Category: Leadership & Management

Institutions may be holding themselves back by not sharing enough data
Wonkhe readers need little persuasion that information flows are vital to the higher education sector. But without properly considering those flows and how to minimise the risk of something going wrong, institutions can find themselves at risk of substantial fines, claims and reputational damage. These risks need organisational focus from the top down as well as regular review.

Information flows in higher education occur not only in teaching and research but in every other area of activity such as accommodation arrangements, student support, alumni relations, fundraising, staff and student complaints and disciplinary matters. Sometimes these flows are within organisations, sometimes they involve sharing data externally.

Universities hold both highly sensitive research information and personal data. Examples of the latter include information about individuals’ physical and mental health, family circumstances, care background, religion, financial information and a huge range of other personal information.

The public narrative on risks around data tend to focus on examples of inadvertently sharing protected information – such as in the recent case of the Information Commissioner’s decision to fine the Police Service of Northern Ireland £750,000 in relation to the inadvertent disclosure of personal information over 9,000 officers and staff in response to a freedom of information request. The same breach has also resulted in individuals bringing legal claims against the PSNI, with media reports suggesting a potential bill for those at up to £240m.

There is also the issue of higher education institutions being a target for cyber attack by criminal and state actors. Loss of data through such attacks again has the potential to result in fines and other regulatory action as well as claims by those affected.

Oversharing and undersharing

But inadvertent sharing of information and cyberattacks are not the only areas of risk. In some circumstances a failure to ensure that information is properly collected and shared lawfully may also be a risk. And ensuring effective and appropriate flows of information to the governing body is key to it being able to fulfil its oversight function.

One aspect of the tragic circumstances mentioned in the High Court appeal ruling in the case concerning Natasha Abrahart is the finding that there had been a failure to pass on information about a suicide attempt to key members of staff, which might have enabled action to be taken to remove pressure on Natasha.

Another area of focus concerns sharing of information related to complaints of sexual harassment and misconduct and subsequent investigations. OfS Condition E6 and its accompanying guidance which comes fully into effect on 1 August 2025 includes measures on matters such as reporting potential complaints and the sensitive handling and fair use of information. The condition and guidance require the provider to set out comprehensively and in an easy to understand manner how it ensures that those “directly affected” by decisions are directly informed about those decisions and the reasons for them.

There are also potential information flows concerning measures intended to protect students from any actual or potential abuse of power or conflict of interest in respect of what the condition refers to as “intimate personal relationships” between “relevant staff members” and students.

All of these data flows are highly sensitive and institutions will need to ensure that appropriate thought is given to policies, procedures and systems security as well as identifying the legal basis for collecting, holding and sharing information, taking appropriate account of individual rights.

A blanket approach will not serve

Whilst there are some important broad principles in data protection law that should be applied when determining the legal basis for processing personal data, in sensitive cases like allegations of sexual harassment the question of exactly what information can be shared with another person involved in the process often needs to be considered against the particular circumstances.

Broadly speaking in most cases where sexual harassment or mental health support is concerned, the legislation will require at minimum both a lawful basis and a condition for processing “special category” and/or data that includes potential allegations of a criminal act. Criminal offences and allegations data and special category data (which includes data relating to an individual’s health, sex life and sexual orientation) are subject to heightened controls under the legislation.

Without getting into the fine detail it can often be necessary to consider individuals’ rights and interests in light of the specific circumstances. This is brought into sharp focus when considering matters such as:
- Sharing information with an emergency contact in scenarios that might fall short of a clear “life or death” situation.
- Considering what information to provide to a student who has made a complaint about sexual harassment by another student or staff member in relation to the outcome of their complaint and of any sanction imposed.
It’s also important not to forget other legal frameworks that may be relevant to data flows. This includes express or implied duties of confidentiality that can arise where sensitive information is concerned. Careful thought needs to be given to make clear in relevant policies and documents when it is envisaged that information might need to be shared, and provided the law permits it.

A range of other legal frameworks can also be relevant, such as consumer law, equality law and freedom of information obligations. And of course, aside from the legal issues, there will be potential reputational and institutional risks if something does go wrong. It’s important that senior management and governing bodies have sufficient oversight and involvement to encourage a culture of organisational awareness and compliance across the range of information governance issues that can arise.

