Strategic Leadership |Conflict and Change: The Limits and Possibilities of Strategic Leadership
We have learned that change and conflict are at the heart of leadership,
and these issues have shaped the background and the foreground of
this text. If strategic leadership in colleges and universities is about
anything, it is about systematically negotiating the forces of change and the realities of structural conflict. It is time to bring the dynamics of these issues into
self-conscious focus and to explore the capacities of strategic leadership to deal
with them.
One of the central purposes of this section is to determine realistically the
organizational times and circumstances when strategic leadership will be a more
useful or less useful method of decision making. The reader will know that all
methods have both possibilities and limits as well as conditions under which they
are particularly effective or minimally so. Such is the case for strategic leadership.
Our aim is to weigh the difference that strategic leadership makes under various
conditions of change, crisis, and conflict. If we can understand with some precision the capacity of strategic leadership to deal with change and conflict, then a
campus will be able to have realistic expectations about what the process can and
cannot accomplish.
STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND STRUCTURAL CONFLICT
Like all organizations, colleges and universities are filled with conflict. The
word itself calls to mind opposition between and among individuals and groups
along a social and political spectrum that ranges from polite disagreements to
intense personal hostilities, from political infighting to bitter public controversies,
from negotiation to violence. Conflict is everywhere on campuses and elsewhere
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because people, with their contending values, interests, personalities, and points
of view, are everywhere. As long as resources are limited and humans are finite,
conflict will be at the center of human experience.
All these aspects of conflict shed light on the qualities, skills, and knowledge
that individuals who carry leadership responsibilities should possess in order
to deal with it. Dialogue, negotiation, and methods of conflict resolution are a
leader's indispensable tools. Yet it has become clear in this study that no matter how successful a leader might be in resolving political, policy, and personality clashes, there are deeper structural conflicts in the governance of academic
institutions that resist easy reconciliation. Structural conflict does not necessarily
require antipathy between the parties but is a tension in the values to which the
organization is committed. It appears both in contrasting orientations as to what
should count in making choices and in the tensions enmeshed in the way those
choices are made. Conflicts in basic values and paradigms cannot be reconciled by
a leader's political skills and administrative talents alone but require the resources
of strategic thinking and leadership.
Reconciling Conflicts in Values and Paradigms
We can examine some aspects of the dynamic of reconciling opposing values in
a recent study of international business leadership. Although the authors we discuss use a different terminology than ours, their work gives a number of examples
of the methods of strategic leadership in resolving conflicts between different
cultural paradigms and contrasting organizational values.
Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (2002) explore contrasting
cultural value systems, including the classic conflict between cultures that define
achievement in individualistic as opposed to communitarian terms. Western
countries, especially the United States, emphasize achievement by the individual,
while most Asian cultures put primary stress on group accomplishments. In dealing with a culturally diverse workforce, creative managers know that cultural
value systems and paradigms run too deep to be drastically changed, since they
involve a whole pattern of seeing and understanding the world from the ground
up. Rather than confounding workers by imposing an incentive plan from another
culture, effective managers try to reconcile differences between value systems. For
example, they might try to develop a reward system that measures and recognizes
individual achievement in terms of what it contributes to a team. The interactions of the team, in turn, can be designed to provide opportunities for individual
growth and creativity. The energy and motivation of the group is then stimulated
by new forms of recognition of their achievements as a team, perhaps in competition with other teams (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 2002).
Vicious Circles and Virtuous Circles
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner analyze a series of conflicts in cultural and
organizational values and their resolution in terms of what they call "vicious
Conflict and Change 243
circles" and "virtuous circles." In a vicious circle, a single cultural system is
imposed on another, and the results are a reinforcing downward spiral of problems.
For example, if only individuals are recognized in tasks requiring teamwork, performance declines for both the individual and the group. In virtuous circles, on
the other hand, there is a new "third thing" that emerges from the conflict. It has
its own reinforcing patterns of success because it has drawn positive features from
different value systems to create higher levels of performance—in this case, a
team with distinctive and productive cultural norms of its own. The answer is
not to create a series of disjointed compromises between the different cultural
systems, but to find a new integration of values and ways of thinking.
