Mehl 1957; Ricoeur 1992). As the distinguished philosopher Charles

Taylor puts it, when the question "Who am I?" is posed, "This can't necessarily be

answered by giving name and genealogy. What does answer this question for us

is an understanding of what is of crucial importance to us. To know who I am is a

species of knowing where I stand" (1989, 27).

Although this evocation of values as the activity of valuing has been cast in

terms of individual identity, cultural and organizational identities clearly function

in similar ways. They represent shared and institutionalized value commitments

that finally must be enacted through the agency of individuals. It makes perfect

sense to ask of participants in organizations, "What matters decisively to this

institution? " Questions of this sort trigger the process of self-discovery and the

articulation of organizational identity, which is the birthplace for the work of

strategy.

Values and Leadership

As we give a central place to understanding the dynamics of human agency

and valuing, we also open new perspectives on leadership. We see more clearly

that the meaning of leadership at a fundamental level turns on human values,

specifically as the effort to understand and to respond to the values and needs of

constituent groups and individuals in a variety of different forms.

Leadership occurs precisely in the relations between leaders and followers in

matters that are of decisive importance to both parties. To be sure, the shape and

scope of the leadership process and the way it deals with values depend decidedly 

The System and Culture of Academic Decision Making 43

on context. Nonetheless, with a value-centric orientation, we understand more

fully why many contemporary students of leadership refer to the moral dimension

as the heart of the matter. This does not mean that leaders are especially gifted in

deciding controversial moral dilemmas or that their personal lives are exemplary.

Rather, it suggests that leadership involves fulfilling the values that the organization exists to serve, and ensuring the authenticity of the commitment to those

purposes.

The values theme also provides one of the conceptual foundations for building

an integrative process of leadership. It offers a center of gravity for finding institutional identity in what may otherwise appear to be so many disparate beliefs, facts,

and artifacts of institutional history and culture, programs, and resources. Just as a

person expresses his values in the fabric of his life, so do institutions incorporate

their commitments in all their tangible and intangible forms of organizational

sense making and decision making.

STRUCTURAL CONFLICT IN ACADEMIC

DECISION MAKING

In the preceding chapter we analyzed some of the complexities and conflicts in

collegial authority, leadership, and governance. We return to those issues here but

reexamine them through the conceptual lens provided by our analysis of agency

and values. With this optic we can gain a new perspective on many of the conundrums of academic decision making. We shall seek to show that there is a series of

structural conflicts embedded in the basic values of the academic decision-making

system itself. To examine the way participants experience various forms of conflict, we shall begin with a case study that has its roots in my own experience.

A New Dean

After a national search for a new dean at a selective liberal arts college, the

faculty search committee recommends a local candidate to the president. Since

the individual is the highly respected and amiable chairperson of a small department, the president quickly clears the appointment with the board, to be effective

in three moths. After the announcement, the dean-elect receives enthusiastic

calls and messages from many colleagues celebrating her appointment. She also

notices that the chairman and two senior colleagues from the history department

have scheduled a meeting with her. Since she knows and likes all of them, she

looks forward to the occasion.

After some pleasant bantering about her "moving to the dark side," she discovers that the trio is on a mission. They voice their concerns about the erosion of

departmental autonomy and faculty governance during the tenure of the retiring dean, expressing confidence that she will redress the balance. Her colleagues

go on to express their deep personal and professional distress over a decision

recently taken by the outgoing dean not to fill a vacant tenure-track position in 

44 Strategic Leadership

the history department. With courteous asides and apologies for bringing this to

her prematurely, they make it clear that they want the dean-elect to intervene

before the decision is enacted. Although they indicate that they did not initially

take the deliberations about budgetary problems too seriously, they have come to

believe that the process was arbitrary and flawed by the use of irrelevant credithour costs. They are convinced that if the decision is implemented, the quality of

the history program will be irreparably damaged.

The dean-elect is taken aback by the request but tries to respond with equanimity. She knows several positions had to be cut by her predecessor because of a

serious budgetary problem. She is also aware that the retiring dean used a consultative process to come to the final decisions, and that he has confessed to having

little success in getting the budget advisory committee to focus on the data about

the hard choices concerning priorities. The dean-elect thinks, therefore, that it

is appropriate to show empathy for the department's situation; she suggests her

openness to explore better processes of measurement and governance and asks for

their involvement. She also indicates cordially but clearly that it is awkward and

inappropriate for her to raise the issue directly with the president or the current

dean during this interim period.

