Citizens of the academic community? A societal perspective on leadership in UK higher education

Abstract

This paper presents a societal perspective on academic leadership by exploring the preoccupations of academics as citizens rather than as employees, managers or individuals. It uses a listening post methodology to ask ‘what is it like to be a citizen of an academic institution in contemporary Britain?’ Three listening posts, comprising 26 participants from 15 higher education institutions, were conducted and analysed. A number of common themes were identified, including a sense of ambiguity and ambivalence about one's relationship with the employing institution and a concern about the fragmentation of academic identities. Whilst this paper contributes towards debates about the marketisation of higher education and the implications for leadership and management practice, its main contribution is to challenge dominant individual and organisational perspectives on leadership by exposing an alternative discourse, based on citizenship, which may offer new opportunities for engagement in the civic life of universities.

Keywords:

• management
• citizenship
• leadership
• discourse
• identity

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the LFHE for funding this work and, in particular, Robin Middlehurst and Helen Goreham for their support and guidance. We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of our colleagues Michelle Ryan, Kim Peters and Alex Haslam in the University of Exeter School of Psychology, as well as Jonathan Wyatt of the Oxford Learning Institute who helped arrange the listening posts. We are very grateful to the participants in our study, whose thoughtful contributions and generosity with their time is much appreciated.

Notes

1. Also referred to as ‘listening groups’ (Stapley 2006).

2. In fact this event was facilitated by Tim Dartington and Olya Khaleelee who jointly developed the listening post method. We are grateful for their contribution to this project.

3. Shortly afterwards universities announced their fee decisions, with over two-thirds opting for the maximum fee, despite politicians having suggested that most universities should not charge any more than GBP6000.

4. This was particularly true in traditional ‘research-intensive’ universities but also increasingly the case within post-92, ‘teaching focussed’ institutions.