The Ambiguities and Possibilities of Leadership in Higher Education 27
choice under consideration. Due to their ambiguities of purpose, the absence of
an authority to define rules of relevance, and fluid participation in governance,
universities exemplify decoupled patterns of choice.
On many, if not most, campuses, for example, virtually any specific decision,
from relocating a parking lot to issuing a new admissions pamphlet, can become
a heated debate about shared governance. The search for a vice president for
development may lead to lively exchanges about the true meaning of liberal edu-
cation. In other words, people tie their passions and preoccupations to any likely
proposal or decision, whether it is relevant or not.
Multiple Constituencies: The President
as Juggler-in-Chief
Trustees are often bewildered as they come to discover that a president’s
leadership is highly circumscribed by a large variety of interests on and off the
campus. Not only does the president answer to many internal participants and
external constituencies, but many of the groups have an influential voice or a
formal role in the decision-making process. Most of them—faculty, staff, alumni,
athletic boosters, students, parents, legislators, the media, local residents, and
public officials—expect the president to advance their interests, and he or she is
evaluated by his or her capacity to do so. Increasingly those who have an ax to
grind with the president make their complaints public though e-mail networks,
anonymous opinion blogs, and Web sites. If the president takes a tough stand,
there is no guarantee that the board or the faculty will support the decision. “As
a result, presidents run the risk of being whipsawed by an ever-expanding list of
concerns and interests. Instead of a leader, the president has gradually become
juggler-in-chief ” (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges
1996, 9–10).
These structural features of split authority and shared governance, decoupled
systems, anarchic organization, disconnected choice processes, and multiple con-
stituencies together define the dense set of organizational realities within which
presidential leadership is exercised in higher education. These factors explain
why the president’s leadership through authority can be interpreted as strictly
limited and even illusory, even though the position is at the top of the institu-
tional hierarchy.
These interpretations do not mean that the work that presidents perform is
insignificant. They are the most influential individuals on a campus and play
important administrative, legal, and symbolic roles. If the president tries to do the
right things in the right ways, the benefits of presidential leadership will operate
at the margin for the good of the institution. But the influence of the individual
is not likely to be decisive or to last long after the president’s term (Birnbaum
1988, 1989, 1992; Cohen and March 1986). The position is essential but can
be played by many individuals with comparable results. As March once put it,
presidents are both necessary and “interchangeable,” like lightbulbs (quoted in