Suddenly the tone changes. Her colleagues begin to look at her in a new way

and exchange sideways glances. Civility prevails, but suspicion, doubt, and uncertainty steal into the room. As the historians depart, they indicate their disappointment that she cannot find a way to remedy such a clear case of flawed priorities

and processes. The dean-elect sits alone, bewildered at what has just happened.

Interpretations of the Dean's Conflict

Based on what we have learned about academic decision making from our

earlier analyses, what can we tell the new dean that might be helpful to her? How

can the various accounts of authority and leadership shed light on the situation

and offer resources for the dean-elect? Which of them would most assist her to

think through the implications of her responsibilities, especially in terms of the

opportunity to exercise leadership?

A fundamental question begins to emerge. How can leadership reach to the

source of the conflict in order to come to terms with it effectively? To achieve this,

much depends both on the way we interpret leadership and the conflict that it

seeks to reconcile. The language of leadership is not often heard in campus debates

and discussions about governance and decision making, so a new idiom will have

to be introduced to move the conversation forward.

As we recall, our earlier profile of leadership placed the issue of conflict at the

heart of the leader's agenda. Leadership always appears at the contact points of

change, competition, contradictions, and disputed priorities. The precise shape

that leadership takes in a society or an organization is determined, as much as

anything, by the nature of the conflict to which it seeks to bring resolution.

The System and Culture of Academic Decision Making 45

Drawing from our earlier discussion of organized anarchies, the frames of leadership, and shared governance, we can suggest several different ways in which leadership can be understood and practiced in terms of how the basic form of conflict

is interpreted. Many would suggest, for instance, that responding effectively to

the conflicting interests of a college or a university's multiple constituencies is the

essence of leadership. In a number of cases—consider large public institutions—it

appears that balancing the demands of the intricate network of campus and public

interests and expectations is the sine qua non of effective leadership. Political

skills move to the top of the leader's repertoire. The dean-elect has already learned

that she will need to sharpen her skills of negotiation and conflict resolution, even

though she has always been gifted in balancing the needs of different groups and

individuals.

In other contexts—the small, selective college comes to mind—there are elevated expectations for participatory governance. Everything from the institutional

operating budget to the schedules of athletic teams is a matter for shared faculty

and administrative deliberation. If and when the protocols of shared governance

begin to falter and conflict intensifies, a proper task of leadership is to redefine

the methods and structures of collaborative decision making. In the name of collegial norms, the institution may reexamine the responsibilities of its faculty, the

authority of its administration, and the content of its board's bylaws. As suggested

earlier, the aim is to bring greater definition and legitimacy to the exercise of various forms of authority. Behind the effort is a belief in collegiate constitutionalism,

the assumption that improving the forms and mechanisms of governance is the

way to deal with conflicts. As a case in point, our dean-elect has been quick to

suggest to her colleagues that a review of the methods for setting budgetary priorities is in order.

We also have seen how conflict is handled in organized anarchies. In the hands

of seasoned administrators, conflict is disarmed through tactical maneuvers such

as delay and deflection. Tactical leaders get things done by playing the system

against itself, by knowing, for instance, that faculty interest and participation in

governance is episodic and fluid. They provide opportunities (garbage cans) for

people to deliberate on big issues like strategic plans that may not lead to action

but will give them a feeling of importance. Our dean-elect is clearly aware of the

need for tactical skill as she tries to deflect the substance of the issue that her colleagues have brought to her. As a longtime member of the community, she also

knows that she must find ways to connect her work with the norms and symbols

of the organization's identity and traditions, so symbolic sensitivities will be a

critical part of her leadership.

To be sure, it is appropriate and helpful to understand various dimensions of

conflict and their resolution by drawing on different sources of knowledge and

frames of analysis. Any academic officer, new to the post or otherwise, must constantly attend to all these facets of a complex system of decision making. The

problem is that each of these diagnoses and proposed resolutions fails to penetrate 

46 Strategic Leadership

to the core of the issue. No matter how skilled the leader of constituencies, how

deft the drafter of collegial bylaws, how skilled the storyteller, or how shrewd

the tactician, conflict persists. These forms of leadership have not yet found the

conflict with which they must fundamentally contend.

