Leading From the Middle in Times of Uncertainty — Supporting the Changing Role of Academic Headship

• In Event: Higher Education Leadership Has Its Own Set of Challenges

Short Description

The changing context of higher education places greater leadership expectations on academics who are leading from the middle. This presentation will explain a leadership framework and a people-focused approach to enable current and future academic heads at the University of Auckland deal with the increasing demands of headship.

Detailed Abstract

AIM OF PRESENTATION
The aim of this presentation is to explain the ways in which a large research-led University, comprising over 2200 academic staff members, developed and implemented an institution wide leadership framework to enable academic heads to fully understand and appreciate their pivotal leadership role. The leadership role of academic heads includes supporting the University in achieving its key goals of fostering creativity and innovation and developing and retaining talented staff. The use of a ‘people-focused’ model applied to answer the questions of how to support academic heads throughout the life-cycle of their role will also be explored.

BACKGROUND
The changing context for academic leadership
Increasing internationalisation and global competition in higher education requires university leaders at all levels to be more strategic in their thinking and planning.
The role of the academic head is pivotal (Spiller, 2010, p.697) in our high achieving, publicly funded research-led New Zealand University.
Academic heads are catalysts for positive innovation and change using their experience and influence across the Faculty and with local, national and international stakeholder communities. An academic head reports to the Dean and has an important contribution to make to faculty leadership.
These middle leaders are responsible for academic units with large budgets and anywhere between 20-200 staff. The Education Advisory Board (2011, p.30) identified a number of new challenges for academic middle leaders, including increasing austerity, accountability and risk.
At the University of Auckland, academic heads deal with financial and academic management, as well as people and performance management issues for staff and students. In recent years there has been an increased focus on change initiatives of structure, systems and processes with the pace of change accelerating

Institutional response to changing needs for changing times
The University’s Strategic Plan 2013-2020 anticipated the changing context of higher education nationally and internationally and the importance of maintaining the University’s global ranking. To achieve this ‘the intention is to focus on the creation of an environment in which highly talented people can flourish’ (University of Auckland, 2012, p. 5).
A key objective is to develop and value distributed leadership. A foundation contribution to this objective was the design, development and implementation of an inclusive leadership framework for all academic and professional staff aligned to the university strategic drivers. The University of Auckland 5D Leadership framework has two levels – one of which outlines the capabilities and key behaviours for senior leaders, including that of academic heads.
Part of the socialization of the 5D Leadership framework was to incorporate this as part of ‘Service and Leadership’ in the Academic Standards for the promotions process. This has led to systematic change across the University through a focus on developing a greater understanding of these leadership capabilities and behaviours, including that of the academic head.
The academic head acts on behalf of the organisation to ensure the successful operations of the unit to meet the Faculty and University’s annual and strategic objectives. To do this effectively the heads must have clarity regarding their leadership role in terms of the purpose of the role, the accountabilities and performance expectations and the institutional support available.
The existing University Academic Heads appointment policy and position description had not been fully reviewed for ten years and did not reflect the current or predicted future needs of either the organisation or the leadership expectations of the head’s role.
A review of the role of the academic head was initiated through the UoA Academic Heads Advisory Group. The outcomes of AHAG focus group dialogue and discussion was presented to senior leadership and provided the basis for a formal review of the role of the academic head.
Phase one of the review encompassed the role and policy framework analysis/design. This followed the usual collaborative approach of a steering committee from across the university to determine the selection and appointment; reward and recognition processes. Key role accountabilities were aligned to the university-wide 5D Leadership Framework.
This organizational viewpoint is only one side of the issue. The academic heads role must be looked at from the individual perspective of a head as well as from an employee ‘lifecycle’ perspective.
Phase two of the role review involves the exploration of the developmental and support processes/outcomes for effective headship pre-role, during the role and transitioning from the role.
PRESENTATION
It is phase two of the role review that will be covered in this presentation.
Branson et al (2016) argue that ‘middle leadership needs to be understood as highly complex and characterised by negotiation amidst networks of professionals and power relations’. Heads have to maintain professional and collegial relations with faculty as well as function within the university’s hierarchical structures and line management expectations. Understanding this crucible is important when developing systems/processes to enable and support the multifaceted nature of the heads role.
Attracting, preparing and supporting appropriate people to the academic headship role is crucial for the long term effectiveness of the faculty and the university. It is also imperative that our heads feel that they have had a positive, enabling professional and personal experience during their headship term.
Included in this presentation will be a ‘people-focused’ model applied to answer the questions of how to support academic heads throughout the life-cycle of their role. This people-focused model is scalable and can be applied to other university roles including deans, or staff groups - for example academic and professional staff.
The use of ‘experience maps’ provided us with key data from stakeholder groups on their understandings of the unique issues and challenges for academic heads. Three scenarios of a ‘New Heads Xperience’ highlight at a personal level, the realities that new heads face when taking on the headship mantle, when picking up from where the previous head left off. These scenarios will form a key part of the presentation
The presentation will outline the phase two approach. It will show how existing organizational development frameworks/models were used to explore and support the increased leadership expectations of academic heads and how the outcomes will be measured.

Participants

• Melanie Moorcroft, University of Auckland

• Lorraine Stefani, University of Auckland