Managing the flow of information

Institutions ought to have processes to keep their data governance under review, including measures that map out the flows and uses of data in accordance with relevant legal frameworks. The responsibility for oversight of data governance lies not only with any Data Protection Officer, but also with senior management and governors who can play a key part in ensuring a good data governance culture within institutions.

Compliance mechanisms also need regular review and refresh including matters such as how privacy information is provided to individuals in a clear and timely way. Data governance needs to be embedded throughout the lifecycle of each item of data. And where new activities, policies or technologies are being considered, data governance needs to be a central part of project plans at the earliest stages to ensure that appropriate due diligence and other compliance requirements are in place, such as data processing agreements or data protection impact assessments are undertaken.

Effective management of the flow ensures that the right data gets in front of the right people, at the right time – and means everyone can be confident the right balance has been struck between maintaining privacy and sharing vital information.

This article is published in association with Mills & Reeve.
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January 30, 2025
Anatomy of a higher education merger – City St George’s, University of London
Depending on how you look at it, mergers are either very common or very unusual in UK higher education.

Dig deep enough into the annals of any institutional history and you will most likely find at some point that the institution as we know it today emerged from the combination or absorption of various nineteenth or twentieth-century mechanics institutes, colleges of teaching or technical colleges.

But recent history of the sector has seen only a handful of mergers, most notably the merger of what was then Victoria University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 2004, and the merger of the University of Glamorgan and University of Wales, Newport, to become the University of South Wales in 2013. More recently we’ve seen the merger of the Institute of Education into University College London, the merger of Writtle College with Anglia Ruskin University, recounted in detail on Wonkhe here, and the merger in 2024 of City, University of London and the medical school St George’s, University of London to create City St George’s, University of London.

The mergers paradox

Seen from the birds-eye view of Whitehall the relative recent paucity of higher education mergers can be puzzling to some. In the private sector mergers and acquisitions are a well-trodden path to gaining market share, reducing overheads, and generally creating the kind of organisational powerhouse before which others cower and cringe. Arguably, larger institutions can support a wider breadth of education and research activity, can have a greater impact on their external landscape, and are more protected from external change and financial twists of fortune.

But for higher education institutions there is much more to take into consideration than the goal of organisational heft and security – there is a public service mission, and the institution’s values and culture, which may be best served by remaining the same size or pursuing only modest growth. And there is the administrative complexity and effort of undertaking major organisational change, when in some cases, institutional leaders argue, the benefits of scale can be realised through strategic collaboration rather than full merger.

While it may look from the outside like the UK has a puzzlingly large number of universities and other providers of HE compared to our geographical footprint and population, we’re not a global outlier in that regard. Prospective students enjoy a broad choice of large multi-faculty institutions with a wide range of extra-curricular services and opportunities, and smaller, cosier, and more specialist offerings – indeed, higher education policy in recent decades has trended towards increasing the numbers of higher education providers.

Yet at times of financial challenge, such as those the sector is currently experiencing, talk inevitably turns to mergers and whether the sector as a whole would be more resilient if merger or acquisition was a more readily available tool in the financial sustainability arsenal. And here lies what might be termed the merger paradox – financially healthy institutions tend not to see a need for mergers or be motivated to pursue one even where a strategic business case might be made; whereas financially distressed ones are less likely to be an appealing prospect for a merger partner.

In the case of both Writtle and St George’s, their governing bodies were astute enough to realise that their institutions would not thrive in the long term, and to start considering merger well before reaching a point of crisis.

Being financially challenged is not the primary driver to merge with another institution,” says Richard Mills, Director, Head of Finance Consulting and lead for public sector M&A for KPMG in the UK. “Returns on investment take a long time to realise, and sometimes things get worse before they get better. The driver has to be strategic fit – for higher education a merger needs to be about strengthening the academic portfolio, and you need to be really clear on the vision and strategy for the merged organisation.”