STRUCTURAL CONFLICT IN VALUES

To grasp the full texture of the problem of structural conflict, we need to understand it in terms of the decision-making culture or meta-culture of colleges and

universities. "Culture" can mean many things, but here it refers to the shared

paradigms, values, and norms through which organizations of higher learning

build their systems of decision making. They apply widely, even around much of

the globe (Ramsden 1998; Tabatoni 1996; Watson 2000). By penetrating the level

of culture as a system of beliefs and practices, we find the place at which people

understand themselves to be exercising their moral commitments and professional responsibilities in academic communities. We reach them at the point of

their investment in a set of values and processes that comprise the foundations

of a decision-making culture. We should seek first to understand academic professionals as participants in shaping a culture rather than explain them by their

behavior or their bylaws.

To be sure, every organization also has its own distinctive culture. Practices

like shared governance are markedly different in tone, emphasis, and content

from one college to the next. One of the most influential writers in the field,

Edgar Schein, defines the culture of a group as "a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and

internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and,

therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think,

and feel in relation to those problems" (1992, 12). Many contemporary scholars

of higher education have written in similar ways on the importance of campus

culture and climate, including issues of race and gender (see, e.g., Birnbaum

1992; Chaffee and Tierney 1988; B. R. Clark 1987, 1991,1998; Dill 1997; Gumport 2000; Hortado 2000; Kuh and Whitt 2000; Peterson and Spencer 1991;

Tierney 1991; Toma, Dubrow, and Hartley 2005). One of the tasks of effective

leadership is to understand and mobilize the norms and practices of the culture

in solving problems and setting directions for the future. Schein suggests that it

is possible "that the only thing of real importance that leaders do is create and

manage cultures" (1985, 2).

The common culture of academic decision making shapes the selfunderstanding of academic professionals at deep levels of their values and

beliefs. Until that level is reached, efforts to develop an integrative understanding and process of leadership will be frustrated. The way to move beyond

these frustrations is to locate the problems of academic decision making in a

structural conflict of values.

The System and Culture of Academic Decision Making 47

Autonomy and Authority1

As organizations, colleges and universities try to mix oil and water by combining the academic value of autonomy with the institutional value of authority.

The university itself draws its first breath from freedom of inquiry and builds its

life around academic autonomy both for itself and its faculty members, both individually and collectively. The creativity of intellectual work and its inestimable

value to society depend on academic freedom for each individual. Yet freedom

and autonomy apply to collectives as well. Only those who know the special language, methods, and content of an academic discipline, which are first inculcated

in the rites of passage of graduate study, can judge the work of others in the same

field. The autonomy and the prerogatives of each academic department have deep

cultural and professional roots. Yet, as academic professionals become members of

formal organizations, they experience the structural tension in value systems. Just

as professionals embrace autonomy, institutions emphasize authority, order, and

accountability, values that are exercised through systems of controls. Organizations must control—define, systematize, regulate, and legitimize—what otherwise

would be the chaos of freedom without boundaries (Morrill 2002). Many controls,

from class schedules to budgets, are taken for granted as annoyances, until they

begin to press hard against the requirements of autonomy. Should they ever touch

the content of teaching or research, the academic heart of things, then the conflict becomes a deep crisis in fundamental values. So it is that academic authority

plays out uncomfortably within the organization.

Intrinsic and Instrumental Values:

Measuring the Immeasurable

The same rudimentary conflict appears in a parallel form in the conflicting ways

that knowledge professionals and their institutions define and measure worth.

Faculty members are driven by a commitment to the intrinsic value of teaching and research. At their core, the worth of the discovery and transmission of

knowledge is self-authenticating and intrinsically motivating. It is not determined

by measurement. Academic institutions respect these basic values but still must

construe and measure value instrumentally to balance competing claims on their

resources and responsibilities. The procedures of managerial decision making and

the criteria of the market continually try to determine the value of the pursuit of

knowledge. Judgment become quantified in costs and credit hours, and systems of

measurement become normative, even though most academic people have little

confidence in the ability of any system to measure what matters most to them

(Morrill 2002). Courses and programs are dropped or added, and new initiatives

pursued or forsaken, in ways and by measures that assault the academic values and

sensibilities of scholars and teachers committed to their fields. These polarities are

woven into the culture of academic decision making itself, which is understood as

a system of values, beliefs, and practices.

