Hi,

Here is a short answer: Please go in to the homepage of HI-Innovate (guided framework for entrepreneurial universities - OECD and EU) and you will find a section on university leadership and measures. I was in the group that created the 'tool'. /Magnus

Dear Emilio Alvarez-Suescun,

The overall university leadership can be measured in terms of leader's Managerial Capabilities of Managing its Intellectual Capital which can further be measured or determined on the basis of three basic domains of the university system i.e. teaching, research and extension.

1) For Teaching: The nature and types of courses offered i.e. their individual, social and industrial demand vis-a-vis need based teaching mechanism adopted for knowledge transfer.

2) For Research: Inventions, innovation, publications and patents with their social utility could be some of the parameters.

3) For Extension: The outreach programmes undertaken, social responsibilities performed, institutional ties with its internal and external customers etc. could be some yardsticks.

The cumulative effect of all these three will be determinants of the strength of  industry-institute ties, institutional elevation and the leadership effectiveness. 

Too many universities measure too many intermediate steps to success. Leaders focus on outcomes, not inputs. Student access (serving all economic levels) and student success (earning a degree) are key measures for students. Quality research and translation of research into economic impact is important for constituents. Outreach is vital to stay connected with the public. Globalization is important for today's world. Two to three key measures in each area are sufficient. Don't measure strategy, measure outcome. Leaders produce strong outcomes.

Thank all for your answers. If I'm not wrong you suggest to measure leadership through either the strategies leaders adopt or the university outcomes.

We included some of those ideas in other dimensions of our research (culture, structural and incentive-related support mechanisms, and strategy). But we also  try to study the individual effect characteristics of university leaders may have on the impact of UIC.

I rewrote the question to better focus on this issue.

Dear Emilio:

                    Business Schools can have quality certification. In my University, we are following the AACSB standards.

Kind regards

Gustavo Concari

Dear Emilio,

As you mentioned it while considering the distributed nature of university leadership, when focussing on universities we should take into account their own organizational specificities.

A few contributions in that field can be found in the literature:

• Hardy et al. (1983) define the university as an organization of professional expertise in which decisions "emerge from collective and interacting processes" (Hardy, Langley, Mintzberg & Rose, "Strategy Formation in the University Setting" In Bess, J.L., College and University Organization: Insights from the Behavioral Sciences)
• Cohen & al. talk more about "organized anarchies" characterized by fluid participation in decision making, problematic preferences and unclear technology" (see: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2392088?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)
• In France, where the question of leadership in universities is still very new, Musselin (2001) sees the university as a confederation of micro production units of research and teaching, that are poorly connected if not in competition with each other (see, in French : Fabre, 2010, “Le ” doyen contrôleur des coûts ” : outils de gestion et allocation des ressources dans la gouvernance des universités”).

All those input emphasize the specific organization of the university where sub-units or even “employees” are independent, relatively autonomous and, for part of them, protected by a permanent position or tenure.

A last point worth noting is the great differences that exist between the various systems of higher education in the world although they share some common characteristics. I do not know much about Latin-American universities but it seems to me unavoidable to take local context into account.

In the end, university-industry collaborations can be led by the institutions’ strategic leaders, but also by specific transfer offices, applied research units or professors. An idea could be to first focus on collaboration projects to identify their main holders within the university. Those would then be the leaders whose leadership is to be assessed.

All the best for your project

You may find work around authentic leadership of value. Here's one reference:

WALUMBWA, F. O., AVOLIO, B. J., GARDNER, W. L., WERNSING, T. S. & PETERSON, S. J. 2008. Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure. Journal of Management, 34, 89-126.

If you are planning to include university outcomes, consider QSWorld Ranking criteria.

Dear Emilio,

With my colleagues we have used the Integrated Competing Values framework to measure leadership in universities in Australia.  The leadership measures are behaviorally based.  We also measure leadership effectiveness, a perceptual measure.  To gather data we used 360 degree feedback process.  Including impact measures is a stronger way of measuring the impact of the leader but you also need to take account of other variables, such a funding cuts,  that may impact on the outcome measures.  Many of our papers listed on research gate cover this research. 