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner use a number of case studies to show how
value reconciliation functions in a variety of other challenging organizational
contexts, not just clashes in cultural values. Many of these have to do with issues
of purpose and vision. We learn, for instance, that the genius of the business idea
behind Dell Computer involves a reconciliation of opposites. Dell entered the
personal computer market late, when many of the supply channels to the consumer were already filled with competitors' brands. In response, it came upon a
new idea for the computer world: direct sales to the customer. The challenges
were many. How could less personal service command competitive prices? How
could the customer's desire for a machine built to order be combined with the
techniques of mass production? In traditional strategic thinking, there would
have been but two choices. Either you provide low-cost products or you offer
expensive premium models designed to meet the customer's tastes. Yet Dell
embraced both sides of the dilemma. Since its cost structure is less than half of
that of its competitors, it can sustain an advantage in pricing. It also offers customized products through direct differentiated relationships with its customers,
powerfully aided by the Internet. "One important reason Dell can do both is that
it orders its components in mass quantities from its suppliers, achieving economies
of scale, and also co-designs its computers with its intended customers . . . in unique,
customized configurations" (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 2002, 245). This
is a virtuous circle, contradictory on its face, of mass customization.
THE STRATEGIC RESOLUTION OF STRUCTURAL
CONFLICT IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
One should ask what companies that make products or offer commercial services, even sophisticated ones, have to do with higher education. The answer is,
more than one might think. In all these cases there is evidence of a method of
conceptual analysis and problem solving that is intimately tied to a set of strategic master images concerning the purpose and the vision of the organization
in a changing environment. In drawing on these resources of self-definition and
purpose, which typically circulate around narratives of identity, the resolution of
the value conflicts shows conceptual depth and complexity, subtle differentiation,
and creative insight. They reveal the ability of participants to gain intellectual distance from their challenges, to reposition their own reflections, and to think about
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their own thinking, all of which are characteristics of learning organizations. It
is just this kind of intellectual virtuosity that is part of the discipline of strategic
leadership in higher education. When a powerful sense of strategic direction takes
hold within an organization, new resources of thought and imagination become
available. The continuing tensions in policies and purposes have a stock of strategic insights on which to draw to create virtuous circles of understanding to resolve
conflicts and to find shared commitments.
Strategic thinking in colleges and universities always encounters a series of
implicit or explicit conflicts in governance, mission, and vision. Some of them
track the fundamental value conflict in the decision-making system itself, reflecting the tension between autonomy and authority, intrinsic and instrumental
values, or the paradigms that accompany them. Others lie within the academic
sphere alone, while others, such as policies relating to social and academic student
life, cross two or more decision-making zones. The organizational culture and the
missions of many institutions of higher learning are balanced between purposes
such as the following, which illustrate various forms of conflict, tension, and complementarities, especially in the context of a changing world (Morrill 1990):
• Teaching and research
• Liberal and professional education
• General education and disciplinary specialties
• Access and selectivity
• Diversity and community
• Need-based aid and merit scholarships
• Undergraduate and graduate studies
• Central and regional campuses
• Religious and secular values
• Local needs and national ambitions
• Legacy and change
• Student social life and academic life
• The academic core and the academic periphery
• Centralization and decentralization
• Equal resources and selective excellence
• Assessment as value added or as a level of achievement
• Academic selectivity and athletic competitiveness
• Openness and confidentiality
• Authority and participation
Teaching and Research
Let us look at a couple of examples to see how a process of strategic inquiry can
become a form of conflict resolution. No one in higher education will argue that
Conflict and Change 245
teaching and scholarship can be disconnected. Scholarship in some form, whether
published or otherwise, is essential to the currency and vitality of teaching and
student learning. Almost all academicians also will argue that a professor's
scholarship or creative activity must eventually be made available in some public
arena so that its significance can be assessed through peer review.
When the value of scholarship becomes defined by the originality, volume, and
influence of publications (and their equivalents), its relationship to teaching and
learning becomes more problematic. The conflict is not over the importance of
scholarship to good teaching, which is a given, but over the type and quantity
of scholarship that a particular institution will value. The conflict has several
dimensions, but among them are the time of the faculty member and the resources
of the institution that are available for research. It seems to follow, for instance,
that original and influential scholarship is essential for professors in universities
with missions in doctoral and advanced professional education. Reflecting this,
graduate professors may only teach several courses a year, often with the help of
teaching assistants, and they can rely on an extensive research infrastructure. Yet
college professors who teach only undergraduates in three or four large classes
each semester will be hard pressed to find the time and the resources to do a large
amount of research and publication on a regular basis, whether or not they are
inclined to do so.
