Developing leadership through the power of collaboration
In 2023, Advance HE published the Leadership Survey for Higher Education report in response to the guiding question ‘what works for leadership in higher education’?
Priority areas that emerged for the development of leadership included teamwork, partnership and collaboration. Collaboration was pinpointed as a key value within global higher education as well as being defined as a top leadership quality. Successful educational leadership is perceived to be about understanding and engaging with diverse people across roles, teams and cultures, and about fostering subtle kinds of collaboration.
This, in part, is why Advance HE has designed a new leadership programme Leading Educational Change. Targeted at senior, academic and professional leaders, it will run as a pilot from April this year and then as an open programme from Autumn 2024.
Educational change is also - it seems - about octopuses
Or ‘Octopi’? This truth struck home with a tentacular ‘WHAP’ when Advance HE recently partnered with Roehampton University, delivering a series of Enhancing Programme Leadership workshops.
A group of education programme leaders, asked to visualise their complex role within their University, chose the octopus as their chief metaphor, picturing a networked programme leader reaching out with (at least) eight benign tentacles of engagement to various university teams and role-holders: Quality Assurance, Employability, Student Support, Directors of Education, Pro-Vice Chancellors... and many other seafaring stakeholders on the education map.
How was this metaphor of educational change extended?
Well, quite elaborately! Rough seas and volatile trade winds (of regulatory change) were pictured. Fragmented archipelagos spoke of dispersed teams and processes of working across the University. The octopus, we were told, had to change position, reach out differently, strategically alter shade, at each point of limbering contact. One programme leader sketched hefty oil tankers on the horizon to represent the pace of transformation in higher education. Another drew a ‘Here be Monsters!’ sign near uncharted policy waters off the Island of OfS. Debate on the significance of this reference is, we understand, ongoing.
A freshly designed programme for educational leaders
This episode of creative sketch-work, and the lively discussion of the joys and pitfalls of HE collaboration that accompanied it, have shaped the way my colleagues, Hannah Fromageau and Mark O’Hara, and I, have developed Leading Educational Change.
The distinctive programme will develop the types of leadership dexterity you require to shape educational change at modern universities. Unlike so many existing programmes, it asserts and addresses a strategic obligation to connect management, academic and professional service leads, so that educational change projects draw on an inclusive range of expertise, optimising input and reach. The new programme will seek to develop the individual, but always with an eye on the community of change you need to create, to succeed.
Collaborative endeavour enables HEIs to leverage the diverse perspectives and resources amongst their staff groups and their students in order to tackle those ‘wicked’ challenges that face those involved in learning, teaching, student engagement and research.”Professor Mark O’Hara, Senior Consultant, Education, Advance HE
The programme will nurture the ability to bring together and synergise the strengths, expertise and imaginations of individuals from different disciplines, functions and teams, to ensure institutional impact and sustainable change. We recognise that this approach also helps to establish trust amongst participants and fosters cultures of continuous learning and development among university staff and students.
We will perform this kind of collaboration on the programme itself, connecting leaders from quite different units (for example, Academic Registry, Academic Faculties, Digital Services, the Student Union) and set these roles in dialogue, within change scenarios.”Hannah Fromageau, Senior Consultant, Leadership and Organisational Development, Advance HE
The programme is designed to be pragmatic, not idealistic. It will invite participants to celebrate the distinct roles played in change projects, but also ask for a dose of honesty about the caricatures, stereotypes and ingrained habits that often block cross-functional and institutional change. Done well, collaborative working generates a sense of community and camaraderie amongst those involved, creating a supportive ethos within which individuals feel valued, respected and empowered. That is the ethos of this new programme, too.
Join the ‘Leading Educational Change’ programme
Whichever project of change you are engaged in, for example, Portfolio Diversification, Digital Transformation or a Student Experience programmes, the need to optimise relationships between different teams, different work cultures, and sometimes competing agendas, is crucial. To return to that lively metaphor, you must be that intelligent cephalopod amid these seas of change.
Join Hannah, Mark and I for our pilot programme in April or get in touch to register your interest for the roll-out in 2024-25.
Professor Rafe Hallett works as Senior Advisor and HE Consultant for Advance HE, and has held education leadership posts at the Universities of Leeds and Keele. He is a National Teaching Fellow and specialises in Portfolio review and diversification.
Professor Mark O’Hara is a Principal Fellow, a National Teaching Fellow and a winner of the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) in the UK. Mark is a former Chair of the UK’s CATE-Network and has over 30 years’ experience leading educational change.
Hannah Fromageau is a Senior Fellow and has been with Advance HE since early 2022 as Senior Consultant, Leadership and Organisational Development. She is an experienced trainer, facilitator and coach with a demonstrated history of leading and managing professional development programmes for staff within higher education and research environments.