Leading the Agile University: Moving into Thinking the

Unthinkable

Professor Stephanie Marshall

Director of Programmes, LFHE

Overview

1 Leading the Agile University: current challenges

2 Leading the Agile University: possible new styles of leadership

3 Leading the Agile University: thinking the unthinkable

1 Current Challenges

• Pricing and positioning

• Distinctiveness and marketing

• Student experience

• Corporate systems

• Collaborations, alliances and mergers

Pricing and positioning

£9k… Oxbridge, Russell Group, ‘94 group…

£8.5k…Leeds Metropolitan …

£8k…

£7.5k… Bishop Grosseteste, Coventry (though some courses £9k)

Distinctiveness

“go further without going far”

“elite but not elitist”

“a great place to be”

“The Enterprise university”

“A world top 100 university”

“Experience the best”

“Inspiring success”

2 Possible new styles of leadership?

Goffee & Jones (2000) Goffee & Jones (2009)

NSSRAE/REFStaff SurveyPSBsQAAKPIsAnnual Performance

ReviewsThe future?

Authenticity & creativity

Increasingly, the future will require:

• Cross-functional team working• Cross-disciplinary team working• Professional services staff as partners in

these cross teams• Much more ‘fleet-of-foot’ in decision

making processes.

So, what does ‘agility and flexibility’ in leadership look like, feel like, smell like?

Jazz is a process and it is the process that has parallels with leadership. The creative process that takes place in the making of jazz requires an awareness of internal and exogenous variables. Jazz musicians have an understanding and appreciation of the material, and trust that their fellow musicians do too. On the stage, the musicians engage in intense dialogue and take many risks, yet they always know that such risks are supported by the rest of the group…

Noel Dennis, JCAB, Teesside University

Compare/contrast exercise

In groups, consider what’s going on here in terms of leadership alongside:

VisionStrategy

EngagementBranding

USPOrganisational structure

Etc…

3 Thinking the unthinkable

McNorthumbria?A new p/t degree in catering design?

Thank you

and

Enjoy the Day!