Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education


Book Description

Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education explores the idea that the nature of academic work is both creative and consensual. Higher education relationships, whether between managers, staff, learners or the public sphere, are at their most effective when rooted in partnership, teamwork, collaboration and collegiality. The term 'consensual' is used because it situates new leadership models as structures based on consent, reflecting tacit traditions in education alongside ideas of leadership in other settings, including emerging industries. The aim is to celebrate achievements, encourage engagement opportunities, and add to the problem-solving knowledge-base. However, issues and problems in participatory engagement are also considered, and the borderlines between consensus (collective assent and agreement) and 'dissensus' (widespread, serious, disagreement) are examined critically. The contributors offer a range of alternative perspectives on leadership, reflecting the diverse forms and ways of working practised in different national higher educational contexts and cultural settings. The volume incorporates a variety of approaches and points of view, including stories of leadership and change, innovation projects and case studies, key interviews and insights, and collective team writing.




Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education


Book Description

Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education explores the idea that the nature of academic work is both creative and consensual. Higher education relationships, whether between managers, staff, learners or the public sphere, are at their most effective when rooted in partnership, teamwork, collaboration and collegiality. The term 'consensual' is used because it situates new leadership models as structures based on consent, reflecting tacit traditions in education alongside ideas of leadership in other settings, including emerging industries. The aim is to celebrate achievements, encourage engagement opportunities, and add to the problem-solving knowledge-base. However, issues and problems in participatory engagement are also considered, and the borderlines between consensus (collective assent and agreement) and 'dissensus' (widespread, serious, disagreement) are examined critically. The contributors offer a range of alternative perspectives on leadership, reflecting the diverse forms and ways of working practised in different national higher educational contexts and cultural settings. The volume incorporates a variety of approaches and points of view, including stories of leadership and change, innovation projects and case studies, key interviews and insights, and collective team writing.




International Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education


Book Description

There is an increasing pressure for leading universities to perform well in competitive global and national ranking systems. International Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education studies the complexity involved in the development and upkeep of good higher education provision. Without taking anything about leadership, management, governance, administration, authority or power for granted, this book draws together international case studies relating to specific instances of leadership to analyse how they relate to critical thinking and global challenges in higher education. Using a selection of global case studies, this book explores: The extent to which critical thinking on global challenges is employed by higher education leaders, The potential for an increase in the role of critical thinking in leadership, The creative potential for critical leadership thinking to transform institutions and communities, The essential attributes of critical thinking, namely cognitive, affective and social dimensions, and The possibility for critical thinking to contribute to the global public common good by encouraging enhanced research, teaching and public service excellence. Responding to the ever-increasing demands of the higher education climate, International Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education is a vital resource for anyone occupying leadership positions in higher education institutions and any researchers or students looking to explore the landscape of critical thinking.




Intellectual Leadership, Higher Education and Precarious Times


Book Description

This book draws on interdisciplinary social science and philosophical frameworks to offer new dimensions to debate about intellectual leadership and higher education. The chapters are focused on provoking readers to think critically about intellectual leadership in precarious times. The contributors frame critical questions about the unevenness, ambivalences, and disruptions that now mark everyday life and interactions. Rather than thinking about 'freedom from precarious times and precarity' they consider 'freedom from within' and how the sovereignty and autonomy of the individual to think and speak within the public realm might be retained, if not reclaimed. In the precarious present and in times of precarity, what has changed and why? What might now be the new social reality within which we work? Each of the contributors have been invited to take up their own perspective on what is precarious, and to examine the impacts on intellectual leadership. What does it mean to do intellectual work and be an intellectual leader? What are the implications for intellectual work and leadership if the academy itself is in precarious times?




Disrupting Leadership in Entrepreneurial Universities


Book Description

What is the future of the contemporary university and for those who lead them? Considering leadership in the broadest sense, including academic leadership (teaching and research) as well as leadership practices of those in formal management positions, Jill Blackmore outlines how multiple pressures on universities have produced leadership practices in management and research which are more corporate than collegial, and which discourage many academics from aspiring to leadership. She uses a range of theoretical tools, informed by critical and feminist organisational studies, to unpack higher education and how it is being transformed in ways that undermine its core work of teaching and research. Drawing from three Australian university case studies, this book uses leadership as a lens through which to investigate the effects of restructuring of the higher education sector which have impacted differently on academic identities and careers.