48 Strategic Leadership

Professional and Personal Identity:

Self and Role

At its best, academic life is a true calling (B. R. Clark 1987). The sense of

self and the identity of the academic professional are interwoven. The academic

professional says easily, "I am what I do." Even though faculty members are like

other humans in that they value money and power, the profession's self-definition

involves a sense of service to the cause of learning that transcends narrow selfinterest. It carries the responsibility to address fundamental and enabling dimensions of human development and experience. Because of this, decisions that relate

to the academic standing, effectiveness, and reputation of faculty members touch

on personal identity and professional purpose. This shows itself in a variety of

ways, especially in decisions related to academic programs and to appointment,

promotion, and tenure. If a negative decision is made in areas that define professional status, especially regarding tenure, it is felt as a punishing blow to the

person's sense of identity and self-worth. We meet in a different form the problem

of disproportion in the measures of worth in academic decision making. Integrating the functional dimensions of organizations with the identities of academic

professionals proves again to be a daunting task.

A deeper understanding of the sources of conflict in this cultural system does not

provide anyone, including our new dean, with a ready formula to respond to disputes

over priorities. But it gives rise to insights about the true dimensions of the world

of decision making in which all academic men and women take up their duties.

With this new point of departure, we can reconceptualize the issues and seek ways

to reconcile the conflict through the integrative methods of strategic leadership.

SHARED GOVERNANCE AND

ITS DISCONTENTS

If we look again at the issues of shared governance through the lens of the

structural conflict in values, several new dimensions come to light. Many members of academic communities would suggest that the value tensions in academic

decision making are real, but that they can be effectively balanced precisely

through the traditions of shared governance. Some institutions seem to have

found effective and constructive ways to live with conflicting values. Over the

years they have created, often more by practice than design, a series of councils

and committees to address institutional issues. Following this model, a workable

balance in university governance seems possible (cf. Birnbaum 2004).

Observation of shared governance in a variety of contexts reveals several other

widespread beliefs concerning the exercise of academic decision making that are

important for our development of a model of strategic leadership. Among other

things, shared governance is understood by academic professionals to incorporate

moral imperatives as well as formal processes. Those who try to exercise leadership

in strictly political terms by currying favor or assembling changing coalitions of 

The System and Culture of Academic Decision Making 49

convenience quickly lose an academic community's respect. Similarly, administrative officers who are unwilling to press legitimate claims of collegial authority are

perceived to be weak or ineffectual (Morrill 1990).

If, on the other hand, decisions are made unilaterally, they violate norms that

have ethical force. They threaten canons of legitimacy that have their roots in the

professional self-consciousness and self-respect of the faculty (cf. Bornstein 2003).

Those canons also have the symbolic force of tradition, and the legal and administrative weight of formal codification in bylaws and operating procedures. Any

member of the academic community who violates these norms does so at great

peril, for they invariably translate into sanctions of distrust, protest, and recrimination against those who are seen to have abused them. The unprecedented 2005

vote of no confidence in President Lawrence Summers by the Harvard Faculty of

Arts and Sciences—and in his subsequent resignation in 2006—focused on the

values of mutual respect and collegiality. Harvard professors complained bitterly

of Summers's perceived lack of respect for their intellectual expertise and his

inability to appreciate the "basic civility" that is a moral and cultural norm of the

Harvard faculty and staff (Healy and Rimer 2005).

While academic leaders at all levels need to understand the criteria of ethical

legitimacy embodied in shared governance, they also come to learn the limits of

the process. As the 1996 Association of Governing Boards of Universities and

Colleges commission suggests, the system works tolerably well on many campuses

when leadership is effective and conditions are stable. Yet when pressures for

change begin to mount, fault lines quickly appear in the system. Then the fuzziness of the delineations of shared responsibility becomes glaringly visible and the

conflicts in values palpable, especially if significant changes in academic programs

themselves are at stake (cf. Benjamin and Carroll 1998; Duderstadt 2004; Keller

2004; Longin 2002).