If institutional missions regarding scholarship and teaching have not been differentiated and translated into appropriate resources, policies, and expectations,
a vicious circle develops. The dominant model of the profession and the prestige
of research turn the circle toward a commitment to publication, leaving less time
and energy for teaching and the enhancement of student learning, which may
suffer as a result. But so does scholarship, because ordinarily, little that has wide
influence can be achieved when it is sandwiched in among other exhausting
duties, and when it lacks time, resources, and rewards. Most importantly, the forms
of scholarship that might enrich teaching and contribute most to the development of the professor are frustrated by the prevailing model.
The possibilities for reversing the vicious circle can be found in a clear conceptual analysis that is differentiated strategically in terms of institutional mission
and context. The first step in doing so is to clear away the models about teaching
and scholarship that have been imported unconsciously from other institutions.
The next is to draw out the most fruitful connections between them suggested in
the institution's distinctive strategic profile.
The benefit of removing faulty assumptions through clear and cogent conceptual analysis is illustrated in Scholarship Reconsidered, the well-known study by
Ernest Boyer (1990b) that appeared some years ago. By sorting out the different
forms of scholarship and affirming them in terms of various institutional missions,
Boyer struck a vibrantly responsive chord among faculty members. As he differentiated the dominant model of the scholarship of discovery from applied scholarship, the scholarship of integration, and the scholarship of teaching, he also
opened the imagination of many academics to see new patterns of relationship
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between teaching and scholarship. Beyond aligning policies with practices that
reward a variety of forms of scholarship, he pointed the way toward creating
virtuous circles of connection between scholarship and teaching. If expectations
are textured in terms of institutional mission and vision, such as student involvement in faculty research, then scholarship, teaching, and student learning find
novel and productive ways to reinforce and complement each other in virtuous
circles.
Faculty Roles and Responsibilities
These reflections on teaching and scholarship lead in many related directions,
revealing the systemic character of strategic thinking. One of the issues that they
entail is the re-conceptualization and redelineation of individual faculty roles and
responsibilities. The process is already underway in many institutions, though
usually on a piecemeal basis. If faculty members are to have differential workloads
in teaching, research, and service, there must be a careful definition of responsibilities in terms of what Linda McMillin (2002) describes as a "circle of value"
between the faculty member and the institution. In terms of workload issues, a
faculty member's teaching, scholarship, and service add value to a department,
which in turn adds value to the institution. The final turn of the circle involves
the institution adding value to the faculty member by providing resources and
support for the individual's changing responsibilities and evolving professional
interests. In sum, the idea of differential workloads will not be effective if it is
based simply on an individual's preferences and desires, but only if it takes into
account the needs and opportunities of all three parties, the person, the academic
unit, and the institution (McMillin 2002).
Strategic conceptualization brings to this task a way of locating the issues precisely at the point of intersection between the institution and its environment. It
brings the question back to the distinctive values, purposes, and competencies of
academic organizations as they have been formed in the real world over time. Strategic leadership defines the needs, capacities, and possibilities of the organization
and of its academic professionals simultaneously and in relation to one another.
It sets in place a method of strategic differentiation that is able to define commitments that reconcile the perennial conflict between professional autonomy
and the needs of the organization. Although the structural conflict in values will
never disappear, it can become a virtuous circle of possibility rather than a vicious
cycle of frustration.
Liberal and Professional Education
There is a large variety of conflicts in academic decision making where strategic
leadership can provide new insights. The continuing tension between liberal education and professional studies is, for example, open to far more creative solutions
Conflict and Change 247
than are typically brought to bear on it. As noted in Greater Expectations, "Liberal
education is an educational philosophy rather than a body of knowledge, specific
courses, or type of institution" (Association of American Colleges and Universities 2002, 25).
The more one sees rigorous learning as the acquisition of intellectual powers,
cognitive skills, values, competencies, and dispositions mediated by a variety of
subjects, the less significant the dichotomy between liberal arts and professional
fields seems. The connections between the two can be constructed through the
articulation of a shared set of demanding educational objectives. From this perspective, liberal education shows itself to be powerfully practical, and professional
studies to involve a series of crucial theoretical issues. Studies of both the theoretical and practical issues in leadership, professional ethics, quantitative reasoning,
organizational culture and behavior, policy development, problem solving, and
decision making provide examples of contexts for interdisciplinary work involving the social sciences, humanities, and professional fields (cf. Bok 2006). If an
institution develops a major strategic initiative to excel in creating a productive
and distinctive relationship between the theory and practice of liberal and professional education, it could achieve a goal of enduring importance that creates
a virtuous circle out of a traditional sphere of conflict. With little doubt, it will
find that its passion for the task will come from threads of connection to its own
existing or emerging practices and the distinguishing characteristics that are
rooted in its identity.
