26 Strategic Leadership
governance for leadership (see, e.g., Benjamin and Carroll 1998; Duderstadt 2004;
Keller 2004; Tierney 2004).
Authority in “Organized Anarchies”
If we are to grasp the depth of the issues concerning leadership and shared
governance, we need to go below the surface to understand other dimensions of
academic processes of choice. In their classic study of the presidency, Cohen and
March (1986) use the mordant phrase “organized anarchy” to describe several
of the defining features of university decision making. This does not mean that
universities are filled with marauding bands of teachers and students, but that
they have several formal “anarchic” properties, one of which is having problem-
atic goals (Cohen and March 1986). What this means in a collegiate context is
explained in two lines worthy of immortality: “Almost any educated person can
deliver a lecture entitled ‘The Goals of the University.’ Almost no one will
listen to the lecture voluntarily” (Cohen and March 1986, 195). Why? Because
in order to gain acceptance and avoid controversy, the goals have to be stated so
broadly that they become ambiguous or vacuous.
Another defining characteristic of colleges and universities is that their basic
educational processes are unclear (Cohen and March 1986). There are no stan-
dard methods of collegiate education, but rather a vast number of divergent and
autonomous approaches to teaching, learning, and research. As these are carried
on by custom, trial and error, preference, and intuition, professors do not really
understand the effects of their methods of teaching and learning and resist efforts
to assess the results (cf. Bok 2006).
Colleges and universities also are characterized by fluid participation in their
systems of governance. Many professors show minimal interest in organizational
matters and prefer to be left alone to do their work. They wander in and out of
the decision-making process depending on circumstance and inclination. Cohen
and March conclude that these characteristics do not “make a university a bad
organization or a disorganized one; but they do make it a problem to describe,
understand, and lead” (1986, 3).
Decoupled Choice Processes
Cohen and March also offer an influential analysis of a decoupled pattern
of organizational choice making that they refer to as the “garbage can” pro-
cess. Organizational decision making is not simply what it appears to be, that
is, a set of rational procedures for making decisions and for resolving conflicts
through rational argumentation and negotiation. It may be these things, but it is
something quite different as well (Cohen and March 1986).
The graphic image of garbage (a better metaphor might be baggage) is used
to indicate that the opinions, problems, and solutions that are always flowing
through an organization typically do not have a necessary connection to a specific