Of changes and leaderships: the complex landscape of a Higher Education sector in transformation

1. Of changes and leaderships: the complex landscape of a Higher Education sector in transformation BERA Conference University of Sussex 5-7 September 2017 Cristina Devecchi, Hala Mansour, Jackie Potter and Nick Allen

2. HE leadership: caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of efficiency and inclusivity

3. You can’t be both, can you?

4. 25 years of HE reform:* Opening to new providers (massification of HE)* Opening to competition (Marketisation)* New funding system* New regulatory system* Teaching Excellence Framework* Value for money & cost efficiency* Students as consumers* Focus on employability

5. Macro-changes - Part 1HE in transition: From core mission to social mission? Social mission Economic mission Intellectual mission Devecchi and Petford, 2015

6. Macro-changes – Part 2Accountability, marketisation and mechanisation of teaching and learning? • Value for money • Student experience • Student satisfaction • Learning gains

7. Macro changes – Part 3Knowledge economy, AI, blockchain disruptive innovation The real change is still to come. Artificial intelligence, blockchain and the Internet of Things have the potential to disrupt what and how universities work, not just how they do research and teach.

8. ‘…current conceptualizations of leadership and change management lean towards New Public Management’s high-level objectives and efficiency, while simultaneously auspicating for a caring, nurturing, ethical, courageous and democratic leader (Gini and Green, 2013; Parkin, 2016). […](Devecchi, et al, 2017) But ‘it is unwise to speak of change and leadership in singular and essentialist terms. Rather, there are a variety of changes, which require the application of different types of leaderships.’ And that ‘that there are major changes to how academics and professional services operate and that these are not reflected in current HR practices based on out-dated conceptions of traditional job roles and professional boundaries ‘ And therefore ‘there is a need to redefine the nature of leadership and investigate further how new collaborative practices create a ‘diffuse’ leadership style.’ The dilemma of Leadership and change in HE

9. the project design

11. ResearchDesign • 356 respondents; • 73% female, 24% male • 86% white • 78% aged 35-55 • 98 academics • 154 APTC • 63 senior leaders

12. Findings

14. Factors impacting on HE in the UK

15. How change impacts on staff

16. How universities support staff

17. Leadership and change: Survey

18. The problem with leadership and change ‘So what I’ve drawn basically is just a box at the top with the leaders and then a box way down at the bottom with everyone else. And around the leaders there’s sort of, focus groups and a bit of chat going on. And there’s some things being said by everyone else at the bottom. And I’ve got two arrows going down from leaders to everyone else. So I should stress, this is not so much my own perception of the changes that are happening, but a sort of institution-wide thing that I see. So what I’ve tried to convey visually (quite badly) is there’s a lot of stuff that seems to be going on by the leaders who are doing change. So they’re holding focus groups, they’re holding, you know, ‘Let’s come and consult; please tell us what you want us to hear; please e-mail us if you have anything to day’. And people are saying stuff but it doesn’t seem to be getting up here, so it’s all going one way and not the other.’ [Professional Services Manager]

19. Solution #1: Leadership, change and values ‘We're seeing this kind of globalisation market, the marketisation of HE on a global level driving league tables, performance metrics and kind of driving a new managerialism into institutions which are impacting on the academic leadership role and, you know, academic leadership is driven by a core set of values and beliefs, behaviours, practices which have a set of timelines, a set of philosophies which are directly challenged by different timelines in the organisational world, different measures of performance and there is a kind of clash, I think, between some of the things. So, for me, the way forward in terms of this change process is the increasing need for dialogue between not just, as you say, academics and administrators but within academics intra as well as inter community.’ (Sector Agency Leader A)

20. Solution #2: reward, recognise, include

21. Solution #3: bring all aboard! ‘I think of it as ‘leadership as a verb rather than as a noun’. So it isn’t about any one person, it is about the collective activity of taking the opportunity when they present themselves, to actually support, develop, bring along other people. And that can shift on a constant and regular basis’. [Sector Agency Manager] “And my belief is just, you know, we need to have a more inclusive approach to change” [Academic] “it is about connecting people together, so they feel they are collaborating together for a clear vision of what is the change outcome.” [Professional Services] “…probably need to look at the structures that actually support and reward collaborative work and the bringing together of people able to work on shared goals.” [Sector Agency Leader B]

22. Some questions…

23. Summary of findings

25. References Devecchi, C., Mansour, H., Potter, J. and Allen, N. (under review) Leading Change Together:Managing cultural change across the HE workforce. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LfHE) Devecchi, C. and Petford, N. (2015) Universities in transition: Managing knowledge and developing people through the use of intellectual capital, ECER Conference, 7-11 September 2015