These examples of the tensions between teaching and research and liberal and
professional education suggest a method that can be applied to a large variety of
similar polarities. In creating an authentic and compelling sense of institutional
purpose and vision, the process of strategic leadership is able to meet a series of
demanding requirements. It requires intellectual self-consciousness and conceptual depth, speaks to the human need for coherence, provides a sense of common
enterprise, analyzes changing trends in education, and articulates worthwhile
possibilities for the future that grow out of a legacy. In doing so, it motivates
and obligates members of the organization to come together around common
goals. As leadership must, it also shoulders the task of reconciling conflict. Being
strategic, it brings to each form of conflict a sense of the larger world and the
institution's place in it. It gathers these insights into a disciplined process of
sense making that create new integrations that end tiresome debates and in new
articulations of values that transcend the conflict. Academic commitments to
quality and autonomy become embodied in organizational forms and practices
that are necessary to them, and those forms in turn bear the imprint of intrinsic
values. As a source of both responsibility and shared meaning, the institution's
narrative of identity and aspiration empowers the continuous effort to create
new forms of authentic balance, synthesis, and commitment. We often use its
methods of building consensus even when we do not do so consciously and
systematically.
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ADVERSARIAL LIMITS TO STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
As any practitioner of strategy will quickly acknowledge, the success of the
process depends on conditions that it cannot provide for itself. Strategic leadership cannot function optimally or sometimes at all in the context of deep mistrust
and hostility. If the governing board is in turmoil, if faculty and administration
have taken up battle positions, or if large factions of the faculty are at war with
each other, then strategic leadership will not be effective. A foundation of basic
goodwill and a modicum of trust are the prerequisites and can be the results of
the multiple inquiries, deliberations, and collaborations that drive the process. It
is often better not to start the work of strategy until the right circumstances are
created, rather than to have it succumb to dysfunction.
Strategic leadership ultimately depends on a fundamental consensus about the
values that the organization exists to serve. Wide variations in the interpretations
of the exact content of those values are possible, but shared commitment to them
is necessary. The many leaders and participants in the strategy process can do
little to enjoy the benefits of strategic leadership unless they share the common
ground of commitment to the institution, a high regard for academic process and
values, and respect for one another. A good strategy process can do many things,
but it cannot be expected to change the passions, ideologies, or values in which
individuals have grounded their identities.
STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE
As we have seen throughout this inquiry, a growing consciousness of the pervasiveness of change and the need for higher education to respond effectively to it
have become central themes in a large variety of recent studies and projects (Bok
2006; Friedman 2005; Newman, Couturier, and Scurry 2004; Zemsky, Wegner,
and Massy 2005), among them a major undertaking of the American Council
on Education called "On Leadership and Institutional Transformation," which
issued a series of five reports, On Change, from 1998 to 2002. Then there are the
various projects and publications of the Pew Roundtables and the Knight Collaborative, which offer reports and analyses on key issues of educational policy
and practice, especially related to new market realities, beginning in the early
1990s and continuing for more than a decade, and form the basis for the work
by Zemsky, Wegner, and Massy (2005). In several articles and studies related to
the "Project on the Future of Higher Education," Alan Guskin and Mary Marcy
(2002, 2003) argue that colleges and universities must take on the challenge of
change by reducing soaring instructional costs themselves, or others will do it
for them.
The emphasis on change differs significantly in each of these studies. Some
concentrate on broad external forces such as information technology, global
competition, and proprietary educational providers, while others focus more
on institutional change as an intentional process. Policy makers seem to be
Conflict and Change 249
the intended audience for some of the studies, while in other cases it is faculty
members or academic administrators. Above all, no one reading these reports, and
the many others like them, could ever conclude that contemporary higher education in America is a special intellectual preserve free of the full-bodied realities
of economic, social, cultural, educational, and technological change. Echoing
a perspective offered repeatedly throughout this work, they show that colleges
and universities have a contextual identity like every other institution and are
enmeshed in nets of social forces and webs of accountability.
