Jo Chaffer, Advance HE Key Associate, introduces a new podcast considering what doing leadership could mean for those tasked with stewarding higher education institutes through fast-shifting worlds.
Welcome to the first in a series of audio interviews and think pieces for anyone practising leadership, who wishes to reflect on and possibly extend how you do leadership and to what end.
What the series is for
We hear from six people to understand how their different backgrounds and pathways are shaping their leadership today and ask what we can learn about ourselves and our leadership.
We hope these prompts and reflections will stimulate new choices that extend our leadership practices and enable better recognition, encouragement and use of the whole range of capabilities in ourselves and our teams.
Our premise is that leadership comes in many shapes and forms, and that we might just need all of these to navigate the uncertainties, complexities, changes and challenges of our current and future contexts.
This short series aims to provide both challenge and support for expanding and enhancing thinking around what leadership means to each of us. We hope it will create opportunities and capabilities to do it differently in order to meet the wildly differing demands and aspirations of higher education today.
Why now?
For many centuries higher education has been one of the driving forces of change in the world – droves of graduates with their sharpened minds, researchers forging new understanding and technologies, universities collaborating with and influencing society, business, policy and politics. Yet at the moment it feels like the forces have flipped – universities in many places are bearing the brunt of major political, economic, demographic and technological shifts, being driven by change. The sector is under pressure, sometimes even under attack as the very nature of the social contract shifts.
With visa caps, funding cuts; protests and pay-outs; AI and quality assurance threats – crises seem to be materialising like spot-fires. In such times it can feel like there are few choices for leadership, and therefore tempting to try and lock down uncertainty and the unpredictable through unambiguous directives.
Whilst this type of response may generate a sense of control, experience tells us this is illusory or at best, a temporary blip. Rather than locking down, this is the time for leadership to be opening up to new practices and new approaches that allow for, and support, the emergence of new outcomes. This short series is a reminder to keep looking around, noticing all the different ways of doing leadership to add to what we already have the bank, that is, combining “new expertise and old wisdom” (Reihana, 2004).
Our contributors
We are indebted to our interviewees for their generosity and frankness in sharing themselves, what makes them tick and how this informs how they do leadership in their organisations.
In episode 1, our special guest is Prof Richard Little, Senior Consultant and Leadership Development specialist.
Professor Little is one of the founding team behind Impact International and the person who first introduced me to the idea of ‘doing leadership’. Richard explains how this reframing of leadership can liberate it from heroics and other extremes of individualism, whilst retaining its potency as both an idea and as a force for good in the world.
Our second in the series is an illuminating conversation with Simon Ross, Director Indigenous Leadership Program at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada and a hereditary member of the Nlaka’pamux Nation.
Simon talks about the integration of managerial and indigenous ways, a holistic approach to leading based on wise practices and right relations. His pathway into leading took many turns and his leadership is all the richer for it.
The third discussion is with Frederick Ebot Ashu, a Professor in Educational Leadership for Peace and Sustainable Development at the University of Buea, Cameroon.
Frederick shares some foundational African philosophies and how these intersect with and shape educational leadership. He describes the influence of spirituality, of learning for liberation and of the need to be the best one can be for the generations to come.
Our fourth episode features Provost of Massey University / Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, New Zealand, Giselle Byrnes.
Giselle describes how Massey’s embracing of the Treaty of Waitangi in every aspect of university life is transforming culture and strategy for the better. Care, clarity and simplicity in communication are strong messages from this conversation.
In episode 5, we welcome Braden Hill, a Nyungar (Wardandi) man from the south-west of Western Australia and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Students, Equity and Indigenous), Edith Cowan University, Australia.
Braden reveals his utter commitment to equity, challenging us to question what we choose to recognise as leadership (and what we do not).
The final interview is with Meihana Durie, DVC Māori at Massey University / Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, New Zealand.
We discuss many aspects of leading and leadership informed and shaped by Maori cultural and ponder on how these may help leaders at what he describes as a tipping point in New Zealand higher education.
Richard Little
Richard is a recently retired Senior Consultant with Impact International. During 35 years in Impact Richard has specialised in leadership development, working with every imaginable kind of organisation. At IFLAS he is Professor of Sustainability Leadership. In both roles, he is driven by the urgent need for change in the nature and purpose of business education.
Richard’s tendency to scepticism, especially about leadership, began to take shape when he was expelled from school, a career high-point not since surpassed. He has a special interest in the application of critical social theory to questions of organisation and leadership for sustainability.
Listen to an excerpt from our conversation on universities as communities and the role of leadership below.
Published On: 07/01/2025
Doing Leadership Differently – Richard Little preview
Preview of Richard Little's Doing Leadership Differently interview
Themes emerging and questions to consider from this interview
- Liberating leadership from the extremes of individualism, instead considering it as a particular form of action rather than something that requires particular types of people.
- Leadership is as much about stepping back now and then, as it is about stepping up.
- Avoiding the word ‘leadership’ when engaging in leadership development in order to avoid distractions and fetishising and so get on with the work needed. In so doing often liberating men and empowering women by avoiding the highly gendered discourse of leading and leadership.
- Community can be stifling (and sometimes punitive) – many people don’t wish to be represented by a single voice with a single view.
- The particular role of university (leadership) as a place for bringing people together for healthy argument, for dialogue – to enable different views.
Questions for reflection
What images pop into your mind when you hear the word leadership?
- What does examining these tell you about some of the assumptions you hold around what the word means to you – its power? Or what ‘shape’ leaders are ‘supposed’ to be – what is intelligible as leadership?
- Are these assumptions helpful or unhelpful for you doing leadership and what you perceive as leadership in others?
Dr Jo Chaffer is an Advance HE key global associate. She is a practitioner working with higher education leadership and strategy globally for over a decade. She is also part of a research group at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
References
Reihana, F. (2004). Taonga tuku iho and commercial activity: What are Māori perspectives on cultural protection? Unpublished Masters thesis. Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