Having the strategy in place, and a plan for the legal and financial aspects of managing a merger is only the beginning. “You need to consider the implications of integrating systems, processes, and culture,” says Margaret Daher, Director and major higher education change specialist at KPMG. “The worst case scenario is a Frankenstein model of bolt-ons rather than one organisation emerging. The work of a merger is much greater than the initial negotiations and the creation of a new legal entity – but that initial work can be so consuming that you end up risking letting the dual running of two distinct entities under one institution become an unintentional status quo.”

City St George’s story

Elisabeth Hill, Deputy President and Provost at City St George’s, joined what was then City, University of London in September 2022, and was given responsibility for delivery – and realising benefits from – the planned merger with St George’s, University of London which was under discussion at that point.

The merger was very much about strategy, not finances,” says Elisabeth. “City has always been a University focused on business and professional practice. When Anthony [Finkelstein] took up his post as President he saw the potential to expand the range of professions that we serve to include broader aspects of health as well as medicine. Being a larger institution gives us greater capacity, greater resilience, and a greater opportunity across a breadth of disciplines to leverage interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work internally and have a greater impact externally. All six of our academic schools already had some kind of interesting relationship with health and medicine so you could see how strengthening the breadth of health and medicine could align with City.”

At the very early stages of discussion, the governing bodies of both institutions had agreed some “red lines” – primarily to give security to the Council of St George’s that the institution’s long history would not simply be assimilated into City and disappear. The incorporation of St George’s into the new institution’s name was seen as essential, as was the idea that the merger was a combination of two universities rather than the incorporation of one by another, although it was agreed that in practice City’s structure and policies would become the reference point for subsequent work to establish the new institution.

Once it was clear that there was a strategic rationale and appetite to pursue merger for both Councils, a lot of “due diligence” work was required to make sure that the new institution would have the finances, and the expertise, to function and would be compliant in legal and regulatory terms. While neither institution felt itself to be in immediate financial peril, neither had the luxury of a financial cushion to support major investment, and it had to be clear that the combined finances of the two institutions would be sufficient both to fund the merger itself and to realise its planned benefits. Taking on space in the midst of a hospital site meant that City’s Council and executive team had to do a lot of work to establish risks and compliance expectations around estates maintenance and health and safety to ensure that they would not be putting City at risk as a result of the envisaged merger.

At this stage both institutions had to carefully manage their very distinctive relationship, i.e. having agreed to merge in principle, but not yet having merged. A tightly negotiated “transfer agreement” set out the conditions under which the merger would operate including the conditions whereby either party could legitimately back out and what information each was obliged to share, in some cases with reference to competition law. Also at this stage, work began with the Department for Education, Office for Students, Privy Council, and General Medical Council among others to work through the academic and legal governance issues of transferring powers and duties from one higher education institution to another. Further work was undertaken to understand the implications for students and prospective students and their likely response to the merger and any related impact.

A key thing was that there was little in terms of pre-defined process for dealing with a university merger of this type,” reflects Elisabeth. “At times it felt like we were making it up – albeit in a very thoughtful and evidence-informed way – as we went along. It was especially helpful to have people with insights from other sectors on our Council that we could draw on where useful or relevant in our sector and context. External bodies were very supportive, and we drew on significant external support, which is an absolute necessity in this kind of work. I don’t know how you could effect something like this without broader insight, guidance and expertise.”

Integration – two becoming one

The new City St George’s, University of London formally came into being on 1 August 2024, but the work of integration is ongoing. “We decided to leave most of the integration work until after the formal point of merger,” says Elisabeth. “By that time, we had been talking about merging for two years and there was a sense that some people were tired of the discussion and needed to see that it was really happening. And on a pragmatic level it is much easier to work through the integration challenges when everyone is under one metaphorical roof, there’s one vice chancellor, one senior team – so we judged that this approach would provide certainty and signal an ability to move forward, replacing uncertainty with certainty. Once we had access to all the detail of the information about St George’s programmes it also became clear that we weren’t going to have to deal with a lot of overlap, which was helpful because it meant we could deliver on a cultural expectation that we would respect the St George’s heritage, which by implication is fundamentally about the academic programmes and research.”