Resistance to Change
Enough has been written here and elsewhere about the difficulty of planned
change in higher education that it requires little new argumentation. One of
the ironies of change in colleges and universities is that it occurs continually,
but by no means uniformly, in the work of individual faculty members and many
academic units. Yet the institutions that house these changes at the micro level
often face agonies of change at the macro level, especially in academic programs
and policies.
We have traced how the well-known characteristics of professional autonomy,
loose coupling, shared governance, and fragmented decision making produce
organizations that resist change, especially if the change has not been initiated
by academic professionals themselves. The general human tendency to resist the
threat of the unfamiliar is especially evident in academic communities. Since
academicians define themselves through their professional identities, change frequently challenges important sources of self-respect.
The reports and projects we have referenced offer trenchant diagnoses of the
need for change, offer worthy proposals to improve institutional performance,
and describe successful change processes. Yet one has to wonder whether they
have seized the critical importance of effective methods of interactive and integral strategic leadership as the enabler of intentional and sustained change. In
most studies, there is frequent reference to the responsibilities of official leaders,
but much less to the ways change occurs as part of a reciprocal direction-setting
leadership process. Bok (2006) writes sagely about the ways presidents and deans
can use their positions to define a vision for the improvement of undergraduate
education, including the assessment of student learning. If enthusiasm for these
tasks does not take root among the faculty, however, it is doubtful that topdown strategies will be sustainable or widely influential. On Change V insightfully
describes some aspects of a reciprocal leadership process, yet undoubtedly because
the report is focused on the change process, it tends to describe change as if it
were an end in itself (Eckel, Hill, and Green 2001).
Many of the things that official leaders do to encourage and effect change are
precisely the components of an integral approach to strategy, which provides
the content of change. They facilitate change by anchoring it in legacies and
cherished academic values, and by building trust and taking the long view. They
250 Strategic Leadership
also help people to develop new ways of thinking by encouraging reflection on
hidden assumptions, values, and familiar ways of doing things. Effective leaders of change listen to those involved in the process and learn from dissenting
views. They also are sensitive to issues of collaborative process, create a sense
of urgency for change, and communicate widely about the issues (Eckel, Green,
and Hill 2001). They root their exercise of authority in a process of relational
leadership.
In an illuminating subsequent study, Taking the Reins, Eckel and Kezar (2003)
describe how six of the twenty-six American Council on Education institutions
reached the level of what they call transforming change, change that was pervasive, deep, and intentional and altered the culture of the institution over time.
The book presents five basic characteristics that seem essential to transformation: "(1) senior administrative support, (2) collaborative leadership, (3) flexible
vision, (4) staff development, (5) visible action" (Eckel and Kezar 2003, 78).
Note the prominence on this list of factors that we have identified as critical
to strategic leadership, especially the motifs of action, collaboration, vision, and
senior administrative support. In addition to these, the authors analyzed other
interlocking characteristics in the decision-making culture of the institutions that
contributed to transforming change. Perhaps the key element is the way participants found new ways of constructing meaning about change, or what we have
often called sense making.
Although the Change reports and Taking the Reins use different language than
ours, their findings parallel precisely many of the components of integral and
integrated strategic leadership. This conclusion hinges on understanding strategy comprehensively, not as a method to change a program's market position.
Although interactive leadership is recognized, what seems less central in their
accounts is a systematic description of the possibilities of leadership as an engaging reciprocal process that can mobilize commitment to enact strategic change.
The effectiveness of those who hold positions of authority is essential, but more
is required to create a leadership method that can be embedded in the institution and is not only activated when change is required. The ultimate goal is to
implement leadership as a system of interaction that is framed by an integrative
discipline and collaborative process of strategic decision making.
Strategic leadership can serve as a vehicle for effecting change in institutions
of higher education, both through its content and its methods. It can be the missing link between proposals that involve change and their enactment. It makes
intentional change a function of strategic change and thereby builds the change
agenda into the leadership process through which an institution designs its future
in a challenging world. If, for example, assessment is to improve the quality of
student learning, leadership has to be embedded in organizational processes and
relationships to achieve and sustain the change. A faculty will dismiss out of hand
all the alluring models of assessment at other institutions unless they are part of
a decision-making process that relates to the values, beliefs, and circumstances of
their own institution.