Hope this helps.  Happy to talk more.

Regards

Tricia V 

The leadership of any organization, including universities, should be, in principle, authentic. Regardless of hierarchies, which should also be few, leadership should be exercised by leaders who know each other well, have an interiorized ethics, balanced process of information and healthy relationships with stakeholders. To measure this specific type of leadership there is an Authentic Leadership Questionnaire [Avolio et al. (2008)] http://www.mindgarden.com/products/alq.htm

Best regards

We might conduct a bench-marking analysis.

I'm interested but I don't know how much I have to offer. Just to kick-off a discussion, it could be interesting to review Mintzberg's definitions of 'professional bureaucracies' as universities are (at least in part) examples of this organisational form. 

Look into the vision, goals and objectives of the university concerned, and match the objectives with the actual attainments. Further, if there are gaps, and you decide to bring in new performance interventions, then see if they work towards realizing the objectives. These will help measuring the university performance.

Public and private universities differ in some aspects, but the two most important leadership decisions/actions for both are hiring and goal-setting. A university's culture is changed by hiring and its focus is changed by goal setting. Leaders also engage with their alumni and constituents effectively to sustain their support. Leaders of public univesities must also engage with political leaders for support of programs. Style of leadership may differ a lot (athoritarian or inclusive) but outomes are the same. I attended and  served as a leader in 4 public universities in the USA, so these are my observations over 40 years.

A very interesting study, Emilio. As previous contributors have suggested, we need to assess 'leadership' against measures of intended versus actual competitive performance. Global university rankings offer consistent, relevant and historical data similar to stock market data: e.g.we can track and compare the impact on market value of organisations who compete in the hiring and firing CEOs, CFOs, etc.   We could then look more closely at the internal structures and cultures of comparable universities in order to assess whether 'leadership' is / has been a factor.  

The public versus private,as well as for and not profit dimensions of universities have been highlighted by previous contributors, as determinants of managerial performance. That should be great.

The truth is one can only measure managerial performance against targets set. What does a public university set out to achieve- cash profits or cutting edge research that goes to solve problems of humanity? And in the light of goals set, how far have they been achieved by university management, in a given time frame? It is only in this framework can a meaningful analysis is done.

The shared nature of university management should not present any problem for using the input-output theory of measurement. Similar structures exist in business as can be seen in any corporate organizational structure. The rector is similar to the CEO and so on, Each member in the structure can be independently assessed in terms of effectiveness, and the whole organization can be assessed on the level of achievement of goals just like Google, Coca Cola etc

The principal thing, to me, seems to be identifying targets set and review of performance in the light of the targets. An effective and efficient management will achieve desired results. The otherwise may also hold true

To Maxwell's comment, I would add identifying outcomes, as well as results and targets  It's not unusual to achieve planned results yet still not achieve outcomes.  For example, if I want to lower the temperature in my living room, to make it more comfortable, I can do so by opening the door - but it's minus 30 centigrade outside and blowing snow all over the place.  So I'd get the result I want (lower temperature) but likely not the outcome I wanted - more comfortable.  Plus my low IQ cat would escape and I'd have to go out and fetch him back. Not comfortable at all!

Here's the ref for an article you might find of interest.  The quote under the ref gives the framework they used for assessing partnership effectiveness.

Nichols, N., Anucha, U., Houwer, R., & Wood, M. (2013). Building equitable community-academic research collaborations: Learning together through tensions and contradictions. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 6(1), 57-76.

Thirty-five partnership group members (13 community partners, 10 academic partners, 7 graduate research assistants and 5 youth) also completed a partnership self-assessment survey. The survey invited people to reflect on six partnership domains: partnership synergy; leadership effectiveness; partnership efficiency; effectiveness of the partnership’s administration and management; sufficiency of non-financial resources; and sufficiency of financial and other capital resources “p. 62”

Thank you all for your interesting contributions.

