160 Ethics in Higher Education: Values-driven Leaders for the Future
who processes ideas and applies them; a manager as a critical thinker,
“this ability – which is sometimes known as a helicopter mind – enables
managers to generate their own theories from practice, and to develop
their own practical ideas from theory” (1986:29).
9.3 Conclusion
In conclusion I wish to point out that higher education management
everywhere in the world is taking place in the midst of a dangerous and
unpredictable world. Unpredictability has to do with the availability of
resources necessary to make the university function effectively, but also
about uncertainty due to the currents and cross-currents of culture and
politics, ideas and philosophies, and of science and morality. In recorded
history there can never have been a time when universities lived through
calm and peace times. It is equally correct that universities can never be
islands of calm in a sea of storms. Tsunamis uproot both nature, people
and establishments. It is understandable, not least because universities
work with a clientele of young minds much sought after in war, on the
streets, in commerce at home and abroad. For that reason young people
may be moved by a variety of influences, and so will the academic staff.
The context in which these ideas and challenges are placed is the
South African higher education landscape of 2015/2016. The art of
leadership has been tested, and as a result new learning and strategies for
leadership are developing in South African higher education. The
submission in this paper is that all leadership is at its best when it is
tested. The clarity of ideas on which it is founded, the moral questions
that drive leadership, and the intended outcomes and the effect on those
who are participants, have been examined.
What this paper seeks to establish, though, is that universities survive
because they are founded on the will of the people, and they reflect as
fully as they can that sense of commitment to human flourishing.