Conflict and Change 251
Based on the perspectives provided in this analysis, it is clear that strategic
leadership brings a large array of resources to the demands and tasks of collegiate
change. As we have seen, these include:
• An emphasis on patterns of awareness and reflection that discern the contextual
identity of institutions of higher learning, including their interaction with the
driving forces of change
• An interpretation of leadership that is focused on issues of human agency and
sense making, and that sets an agenda for change with an awareness of its threats
to personal and professional values
• A sensitivity to institutional identity, story, and legacy, thus affirming heritage
while preparing for change
• A collaborative process of strategic thinking and decision making, which builds
legitimacy for change and embeds it in a structured process of choice
• A process of transparency in sharing information of all kinds about the institution, which raises the awareness of the institution's strengths and weaknesses
• The articulation of a vision for the future that reduces uncertainty and provides
motivation
• The development of a set of measurable goals that give a specific contour to
change and provide an integrated sense of direction
• A plan for communication about change and for the implementation of goals
that establishes confidence and credibility and builds a sense of momentum for
the future
THE NATURE OF STRATEGIC CHANGE
In order to avoid confusion and uncertainty about the intent of a strategy process and to define expectations for strategic change accurately, it is important to
be clear about the various forms and dimensions of change. To do so, it helps to
consider two fundamental aspects of change, the scope of change and the time it
takes for change. Each aspect in turn has its own dynamics that produce varying
degrees of change. As to time, the speed of change can be considered in terms of
the poles of rapid versus gradual change, while its duration ranges from enduring
to temporary change. With regard to its scope, we can distinguish between the
breadth of change as pervasive or limited, while the element of depth considers
change that ranges from deep to superficial. Needless to say, many similar terms
and phrases can substitute for those suggested here (Eckel, Green, and Hill
2001).1
The Scope of Strategic Change
These categories help us to understand the differences between strategic
change and other forms of change on a campus, including those that are operational or experimental, or that involve a response to crisis. Many operational
252 Strategic Leadership
changes are limited or minor adjustments in day-to-day management policies
and practices, such as a change in the prerequisites for a course or a modification
to the software in one office. Were the changes in the software system to affect
the whole campus, the project would become a broad change, though it may be
a superficial one. It affects a lot of people, but most of them in minor ways. Deep
changes affect basic organizational capabilities and characteristics, though they
can be limited in the scope of their influence and might apply to only one or two
academic or administrative units. If the change is so significant in both scope
and depth that it reaches the level of a basic competency across the institution,
then it becomes a strategic issue. Issues of strategic change can never be defined
with precision and finality because the meaning of change in the collegiate world is
fluid and symbolic. The different categories of change help us to understand that
strategic change takes us toward the deep and pervasive issues of change that
confront an institution.
Time and Strategic Change
When we consider the reference points of the time of change, we discover
characteristics of strategic change that are counterintuitive. Although strategic
change in the corporate world is often rapid, pervasive, and enduring (consider
successful mergers and acquisitions), the same ordinarily does not hold true for
the academic programs and identities of colleges and universities. In itself, there
is no reason to think that gradual (sometimes called incremental) change cannot
be enduring, profound, and pervasive. These characteristics are precisely the ones
that Burns (2003) uses to define transforming change, and he notes that it may
occur over long periods of time. Eckel and Kezar (2003) suggest that institutions
engaged in transformational change see it as a continuing process, even after fiveand-a-half years. In his study of entrepreneurial universities, Burton Clark (1998)
concludes that several decades were required for their transformations to occur,
and in examining several turnaround situations, Adrian Tinsley (2007) suggests
that transformational change is incremental.
Some writers on change tend to contrast transforming leadership with incremental change, while the true contrast may be with rapid, temporary, and operational change that lacks a strategic focus (Lick 2002). As a case in point, consider
our earlier example of the internationalization of a university. If an achievement
is truly strategic and transforming, it represents a pervasive, deep, and enduring change. Being pervasive or comprehensive, it touches most departments and
programs in the institution, and in being deep or profound, it will alter the way
that many courses are designed and taught, as well as the experiences of many
faculty and students. Its scope will show itself in a change in the population of
the university, and over time in deep shifts in the norms and culture of the organization. Yet the change process will not be rapid, but gradual and incremental.
It will take at least a decade or two for the institution to accomplish many of
the central tasks of strategic change of this magnitude, and the work will never
Conflict and Change 253
be entirely accomplished because changes in the outside world will continue to
necessitate changes inside the organization.