Key priorities for integration were about bringing together St George’s and City’s School of Health & Psychological Sciences into one academic unit, whose executive dean was appointed through an external recruitment process. There was also a mapping process to establish the university professional functions and roles, and assign some functions to the new school, and some to the university. An early priority was confirming directors of professional services for the merged institution, who were then tasked with managing the integration of their teams. This work is now underway.

While that integration work continues, Elisabeth points out that City St George’s like most universities, has a whole range of other strategic change agendas on the go, including portfolio review, curriculum management, creation of a student services hub, and replacement of some university professional services systems. There is also a root and branch review of professional services under way, looking at the location and effectiveness of roles and functions. That means it’s harder to attribute impact specifically to the merger process, but it’s also harder for people to blame the merger as the sole cause of unpalatable disruption.

There is active discussion at City St George’s Council about what above-baseline success measures for the merger should be. Some members of St George’s Council have joined an enlarged City St George’s Council and work is underway to establish the culture of the new institution and supporting processes, and the information needed by Council members to ensure their understanding of the combined institution and support informed decision making around strategic developments and operational priorities.

Institutionally, leadership continues to think on a day-to-day basis about the kind of integrated community it wants to have at the level of both school and university and what sorts of interventions will help people forge that community. Leaders are taking care to have visibility across all university campuses, putting effort into building relationships, undertaking more formal “road shows” to share strategy, hosting talks, and holding informal sessions with different staff groups. The two students’ unions have also merged – a separate merger in its own right – and continue to maintain an active presence on both sites, strengthening student representation and opportunities from the outset.

So what would Elisabeth say to another senior leader preparing for a merger? “It’s extremely intense, and for most people it starts outside your normal realm of expertise. You have to be prepared to run business as usual alongside all the additional work on merging, and you have to support staff and students to stay focused on the things they should be focusing on and not getting distracted either by opportunities for future alignment or deferring things to post-merger.”

Perhaps the most important lesson for any leader considering merger is having to be prepared to navigate the challenge of sticking to institutional and professional values while actually achieving what can be an intensely challenging process on a human level:

We always wanted to be respectful of context and history, to collaborate, be true to our values, and true to the commitments we made and the ethos of how the merger would be discussed and planned,” says Elisabeth. “But you can’t always be as collaborative as you might want to be – otherwise the risk is you fail to get to the point of merger agreement. At least one of the parties has to be pushing for progress and ensuring that decisions are made at any one time.”

Seven merger fundamentals

Having worked on the City St George’s merger, Margaret Daher and Richard Mills would strongly advise boards and executive teams to recognise that a merger is a serious strategic endeavour – it needs to be owned and delivered by resolute staff and managers. Their experience and studies of successful mergers highlights seven fundamentals which need to be got right, although they add that often these are still ignored.
1. Create and communicate a strong, clear vision. From the start, all staff should be informed of the compelling strategic rationale behind the merger, the transition process and the expected changes, and encouraged to engage in two-way feedback to increase the sense of involvement.
2. Select new leaders early and let them lead. By identifying and publicising the new leadership team, the merged entity can effectively cut links with past loyalties, provide clarity on leadership and lines of reporting, building cultural alignment and engagement.
3. Place an emphasis on integration planning. Having a robust and long-term post-merger integration plan is essential to overcoming fragmented ways of working, legacy structures and cultural issues, thereby reducing the risk of indefinitely dual running.
4. Do the due diligence. Giving proper consideration to short- versus long-term benefits, and carrying out robust due diligence to understand risks fully and test the plans will help the organisations set their sights on opportunities at an early stage, and incorporate anticipated issues into post-merger integration plans so they are monitored and addressed.
5. Win over stakeholders and develop cultural alignment. Staff are the people that make services happen, so it is vital to overcome any resistance to change. A comprehensive change management approach needs to be adopted, “change champions” should be chosen at an early stage, and given the responsibility and authority to influence and motivate their colleagues. Understanding cultural differences and how to achieve alignment is critical.
6. Develop both the structure and people. Make sure that the new merged organisation has the resources and the skills to manage the transition process by investing in suitable capability, as well as instituting structural and procedural changes such as mixed work schedules and cross-site working that can encourage collaboration and generate a new culture.
7. Have patience to achieve long term objectives. Mergers are highly challenging and integration is unlikely to happen quickly. To succeed every level of the organisation requires dedicated resources, experienced people, and strong pre- and post-merger planning, all of which take time to develop and deploy.
While there are obvious practical and cultural hurdles to overcome, what recent examples demonstrate is that with the right vision, case for change and supporting business rationale, a merger can be the strategic solution for long term sustainability.

