Leadership Development as a key Strategy for Institutional Transformation

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are experiencing turbulent times and have no choice but to adapt and transform. The increased focus on institutional effectiveness, efficiency and responsiveness within the new higher education legislative framework positioned the role of leadership centre stage in institutional change. Change cannot be forced through purely technical approaches such as re-engineering and restructuring. Contextually adaptive leaders are needed to continuously reframe dilemmas, reinterpret options, and reform operations. However, insufficient leadership ability is part of the problem. This paper will report on work in progress regarding a leadership capacity building project in a South African university. The aim of the project was to build collective leadership capacity of all academic managers within the system to communicate and connect, to drive change initiatives and to align effort by using leadership development to leverage transformation. The project involved the implementation of the LEAD programme. A distinctive feature of the LEAD was that a system-wide approach was adopted where all academic managers across the seven campuses within the university participated in the programme. Furthermore, the programme content was contextualised to respond to the unique challenges such as the complex and dynamic social, economic, and political context of leaders within the university. This paper makes a significant contribution in an area that is crucial to the successful transformation of the HE sector.