The Characteristics of Strategic Change
The explanation for some of the characteristics of strategic change can be found
in several of the defining features of strategic leadership that we have considered, including the notions of strategic vision and strategic intent. The concept of intent is an apt one, for it captures the motifs of purposefulness and
self-awareness, which are defining components of human agency. Implicated as
well are the themes of will and commitment, the motivation to attain worthwhile goals in order to fulfill the organization's best possibilities. Understood in
this way, a vision clearly fosters enduring change that will be as deep and broad
as is required to respond to the strategic situation at hand. If the challenges
and opportunities produce a compelling vision that requires deep, enduring, and
pervasive change, strategic leadership will seek to mobilize resources and commitment to accomplish that goal. Over time, with clearly marked milestones of
continuing progress, the result will be transforming change.
Given the enormously variable circumstances and identities of each institution,
strategic change has several forms and possibilities. Some colleges and universities
dominate their environments with the resources they command and the positions
they hold. Respond to change they must, but they often do so with a flexibility,
deliberateness, and circumspection that others cannot afford. The need to respond
to change is inescapable, but it is often masked by adaptive and conservative
impulses, especially in the academic sphere proper.
At the other end of the spectrum are institutions whose capacity for change is
driven by an innovative vision or by vulnerability in enrollment or finances—
witness organizations rapidly adding new programs for adults in multiple locations, new job-related offerings, or distance-learning programs that make novel
uses of technology. Thus, the speed, depth, and scope of change that are required
of a given college or university to reach its objectives are widely variable. For some
institutions, rapid, bold, and profound changes are not on the horizon, nor do they
necessarily need to be. For all these reasons, institutions frequently move in cycles
of change. A period of intense innovation is followed by a time for consolidation,
preparatory to the next cycle of more intensive change. Thus, in being genuinely
strategic, intentional change will be legitimately variable by place, time, and circumstance. Woe to the institution, however, that mistakes its place in the cycle
of change or uses its apparent strength to dismiss the forms of change to which
it must respond. Self-delusion and complacency are denials of leadership, both
among leaders and those who are led. Serious threats to institutions can lead to
crises if they are covered up by neglect or timidity. Strategic leadership as a form
of consciousness is designed precisely to discern the most compelling and dangerous signs of the times and to convert them into opportunities for change. The
common belief that the deepest changes usually only occur through crisis may
254 Strategic Leadership
be correct. Yet effective strategy programs provide the tools to avoid the worst
of a crisis before it takes hold. Strategy can and must be decisive when the times
require it, using its methods and insights to reveal both threats and opportunities
as they develop.
Some of these thoughts on strategic change can be illustrated by a quick glance
at institutional histories. Perhaps the most common pattern of fundamental change
is for institutions of higher learning to make a series of circumscribed but deep
changes that create an evolutionary transformation of organizational mission. As
major universities gradually emerged from small "colonial" colleges in the last several decades of the nineteenth century, for example, change followed a common
pattern. New disciplines and new professional schools were added to the core of
existing classical fields, eventually creating the multi-universities that we know
today (Veysey 1965). In one regard the changes were circumscribed, because a new
school or program did not alter existing activities themselves. Yet the cumulative
changes over time created institutions that were drastic transformations of their
former selves. In more recent decades, many universities have transformed themselves in a parallel way by adding research institutes, interdisciplinary centers,
professional education programs, satellite campuses, and international affiliates.
The examples show that even though the time required achieving it may span
several decades, a transforming level of strategic change may be reached.
Change, Crisis, and the Limits to Strategic Leadership
As we have discovered, strategy is intended to discern and prevent impending
crises, and it should insist that risk management plans be developed systematically to prepare for emergencies. The attention to possible calamities is increasingly a requirement of risk management and is a useful method for testing the
strengths and limits of organizational capacities. Deep knowledge of the strategic
identity of an organization includes sharpened sensitivity to threats to its reputation, finances, campus infrastructure, human resources, and leadership. Yet when
a state budget allocation is suddenly cut by 20 percent or a fire ravages "Old
Main," a crime wave hits the campus, a controversy shatters confidence in the
president, or hurricanes and floods destroy the campus, long-term strategy gives
way to crisis leadership. The vision will have to be put on hold so that the crisis
and the pain that may be involved can be confronted.