This article is published in association with KPMG as part of our Radical Efficiency series. You can view other articles in the series here.
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January 27, 2025
University leaders can be more adventurous in championing each other’s institutions

It’s a new year and higher education sector challenges remain the same. However, with a new year always comes the opportunity to rethink, reframe and reset – a moment to consider new approaches and even new behaviours whether individual, organisational or cross-sector.

The last few months of 2024 saw the sector start to step up to the challenge laid down by Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson to reform and transform. In December, Universities UK unveiled its taskforce on efficiency and transformation in higher education, with a focus on partnership and collaboration to deliver transformation and cost savings through new models and ways of working. The promise is that the work of the taskforce will drive “meaningful change” that has longevity through “working well together and being productive for the long term.”

Long term, embedded change is great, but the need for something to shift is tangible and urgent today, this week, this month. I’m not sure we can wait too long for taskforce outcomes. So, as we start 2025, what can we – university leaders and sector bodies – do now to rethink, reframe and reset approaches and behaviours to enable meaningful change to happen?

System advocacy

Many of us are familiar with the practice of advocacy – supporting or defending an individual, arguing in favour of a cause, acting on behalf of others. A great advocate is skilled at providing a voice to marginalised individuals or communities, often those who do not have the social or cultural capital (in effect resources or networks) to enable their voice to be heard.

Sustained advocacy work has the potential to enable others to understand different viewpoints, can influence policy development, brings key issues to the fore and enables decisions to be made. Critically, advocacy represents the individual or community faithfully and truthfully, because the individual or community is involved in the process.

Now, for “community” read “higher education sector” and reflect for a moment on advocacy effectiveness for and within higher education as the sector faces considerable challenges. How good are we, collectively and individually, at providing a voice to support those providers who may be experiencing marginalisation?

As university leaders do we really understand, value and advocate for different missions and models of operating, especially within our own localities or geographical regions? Do we harness a spirit of advocacy to bring key issues to the fore, for the greater good, in order to precipitate systems change through coherent and collective decision-making? Are we all fully involved in a process of advocacy for our sector, to ensure that representations are made faithfully and truthfully and that diversity is properly accounted for… or is it only a few voices that are actually heard?

I believe the advocacy picture within the higher education sector is patchy. On the plus side, I do think that sector representatives and mission groups have absolutely stepped up in terms of advocating for the value our sector brings. We have a strong, consistent and evidence-based narrative now in relation to the economic impact of universities, alignment of our work with the government’s five missions and the positive career outcomes for individuals who gain a higher education. One could define that work as “systems advocacy” perhaps. However, with the government promising higher education review outcomes later in 2025, time will tell if the sector’s well-crafted narrative influences policy change in fundamental areas across our system such as funding, student maintenance support and more.

Self-advocacy is also reasonably successful if viewed through the lens of “type” of higher education provider. For example, small and specialist institutions particularly across the creative sector are good at advocating for the value of what they provide. My own university is part of the Cathedrals Group, which celebrates and advocates for those universities with a faith foundation. The Russell Group is another clear example of a collective that successfully advocates for self. However, the danger here is that we only advocate for what matters to us with reference to that particular grouping; the collective needs of the “system” as well as the particular needs of individual institutions can be lost.

What I think is missing is a more generous sense of individual advocacy, by senior institutional leaders across the sector – vice-chancellors, senior team members, and chairs of boards. Imagine a context where university leaders are supported to work through a particular problem or supported to self-advocate with an issue that is especially perplexing. Better still, imagine senior higher education institutional leaders advocating positively for each other and their organisations when the one for whom they are advocating for is not even in the room. Now that would be a breakthrough.