Leadership and Management Strategies for Creating Agile Universities


Book Description

The global higher education sector has changed dramatically as universities continue to face unprecedented challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are struggling to navigate this crisis while maintaining high-quality course delivery, ensuring strong student recruitment numbers, and providing clear communication to staff and students. Issues have emerged at an exponential rate, and coping with the pandemic has been particularly difficult for universities as they serve several functions, such as being educational institutions as well as major employers. Leadership and Management Strategies for Creating Agile Universities reflects on the challenges that higher education institutions have faced during the pandemic and the associated projected socio-economic impact yet to be felt. It also considers how different universities have addressed the challenges so as to learn what has and has not worked and speculates what future implications exist for the vision of a new higher education sector in a changing world. Covering topics such as developmental leadership, IT governance, and lifelong learning, it is ideal for policymakers, industry professionals, academicians, researchers, governors, decision makers, teachers, and students.




Collaboration in Higher Education


Book Description

Collaboration in Higher Education, an open access book, focuses on the opportunities and challenges created by engaging in collaboration and partnership in higher education. As higher education institutions become ever more competitive to sustain their place in a global, neoliberal education market, students and staff are confronted with alienating practices. Such practices create an individualistic, audit and surveillance culture that is exacerbated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the wholesale 'pivot' to online teaching. In this atomised and competitive climate, this volume synthesises theoretical perspectives and current practice to present case study examples that advocate for a more inclusive, cooperative, collaborative, compassionate and empowering education, one that sees learning and teaching as a practice that enables personal, collective and societal growth. The human element of education is at the core of this book, focusing on what we can do and achieve together: students, academic staff, higher education institutions and relevant stakeholders. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Knowledge Unlatched.




Values of the University in a Time of Uncertainty


Book Description

This deliberately wide-ranging book addresses issues related to trust, compassion, well-being, grace, dignity and integrity. It explores these within the context of higher education, giving existential and empirical accounts of how these moral duties can be expressed within the academy and why they ought to be. The chapters range from values used in the marketing and management of institutions to their realisation in therapeutic and teacher training spaces. The book opens with a specific introduction which positions the work and outlines the context of duties and obligations at play. This is followed by two distinct but related sections including chapters on theoretical issues, organisational practices and personal praxis. The first part is more abstract and theoretical, the second locates the values discussed within the practices of the university. In doing so the book encompasses a wide range of issues from multi-disciplinary and geo-political regions. The authors are a mixture of world-leading authorities on values in higher education and earlier career researchers, who are nonetheless equally passionate contributors. This mix gives the book vibrancy and offers insight which appeals to both an academic and managerial readership.




Beyond the Conservatory Model


Book Description

Amid enormous changes in higher education, audience and music listener preferences, and the relevant career marketplace, music faculty are increasingly aware of the need to reimagine classical music performance training for current and future students. But how can faculty and administrators, under urgent pressure to act, be certain that their changes are effective, strategic, and beneficial for students and institutions? In this provocative yet measured book, Michael Stepniak and Peter Sirotin address these questions with perspectives rooted in extensive experience as musicians, educators, and arts leaders. Building on a multidimensional analysis of core issues and drawing upon interviews with leaders from across the performing arts and higher education music fields, Stepniak and Sirotin scrutinize arguments for and against radical change, illuminating areas of unavoidable challenge as well as areas of possibility and hope. An essential read for education leaders contemplating how classical music can continue to thrive within American higher education.




Reimagining the Academy


Book Description

This book explores the capacities and desires of academic women to reimagine and transform academic cultures. Embracing and championing feminist scholarship, the research presented by the authors in this collection holds space for a different way of being in academia and shifts the conversation toward a future that is hopeful, kind and inclusive. Through exploring lived experiences, building caring communities and enacting an ethics of care, the authors are reimagining the academy’s focus and purpose. The autoethnographic and arts-based research approaches employed throughout the book provide evocative conceptual content, which responds to the symbolic nature of transformation in the academy. This innovative volume will be of interest and value to feminist scholars, as well as those interested in disrupting and rejecting patriarchal academic structures.




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