As many of you said, university performance could be a measure of leadership. However, the public Latin American (and Spanish) higher education system is much more rigid that the Anglo-Saxon one, so it would take longer to see outcomes after having setting goals, designing policies, and so on. And if we want to compare leadership, we should assume that everything else remains equal. That’s why we decided to analyze the characteristics of leaders as one more explanatory factor of the success of university-industry cooperation (UIC), together with culture, strategy and support mechanisms.

Our main concerns are:

1) ) to identify who the leader(s) in terms of UIC (or university entrepreneurship) may be. Only the Rector, or should we also consider the Vice Rectors, deans, …., as they also influence the design and implementation of policies? The management of these universities is not like that of firms. In our context, the Rector does not usually choose the deans and research team leaders. The leadership is distributed.

2) how to operationalize the characteristics of the leader(s)

Perhaps it should not be any of those people but a new position that focuses fully on building and managing such partnerships?  If that is a possibility, what are the are tributes you need in that person?  Business experience?  Research experience? Proposal development experience?  What combination?  To get at that, you would need to articulate, very clearly, 

Folks,

It appears to my mind that we are mixing two very different concepts- leadership and management. Equating leadership to management may produce very misleading results, in determining  university management

Vecchio (2006) and Shaskin and Shaskin (2004) suggest that real leadership in organization devolves not on organizational structure, but out there, based on competence, trust and the use of influence, not authority and power conferred by regulatory specification or organizational structure, necessarily.This may presuppose that some managers may be leaders while some may not be leaders.

A university is a huge bureaucracy that works on positions of authority with very defined roles and authority levels. Subordinates obey instructions not because they trust and appreciate the superior, but they must carry it out as a day job or vacate their positions. True leadership gets people to do things because they are convinced and pursued that it must be done for the group good-without coercion

Leadership may therefore not necessarily coincide with management, and may be found at different levels of the strata of management ,or even in the lower ranks. Measuring leadership is therefore an uphill task, even though some work has been done over the years  to measure leadership

Some of the proposed leadership measuring scales developed  include:

a)Leadership Skills inventory scale( Karnes and Chauvin, 1985)

b) Least Preferred worker scale ( Peters et al.1985)

c) Leader member exchange scale (Graen et al.1982; Klein and Kim, 1998)

d)Multi-factor leadership questionnaire ( Bass and Avolio, 1985)

e) Leadersship practices Inventory( Posner and Kouzes, 1993)

What need to be noted with any, and every one of these scales of leadership measurement may be as follows:

a). None has a universal answer to measuring leadership. Some measure leadership quality by trait method, while some measure the degree of bonding and acceptability of the leader by group members

b). Some of the scales are better suited for identifying leadership in small groups and some in larger ones. In the same vein, some are better predictors of leadership in manual work than in clerical work

c) Despite empirical findings in support of some of them they are relatively poor predictors of leadership quality and behavior over time

Perhaps, I confused the waters the more . Sorry

References

Bass, B., & Avolio, B. (1985). The multifactor leadership questionnaire. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Graen, G., Novak, M., & Sommerkamp, P. (1982). The effects of leader-member exchange and job design on productivity and job satisfaction: Testing a dual attachment model. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 30, 109-131

Kinicki, A., & Vecchio, R. (1994). Influences on the quality of supervisor-suborinate relations: The role of time-pressure, organisational commitment, and locus of control. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15, 75-82.

Klein, H., & Kim, J. (1998). A field study of the influence of situational constraints, leader-member exchange, and goal commitment on performance. Academy of Management Journal, 41(1), 88-95

Peters, L., Hartke, D., & Pohlmann, J. (1985). Fiedler's contingency theory of leadership: An application of meta-analysis procedures of Schmidt and Hunter. Psychological Bulletin, March, 274-285.

Posner, B., & Kouzes, J. (1993). Psychometric properties of the Leadership Practices Inventory - updated. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 53, 191-198.