Networked advocacy

To be clear, I’m not describing here ongoing informal moral support, empathy and practical “tips and tricks” within an inner circle. As a vice-chancellor I have a small group of trusted VC colleagues who I know I can pick up the phone to, test ideas and speak the unspeakable.

What I envisage is a more open, public and objective approach to advocacy from senior leaders within the sector for other institutions and leaders within the sector – basically, shining a light on the good stuff and value that is delivered by another institution. Behaviours that show understanding, value and advocacy for different missions, models of operating and institutional strengths. Advocacy approaches that support respectful, coherent and collective decision-making across the full diversity of our sector. I do not dispute that there are pockets of such advocacy activity taking place across the sector, but it does feel a tricky concept and perhaps not widely practiced. What are the barriers to such an approach becoming more commonplace?

I suggest that the top barrier relates to nervousness from institutional leaders in relation to market competition and the disclosure of commercially sensitive information. To be blunt, it’s hard to trust the competition. The need to chase student numbers makes advocacy for the “opposition” extremely challenging for many of us. This is underlined by the fact that my trusted informal “inner circle” of mutually supportive VCs is made up of colleagues from different regions and/or totally different provider type, where competition is not an issue.

So what would it take to unlock a spirit of advocacy by sector leaders?

Well, I speak for myself when I know that I need to better appreciate the value that individual higher education providers bring, whether that be on a local, regional, national or global scale; I need to better understand where different providers “fit” in the higher education ecosystem and how, in turn, all providers work together to deliver what our nation needs.

However, that conversation demands that I step out of my own comfort zone to genuinely understand synergies and differences across our sector, and advocate for those synergies and differences rather than myopically focus on my own organisation in isolation. I admit, it is hard to shine a light on and advocate for the great stuff happening elsewhere, especially when I want the world to know about what my own university is achieving and contributing.

As university leaders, if we genuinely believe that higher education is critical to addressing the challenges faced by not only individuals and communities but also our nation and our planet, then we need to think of the sector as a collective and as a “system” of interlinked and interdependent providers. Our system is wonderful in its diversity but could garner even more impact through intentionally public approaches to provider recognition, celebration and support from organisational leaders.

As we start the new year, it’s time for some adventures in advocacy. This will demand that as leaders we invest time in building relationships and garnering trust, beyond our comfort zone. I challenge myself in embracing the inconvenience of becoming a better advocate for those providers that may not be immediately relatable, but who play their part in transforming lives, communities and in providing opportunity for all.

If we all commit to a new year adventure in advocacy, we will have a great platform on which to build a sector truly ready for reform and transformation through respectful and supportive collaboration and partnership.

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January 12, 2025
Universities need leaders at every level

It may be the season for giving. However, it looks unlikely that universities will find a gift-wrapped solution to their financial worries under the tree anytime soon.

There are busy times ahead for the higher education sector, what with boosting the economy, solving the evils of social injustice, and restoring civic accord to our troubled nation – as the government appears to expect. Realistically, however, most higher education institutions will be operating with reduced numbers of employees and leaner resources, for the foreseeable future. So, it is not entirely clear how this all adds up.

In a “more for less” environment, the institutions that will survive, perhaps even thrive, will be those that are able to get the very best out of each individual. What universities urgently need, therefore, is outstanding, engaged leadership.

Beyond the executive suite

But just to be clear, when I say “leadership”, I am not talking about stronger, tougher, more detailed decision-making at the top. With the best will in the world, the ten people who sit in the executive suite on a Tuesday morning with a pot of coffee can only do so much.

However, what can have a transformative impact on organisations is a willingness to mobilise, align and empower a distributed network of leaders at every level of an organisation to motivate, support and develop their staff, so that everyone can achieve more.

This isn’t a new idea. From Peter Drucker in the 1960s, through to more recent work by Martin Seligmann, Michael West, Brené Brown, and many others, the published wisdom on organisational psychology tends to show that command-and-control styles of directive authority are less effective than positive and collaborative methods of leading that harness knowledge and creativity across an organisation. This is especially so when responding to cultural issues and “wicked problems”. We might have a few of those.

