Academic leadership is important – and it has many pleasures

In academic life, the vocabulary we use to describe what we do says a lot about how much we really enjoy it. “Research opportunities” and “research time” are indicative of pleasurable periods of intellectual engagement, while phrases such as “teaching load” and “administrative work” tell a very different story. This is a language of loss and professional frustration, revealing what are generally seen as the less pleasurable aspects of the job. They are duties or responsibilities, things that we need to get done as painlessly as possible but without enjoying them much.

Academic leadership – or “management”, to use the less fashionable term – tends to be framed in this negative way, too. At best, academic leaders are mugs whose research is on the slide and who deserve our collective sympathy. At worst, they are despised as free-market Thatcherites intent on restructuring fellow academics out of their jobs. As one of my colleagues said to me on getting a senior role herself, “Bruce, I have gone over to the dark side.” But is this really a fair characterisation?

Campus resource: How to advance equity-informed leadership in universities

The academic leadership literature tends to reinforce this downbeat impression about why academics become leaders. The “good citizen” feels a moral obligation to take on the leadership role that they regard as an unwelcome interruption to their research activities. “It’s Buggins’ turn”, as the saying goes. Another type of reluctant manager can sometimes be pressured into taking the role as a Machiavellian plot to block the path to leadership of someone who everyone hates.

Then there are those – increasing in number – who see leadership as a career track. Negative motives, such as waning interest in teaching and research, or selfish ones, such as an ego trip or a bigger pay packet, tend to be ascribed to such a choice. It is a decision assumed to be made with the head, not the heart.

Despite these negative perceptions, I would argue that academic leadership has its less well advertised pleasures. These include listening, persuading, explaining, mentoring, building supportive relationships, being creative in developing new strategic ideas and, yes, even trying to win the odd argument. Working with a clever set of colleagues who hold you to account is every bit as intellectually challenging as teaching or research. Making decisions is an important part of being any kind of leader, but explaining the reasons for unpopular ones is a vital responsibility and skill, too. Personally, I enjoy this aspect of being a leader as it keeps me on my toes.

I also enjoy recruitment. Forget the bigger office (perhaps), the PA (if you’re lucky), the strategic plan (almost compulsory), the fancy website (inevitably) and all the rest of the paraphernalia, appointing the right people is possibly the single most important thing that a leader can do to make a real difference. And recruiting academics and then seeing them flourish is what gives me the most pleasure as a leader.  

Accordingly, it seems counterintuitive to me that universities are increasingly turning to executive search firms to make leadership appointments. The role of headhunters used to be largely limited to finding a new vice-chancellor. But now they play a bigger role in filling middle-ranking roles, too, such as deans, heads of department and even some professorships. Subcontracting the hunt for talent and allowing such firms to “reach out”, as they euphemistically call it, to a self-selecting network of past clients and their cronies is at best a lazy option.

Academic cronyism is a persistent problem in the appointment process that is rarely understood for what it is: a clear breach of any meaningful commitment to equality, diversity and inclusivity. Giving a headhunter the power to longlist might appear efficient but will also result in a lot of lost talent. And it is an abrogation of the great duty and joy of academic leadership: to consciously build a department or faculty that is as well calibrated as possible to fulfil goals of fairness, excellence and impact.

The French philosopher Joseph de Maistre famously stated that “in a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve”. Sadly, this can also be true in higher education. Academics like to think of themselves as pretty virtuous and public spirited, and being an academic leader should be seen in the same terms. Academic leadership also provides a privileged opportunity to help others achieve their potential, in much the same way that we seek to help our students as teachers. Why isn’t that an opportunity academics would want to embrace?

Academic leadership does have its downsides. These include endless emails and meetings, as well as painful duties such as managing a tight budget. It can also be a little isolating: some days it feels like people only come to see you either to complain about their teaching load or to demand a promotion. Leadership may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we should respect the “Bugginses” who step up.

Good people who fail to put themselves forward are in no position to carp and complain about their “overlords”. Maybe, to paraphrase Allan Bloom’s interpretation of Socrates, more of us need to stop talking about being virtuous, wringing our hands about the state the sector is in, and try to do some positive things as an academic leader as well.

You never know, you might even enjoy it.

Bruce Macfarlane is dean of the Faculty of Education and Human Development at the Education University of Hong Kong.