244 Strategic Leadership
their own thinking, all of which are characteristics of learning organizations. It
is just this kind of intellectual virtuosity that is part of the discipline of strategic
leadership in higher education. When a powerful sense of strategic direction takes
hold within an organization, new resources of thought and imagination become
available. The continuing tensions in policies and purposes have a stock of strate-
gic insights on which to draw to create virtuous circles of understanding to resolve
conflicts and to find shared commitments.
Strategic thinking in colleges and universities always encounters a series of
implicit or explicit conflicts in governance, mission, and vision. Some of them
track the fundamental value conflict in the decision-making system itself, reflect-
ing the tension between autonomy and authority, intrinsic and instrumental
values, or the paradigms that accompany them. Others lie within the academic
sphere alone, while others, such as policies relating to social and academic student
life, cross two or more decision-making zones. The organizational culture and the
missions of many institutions of higher learning are balanced between purposes
such as the following, which illustrate various forms of conflict, tension, and com-
plementarities, especially in the context of a changing world (Morrill 1990):
- Teaching and research
- Liberal and professional education
- General education and disciplinary specialties
- Access and selectivity
- Diversity and community
- Need-based aid and merit scholarships
- Undergraduate and graduate studies
- Central and regional campuses
- Religious and secular values
- Local needs and national ambitions
- Legacy and change
- Student social life and academic life
- The academic core and the academic periphery
- Centralization and decentralization
- Equal resources and selective excellence
- Assessment as value added or as a level of achievement
- Academic selectivity and athletic competitiveness
- Openness and confidentiality
- Authority and participation
Teaching and Research
Let us look at a couple of examples to see how a process of strategic inquiry can
become a form of conflict resolution. No one in higher education will argue that