This is not to say that everyone should get a vote on everything all the time. Nevertheless, the working principle that, within agreed limits, decisions should be taken as close as possible to the actual activity is a good one – and might well save time, money and trouble.

Leadership skills

Nobody says this is simple. Devolving decision-making calls for high levels of trust, skill and communication across leadership teams and for attention to personal development. The Institute of Leadership, a membership organisation with 75 years of experience in this game, identifies 49 principles of leadership, ranging from adaptability, and dealing with conflict, to ethics, managing upwards and resilience. (Anyone who has ever chaired a department meeting will probably have required most of these abilities before reaching item four on the agenda.)

Cappfinity, a global talent lifecycle management company, deeply embedded in global industry with 20 years of research, lists no fewer than 80 key workspace skills, highlighting eight “altitude leadership” strengths: agile thinking, relationship navigation, accountability, self-insight, inclusive leadership, courage, strategic vision and change facilitation. Surely, more of these things in daily university life could only help, whatever the next big policy change might be.

As a sector, and with some external prompting, universities and other higher education providers have recently become much better at articulating, assessing and developing employability skills for students.

However, there’s still some way to go on helping staff to identify, understand and optimise their technical, cognitive and behavioural strengths (to borrow a taxonomy from Cappfinity). Of course, some colleagues already display these skills; others clearly need to learn them. All too often, people in our organisations do have remarkable qualities and abilities, but don’t have the opportunities or the motivation to use them. These unrealised strengths constitute a potentially rich resource for universities, especially when other kinds of resource are in short supply.

Abi Parker of Cappfinity points out that tapping into these abilities can make a profound difference:

With skills development, at every level, everything starts with self-insight. What’s special about leadership development is that any positive movement is amplified, meaning that as a lever for improving organisational effectiveness, leadership development is a great place to start. This is especially true in difficult times.

The marzipan layer

If only there was a pan-institutional network of experienced colleagues able to communicate effectively, to take responsibility at local level, to promote strategic objectives, to motivate and support employees, and to innovate appropriately without excessive investment or risk.

Ah, yes. Right. So, the good news is that universities already have these highly developed internal structures in both academic and professional services teams, in the form of deans, directors, heads, section leads and their deputies. The bad news is that our large, bureaucratic institutions can sometimes ignore and elide what is going on at this level, or these leaders can end up overwhelmed and discouraged, unsure how to manage the apparently competing demands of their own staff and the senior team.

As Mark Smith, vice chancellor at the University of Southampton, observes:

The crucial layer of leadership in an institution is the senior leadership of academic departments and professional service directorates. If this layer is not trusted, empowered and sufficiently skilled there is relatively little those further up can do to bring about change.

This “marzipan layer”, as governance adviser Seamus Gillen of Value Alpha has memorably described it, may become more important than ever as universities navigate the more-for-less maze that lies ahead.

Not everyone loves marzipan, I know, but something has to hold together the crusty royal icing and the crumbly yet delicious fruit cake – just as someone has to localise change initiatives and restructures, to support individuals through difficult contract negotiations, to locate and realise efficiencies, to manage workloads, to resolve conflicts, and to ensure that somehow, against all odds, students continue to get the best possible education.

Thinking more expansively, if universities really are going to play a greater role in society, boost economic growth, drive new knowledge and be more active in cities and regions – I believe and hope they can – then it will be at the level of local leadership that new partnerships will be maintained, inequalities will be gradually eroded, and innovative models for education delivery will evolve.

As Gillen observes, for some people, the marzipan is the best bit:

Just because it’s squeezed in the middle doesn’t mean it’s all bad. If Deans and ‘Heads of’ could be empowered, and feel empowered, they could, would and can transform an institution’s future.

So, as you cut yourself a festive slice, consider that nurturing leadership competencies and behaviours at all levels of our knowledge industry might be the smart place to put your time and energy in the year ahead. Developing teams and individuals won’t provide a quick solution, but it will create the conditions from which future solutions for the sector can emerge. After all, we’re in the education business. Enabling and empowering people is what we do.

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December 19, 2024