As these examples make clear, the analytical and disciplined protocols of strategic leadership move in a different orbit than the rapid, symbolic, and unilateral
interventions often required during a crisis or an emergency. No doubt, some
groups and persons can be effective in both strategic leadership and crisis leadership, others not. No doubt, too, the story of a place and its vision for the future
will need to be invoked to reassure a community in a crisis and to help it find its
bearings as the emergency subsides. Nonetheless, as much as strategy defines the
need to prepare for them, strategic leadership is not driven by unforeseen and
disruptive solitary events.
Conflict and Change 255
As has also become evident, strategic leadership is limited in other ways.
Because strategies take their root in legacies and flower in visions that draw on
the special capacities of the members of an academic community, they are not
usually the vehicle for revolutionary change. There are logical limits to the content and the work of strategy. If the proposed content of the strategy nullifies the
organization's identity and the capacities of the existing faculty and staff, then
the proposal for change is not a strategy of that community but of some other
real or hypothetical organization. Similarly, narratives can be altered and transformed, but they cannot be replaced. Radical change of this nature represents
the transition to a new identity, which may occur, for example, as an external
authority such as a state governing board decides to turn a technical college into
a major university in a short period of time. Whatever the form and nature of
change, there finally is a point at which the discussion is logically no longer about
options within a given strategy, but about change to an entirely new identity.
Strategic leadership is not able to make rapid or radical revolutions in higher
education, for to do so is to contradict the values and organizational identity that
are in place. It can find ways to rapidly transplant some vital organs, but not the
self of the institution.
EMBEDDED LEADERSHIP
Taken together, these comments on strategic change suggest that a set of basic
conditions must be fulfilled for it to be successful and continuous. Significant and
persistent attention has to be given to creating leadership and decision-making
systems for colleges and universities that are far more resilient and responsive to
change than is currently the case.
Leadership for change requires institutions of higher learning to embed and
distribute responsive and responsible processes of strategic decision making
among committees, teams, and communities throughout the organization. This
task is indispensable for mending the worn patchwork of decision-making patterns that characterize today's institutions. For this to occur, a new sense of shared
responsibility for effective leadership and governance must take hold and shape
the enterprise's culture of collaborative governance. In such a context, obligations are felt by all parties in the process (Tierney 2000). Leaders empower and
respond to the needs of their followers, but followers have the responsibility to
do the same for leaders, so that at times their roles become interchangeable. It
will require the commitment of the faculty, administration, students, and the
governing board to answer to one another for the quality of their shared leadership and followership in collaborative systems of decision making. Participants
in the process grant designated leaders, whether the head of a committee or the
president, a chance to be heard and recognize a legitimate role for authority,
creating a sense of mutual responsibility sometimes lacking in academic communities (cf. Burns 2003). In discussing leadership and the distress that usually
comes with the adaptation to change, Heifetz notes: "The long-term challenge of
256 Strategic Leadership
leadership is to develop people's adaptive capacity for tackling an ongoing stream
of hard problems" (1994, 247).
Out of better and more responsive ways to make decisions will spring more
effective and responsible decisions. Ultimately, according to Burns, it happens
that in such a pattern of embedded leadership, "Instead of identifying individual
actors simply as leaders or simply as followers, we see the whole process as a system
in which the function of leadership is palpable and central but the actors move in
and out of leader and follower roles" (2003, 185).
Leadership and change are difficult and complex issues in all organizations, but
they are especially so in institutions of higher learning. The deep commitment of
academic professionals to the power of learning as their center of value must
be made organizationally resilient for it to flourish in the future. Without new
approaches to governance, to leadership, and to management, that future will
be more frustrating and traumatic than it needs to be, with the encroachment of
managerial and commercial models of decision making ever more in evidence.
Much is at stake in safeguarding the vitality of academic work and in retaining its
sense of calling, as Clark reminds us. As a calling, it "constitutes a practical ideal
of activity and character that makes a person's work morally inseparable from his
or her life. It subsumes the self into a community of disciplined practice and sound
judgment whose activity has meaning and value in itself, not just in the output or
profit that results from it" (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler and Tipton quoted
in B. R. Clark 1987, 274). The academy requires effective and widely distributed
leadership to sustain the power and vitality of this vision.
NOTE
1. My discussion of these points has been influenced and oriented by the Change V
report, however, I use different terminology and come to different conclusions.