Perhaps the most significant challenge of shared governance is its inability to

address systematically and coherently the deepest and most comprehensive strategic challenges that confront an institution. Deep strategic questions of identity and

purpose are always systemic and integrated, while the faculty committee structure is

typically fragmented, complex, and cumbersome. Ironically and perilously, an academic decision-making system intended to give weight to the faculty's voice actually

dissipates its influence through fragmentation and complexity. Those who hold formal positions of academic authority are equally frustrated, because they do not have

effective vehicles to address the fundamental educational and organizational issues

that will define the institution's future. We have come upon the fact that the motif

of strategic leadership is intimately related to the issue of strategic governance.

LEADERSHIP AND THE RECONCILIATION

OF THE CONFLICT IN VALUES

We have reflected on values to deepen our understanding of the decisionmaking culture of colleges and universities and have done so for several reasons. 

50 Strategic Leadership

One is to complement and supplement other accounts of decision making in

order to provide a fuller description of a complex organizational culture. By going

more deeply into the choices of persons as agents, as participants who enact values through their choices, we enrich our understanding of collegiate decision

making.

This orientation opens up a number of promising possibilities. It helps all the

stakeholders in higher education to give voice explicitly to what they know tacitly, which is intellectually satisfying in itself. But, for many who are caught in

the frustrations of the system—consider again our new dean—the insights also

serve as a kind of cognitive therapy. Conflict is depersonalized when it is seen as

structural, and the natural tendency to place blame on oneself or others can be

transcended. More importantly, insights at this level release energy and open up

possibilities for action. The mind is set free to think of new approaches to the

problem, and novel ways to both understand and reconcile structural conflict.

When the sphere of action is as complex and demanding as the exercise of leadership in a university, the task of designing new approaches needs all the insights

and resources that it can muster. Even though the process will never be complete,

it helps to invest intellectual capital in reconceptualizing the issues.

Our explorations bring to light some of the conditions that must be met in order

for a process of strategic leadership to deal effectively with structural conflict.

Even as I have argued that shared governance needs to be reconceptualized, it

would be illusory to think that the tension between professional autonomy and

organizational authority can ever be eliminated. As a true polarity, both sides of

the relationship are required to address the realities with which academic decision

making must contend. An effective strategy process can mediate the conflict, not

eliminate it.

On a substantive level, it is also an aim of strategic leadership to find and to

articulate shared values that transcend the structural conflict in the culture of

academic decision making. As we shall explore in detail in subsequent chapters,

knowing and articulating the narratives, images, and metaphors in an institution's life story are crucial aspects of leadership. In his widely influential article

on the loose coupling of decision making in schools, Weick (1991, 1995, 2001)

notes that a worthy aim of research is to understand how people make sense of

their experience in such unpredictable and ambiguous organizational contexts.

He notes that in constructing their social reality, one would expect members of

educational organizations to use the resources of language to create organizational

myths and stories.

Narratives are indeed crucial in sense making because they carry wider meaning and convey the common values that have shaped an organization's identity.

Through the discovery of the ways these defining values are incorporated into the

work of the organization, a common set of commitments can be raised to awareness, given voice, and celebrated. As this occurs, diverse members of the campus

community find substantive values that provide worthy common ground for their

commitment, narrowing the gap between autonomy and authority. The common 

The System and Culture of Academic Decision Making 51

values exemplify the specific forms in which the organization has pursued its

commitment to quality, to learning, to service, to innovation, to diversity, and

to its other central values. These values can be given powerful expression and

distinctive content to create the ingredients for a vision—a coherent statement

of the institution's best possibilities for the future. Academic professionals will

yield some of their autonomy to serve an "absorbing errand" (Henry James, quoted

in B. R. Clark 1987), a cause such as intellectual quality that requires common

effort and successful institutionalization in order to be attained and sustained. The

pull toward independence is always present, but it can be transcended by shared

values that are precisely defined and that resonate with the authentic possibilities

of creating a great academic organization. Although often buried under routine

and distorted by conflict, it is the power and allure of exalted tasks like these that

brought academic people into the profession in the first place. The task of leadership in academic communities is to reconcile structural conflict by mobilizing a

commitment to shared intellectual and educational values and, as well, to the

institutions that embody them (Morrill 2002).