Shared Leadership in Higher Education

A Framework and Models for Responding to a Changing World

Elizabeth M. Holcombe, Adrianna J. Kezar, Susan L. Elrod, Judith A. Ramaley

• Publisher: Stylus Publishing
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781642672244
• eBook ISBN: 9781642672275
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Today's higher education challenges necessitate new forms of leadership. A volatile financial environment and the need for new business models and partnerships to address the impact of new technologies, changing demographics, and emerging societal needs, demand more effective and innovative forms of leadership. This book focusses on a leadership approach that has emerged as particularly effective for organizations facing complex challenges: shared leadership.

Rather than concentrating power and authority in an individual leader at the top of an organization, shared leadership involves multiple people influencing one another across varying levels and at different times. It is a flexible, collective, and non-hierarchical approach to leadership. Organizations that have implemented shared leadership have been better able to learn, innovate, perform, and adapt to the types of external challenges that campuses now face and that will continue to shape higher education in the future.

This book brings together the two foremost scholars of higher education who have studied, described and evaluated the impact of shared leadership, a university chancellor with prior experience of facilitating systemic institutional change at two university systems, and the former president of three universities where she coordinated processes that led to the transformational changes needed renew institutional mission and purpose.

Opening with four chapters that define the nature of shared leadership, describe its key characteristics, and how to build institutional capacity, the book then presents ten institutional cases. Ranging from institution-wide initiatives at four year colleges and a community college, to examples of managing change in a college, a center, and across STEM departments, the contributing authors describe the context and drivers of the need for change, the building of shared vision to create coalitions, lessons learned, and outcomes.

Intended as a resource for leaders at the highest levels such as Presidents and Provosts as well as mid-level leaders such as deans, directors, and department chairs, the book is also addressed to faculty and staff who are interested in collaborating with campus leaders on institutional decision-making or creating new change initiatives. It is intended to build capacity for shared leadership across institutions and for use in leadership courses and programs.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 A Changing Academy and a Changing World: Why Shared Leadership Is Important
• 2 The Nature of Shared Leadership
• 3 Understanding the Outcomes and Uses of Shared Leadership
• 4 Creating an Environment of Support for Shared Leadership: Building Organizational, Team, and Individual Capacity
• 5 A Faculty-LED Effort to Build Campus Community Around Inclusive Excellence in STEM
• 6 Improving Student Success and Enrollment at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater
• 7 Creating a Shared Leadership Approach to Managing a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• 8 Many Spiders, One Web: Distributing Leadership for Inclusive Excellence at the University of Richmond
• 9 Changing Minds: Integrative Tutoring and Institutional Transformation at SUNY Geneseo
• 10 Portland State University’s Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative (HRAC): A Shared Leadership Journey
• 11 Creating the Capacity to Work on Complex Problems at Winona State University
• 12 Shared Transformation: The One Door Approach at Cuyahoga Community College
• 13 Shared Leadership in a National-Scale Network: The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) as a Case Example
• 14 Reflections on Shared Leadership in Action
• Appendix A: Getting Started With Shared Leadership on Your Campus
• Appendix B: Building Capacity for Shared Leadership
• Editors and Contributors
• Index
• Also available from Stylus
• Backcover