Leadership and management in higher education

ABSTRACT Different models of academic governance and the way that these lead to different roles for management and leadership are discussed, with particular stress on the cybernetic model. The discussion is based on the experience of universities and polytechnics in the United Kingdom over the past 10 years. Both have successfully met the immediate threats and difficulties that faced them during that period, but they have done this through increased managerialism, which is the very opposite of the essentially collegial cybernetic model. There is a distinct possibility that the short-term success of the institutions may in consequence have been bought at the expense of their more long-term well-being.