Posner, B., & Kouzes, J. (1994). An extenstion of the Leadership Practices Inventory to indovidual contributors. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 54(4), 959-966

Sashkin, M. & Sashkin, M.G.(2004) Leadership that matters. The critical factors for making a difference in people’s lives and organizations’ success. Benin City. Nigeria: Gospel Press and Literature Int.

Vecchio, R.P(2006) Organizational behavior: core concepts.6th edition. Mason. OH: South Western.

Vecchio, R., & Gobdel, B. (1984). The vertical dyad linkage model of leadership: Problems and prospects. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 34, 5-20.

Avery comprehensive answer by #Maxwell Akaba and I do agree with most of the assertions made in this response. Just to add my two cents I would say the leadership at a university should be measured on a composite/comprehensive scale that includes quantitative measures of performance on funds generated, quality of education, quality and quantity of research, satisfaction of faculty & staff, satisfaction of students, satisfaction of alumni, satisfaction of employers of graduates etc. 

I would say by listing the performance indicators and then grasping the rise and fall in them over a period of time. These indicators would be different in different sectors and contexts; and would also depend upon the vision and the goals of the university concerned.

leadership within universities can be measures through two dimensions; transformation and transnational style

Leadership in higher education is a complex phenomenon because, as you point out, it does not involve a single leader. Also, the diverse styles of leadership in a single institution can interact with each other in different and unpredictable ways. A charismatic leader at the top may propagate an inspiring vision down a long chain of hierarchy, but when the people down the chain are unable to transform it into action, the overall effect is lost. In other cases, a charismatic leader at the top may involuntarily stifle initiative down the chain, so that leadership does not propagate to the levels where it could be transformed into action. In some cases, the propagation works well for some time but suddenly breaks down, often because the leader at the top was going too fast and forgot to allow for adaptation and interim stages of relaxation. In other cases, a total absence of leadership at the top may leave margin for leadership to express itself quite strongly down the chain. There are interesting cases where leadership is felt at the top and at bottom, but missing in the middle, causing the top vision to be completely distorted in the process. I´ve been studying the phenomenon qualitatively for a dozen institutions, in the context of a research project on strategy and quality in higher education, but the patterns I have identified so far are not enough to build a theory, much less a measuring scale. If the number of universities in your sample is not too large, I would suggest you try to study the phenomenon qualitatively before engaging in any quantitative attempts.

Hello 

Attempting to answer is that though the process of leadership is distributed one could attempt to measure these by looking into  the factors like idealised influence, intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, Inspiration for all the positions as suggested into the defintion of Bass

Carry out Survey basis OLA for Servant Leadership for Education

Thank you all for your helpful comments

I agree with Dr. Jack.

Leadership needs followership.

'Followers' (researchers / teachers) in higher education should by the nature of their professioan be competent at formulating balanced and controlled-for-bias assessmenst of performance, including the performance of academic 'leadership'.

However, insitutional reality is not so simple.

For, and again given the distinctive nature of the profession, gaining 'trust' is a major challenge both in the negotiation of leadership-follower relationships and, by extension, in follower assessments of leadership performance.

By their achievements

Future of any universities across the globe is defined by their leadership. However, many Universities all over the world are undergoing unanticipated challenges due to the uncertain changes in the dynamic environment in which they exist. In many countries, we have increased global unrest from students and staff, reduced government capitation to the universities, increased demand for better university education from parents and other stakeholders, political interference, nepotism and vulcanisation. The university leadership will have to play a big role in striving for success and survival of these institutions by commercialising their research for the industry to enable reduced reliance on the Government's subsidy and increase their competitiveness. One key determinants will be to measure the "agility level of the the leadership" by (i) creative abilities for agile ideas, innovation and problem solving techniques, (ii) foster team health through employee empowerment and teamwork, (iii) Maintain a focus towards key customers who are basically the students.

First of all, the leader must have leadership ideas and methods