LEADERSHIP WITH/OUT POSITION:

RE-SEARCHING LEADERSHIP IN ACADEMIC WORK

Adisorn Juntrasook, Carol Bond and Rachel Spronken-Smith

Higher Education Development Centre

University of Otago

What is it about?

Leadership is one of the most popularly researched and discussed topics in contemporary society. Despite being critiqued as elusive and contested for its definition, leadership has become “essential in all organisations, and educational organisations are no exception” (Inman, 2009, p. 418). Since the end of the last century, many scholars from different disciplines have proposed different ways of understanding leadership in tertiary education. What they have in common is their tendency to focus on positional leadership (e.g., Institutional Manager, Head of Department, Chair of Programme, etc.), which usually leads to examinations of models and characteristics of ‘effective’ leadership of academic work. Simply speaking, these scholars tend to ask how leaders in tertiary education can lead other academics to achieve ‘effective teaching’ and ‘productive research’. Needless to say, we know that leadership extends beyond leader positions. Rather than replicating previous research foci, this study will shift the focus from ‘leadership of academic work’ to ‘leadership in academic work’, in which the concept can be more broadly applied to individual academics from all walks of life. The purpose of this session is to invite participants to explore the implicit ideas and images about leadership that may influence the ways they make sense in/of their academic work (particularly in teaching, research and service) and their own development in academia.

Why is it important?

Currently, academics are likely to attest that leadership has become one of the required qualities for their careers. Often used in job advertisements for various academic positions, this term seems to be a key feature of academic work throughout academic institutions. However, there is a paucity of empirical studies in New Zealand and elsewhere that explore how leadership is experienced, understood and developed by academics beyond headship and administrative positions. The goal of this session is to explore leadership in academic work, and insights about the directions academics may want to contemplate regarding their work and development in academia. Moreover, if we agree that leadership does not exclusively belong to any particular group of leaders in tertiary education, then it is important that academics reclaim their sense of leadership so that universities can better realise their aspiration to be critic and conscience of society.

How the session will be run?

Based on the idea of learning spaces (Savin-Baden, 2008) where imagination comes into play with reason, critical reflection and dialogue, this session will ask participants to ‘play’ with their own, and share with others, imaginations, metaphors, ideas and memories about leadership. This inter-play will allow the spaces of contestation and complexity to emerge from collective voices. The session will be structured into three modes: PLAY (participants using metaphors, memories, images, and symbols to explore the concepts of leadership within and beyond the context of tertiary education); DIALOGUE (participants having conversations, internally [with themselves] and externally [with others], about what they learn from the PLAY mode); REFLECTION (participants sharing to the group about their learning from this session and its application to their academic work).

Reference

Inman, M. (2009). Learning to lead: Development for middle-level leaders in higher education in England and Wales. Professional Development in Education, 35(3), 417-432.

Savin-Baden, M. (2008). Learning spaces: Creating opportunities for knowledge creation in academic life. Berkshire: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

Adisorn Juntrasook is a doctoral student at the Higher Education Development Centre at the University of Otago. He was awarded a BA (Journalism and Drama) from Thammasat University, MA (Counselling Psychology) from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Expressive Arts Therapy, Education, and Consulting from the European Graduate School, Switzerland. Previously, he has worked as an expressive arts therapist at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa; a founding manager and assistant to the president of Arsom Silp Institute of the Arts, a newly founded postgraduate institution in Bangkok; a programme committee member of the MA programme in Contemplative Education and Transformative Learning at Mahidol University; and a facilitator of the Transformative Learning in Higher Education Project, funded by the Office of the Education Council Thailand. His research interests include leadership in academic work, contemplative and arts-based inquiry, transformative education, and spiritual development in higher education. His current doctoral research explores leadership in higher education, with a particular focus on how academics experience and understand their own leadership in their academic work, and how social and historical contexts (including personal/professional backgrounds) may influence these experiences and understandings.