Management Behaviours in Higher Education

Lessons from Education, Business and Sport

David Dunbar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000343007
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Management Behaviours in Higher Education explores the traits and behaviours of higher education leaders that are associated with staff management. It sets out beneficial management qualities and techniques which can be applied and suggests the need for a behavioural standard for senior managers in universities.

The book showcases the importance of creating a supportive motivational climate and culture for greater psychological security in higher education. It proposes the idea of an agreed behavioural framework for those in and being considered for staff management positions to provide an improved motivational climate. Chapters evaluate current business management practice and human resources advice and compare these to research evidence on the management of higher education staff.

This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of higher education, educational leadership and management studies. It will also appeal to those interested in business studies and the suggested parallel role/topic of sports coaching/or similar.

1Management distinctiveness and limitations

Do we think of university leadership as primarily operating through one main figurehead or small group or are universities too large and complex for this? Management of activities and staff in HEIs is a multilayered complex process with a formal leadership structure spread across the institution from, in the UK, a Governance Committee, Council and Senate, Chancellor (in Scotland, a Rector), VC, Pro-VC and COO office, through faculties, departments and specialist units/institutes. In the US there is the Board of Trustees, Governing Board, President, Senior Management Team and Faculty. In mainland Europe governance is applied via a Senate and Governance Board/Board of Trustees then via President/Rector and organisational unit heads. When you consider that Higher Education (HE) employs approximately 0.44 million people in the UK and has distinctive organisational and management structures and pressures, it is important that personal staff management/leadership qualities required of senior university managers, are given the attention they deserve.

HE’s organisational distinctiveness

The complexities of leading and managing the myriad of recent developments in HEIs are self-evident as are the diverse qualities and experience required of those with management responsibilities; business and operational agility of all university staff is therefore required. It is important to remind ourselves, via a collection of HE leader statements and studies, of the environment and organisational structure and the role itself, which makes HE leadership distinctive, so that the assessment of the opinions on management qualities, dispositions, talents, techniques, etc., can be seen and considered in context.

Senior management positions, such as those of Dean/Head of Faculty/Pro-VC, have been shown to have ‘overtones that are more political and social than hierarchical and technical’ [1]. This is similar to the private business world, although it could be argued that due the nature of research and teaching, as the main products of university business, and the likelihood of these post holders still being research active to some extent, makes the interconnectedness of a Dean or Head of Faculty and their previous role, greater than in a commercial setting. Perhaps a more distinctive element, as compared to other types of organisation, is what is described as the ‘natural tendency in higher education to debate, question, and challenge. It’s part of what makes an academic institution what it is. Here on our campus it is not unusual to go [debate] toe-to-toe with the president’ [2]. And, quite rightly, she identifies a key question––‘how do you take it out of just the academic exercise of debate and move into actions?’ Thirdly, as compared to other public and private sector organisations, there is the ‘fluidly dispersed’ leadership, comprising both ‘formal and informal leaders’ (including colleagues elsewhere who are influential), the informal ones exerting ‘a strong influence on the formal’ [3]. Those who are ‘not in leadership roles, nevertheless have insightful contributions to make to key discussions such as the Department’s strategic direction’ [4]. In terms of formal leadership structures it is common for ‘the Head of Department (with overall responsibility for the subject unit) not to be the same person as the Programme Director, who takes the lead in, and is responsible for, matters pertaining to the programme in question’ [4]. Others [5] also describe relatively ‘decentralised university management structures and (individual) members of staff’. It is a difficult task to balance the combination of leadership and management at different levels in an institution. Further, that ‘the intense resolution with which staff pursue their own valued ends creates an environment in which emergent leadership by the many has an immovable place’ [3].

It has been argued that academic training had not traditionally included the integration of management culture, rather the opposite, citing Mintzberg’s 1983 description of universities as ‘professional bureaucracies’ and Weber’s 1922 ‘direct democratic management’ in which ‘all members of the group are in principle equally qualified to deal with common matters and problems’ [6]. It is argued that in the ‘HE sector, joint collegial endeavours are required to share existing, and develop new, knowledge’ [7]. Others [8] agree that universities operate in an ‘extremely challenging’ environment, thus there is a need for distributed leadership ‘so that many people throughout the institution are committed and involved in that leadership’. In concurrence with this [9], it is pointed out that, despite less opportunities being available, ‘encouraging the generation of well thought-out ideas which can be sensibly explored’ is required. We should ‘understand that leadership is divorced from rank––lecturer level staff and support staff can demonstrate exceptional leadership’ [10]. ‘Organisations tend to assume that the more senior you are the better leader you are which is not true!’. As regards business leadership skills––they are more easily identified in some of the rank and file ‘than [in] some senior staff’ [11].

A large part of the distributed leadership element is related to autonomy, varying levels of which are held and contended by all academics. Rowley and Sherman [12] note that ‘the professional staff members in an academic department have far more autonomy in doing their work than do attorneys, accountants and others in…professional service firms, such as legal, accounting, engineering, and even medical firms, which…have some similarity to a university campus’. Universit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Management distinctiveness and limitations
• Chapter 2: Tensions
• Chapter 3: Employee expectations
• Chapter 4: A brief look at manager styles and traits
• Chapter 5: Basic manager qualities
• Chapter 6: Dispositions and talents
• Chapter 7: Management manners
• Chapter 8: Beneficial staff management techniques
• Chapter 9: Management lessons from sports coaching
• Chapter 10: Working towards a minimum management behavioural standard
• Index