336 Global Ethics for Leadership
altruistic mission, this approach is understandable given the economic
constraints and need ‘to earn a living’; confronted with this reality,
young students have little conceptual understanding for global demands
and universal citizenship. University leaders and teachers often equally
share this view with an unwavering and single-minded focus on
throughout and success so that Gibson^268 points out that the university
(in the U.S.A) has simply become ‘a place for professors to get tenured
and students to get credentialed’.
Global citizens, however, clearly recognise and understand the cross-
sectoral, interconnectedness of the world and the communal role that
they must play in addressing the challenges. Higher education institu-
tions have a critical role to play in raising the much-needed awareness of
endogenous factors so that graduates understand their role and function
as true global citizens—they need to reclaim and reassert this role,
committing to the impetus of social and global sustainability through
responsible leadership, innovation and creative practice, and quality, but
this can only happen where there is a thorough understanding of their
global context, and where higher education leadership and management
ensure institutional agility that will allow for proactive response to
changing higher education dynamics.
27.4 The First Value: Responsible Leadership
Globalisation is undoubtedly shaping the world in which we live and
higher education is not exempt from the influences of the global ecosys-
tem.
Globalisation confronts us with a multiplicity of new phenomena,
for the management of which we will have to provide an ethical
response. [...] (Whilst acknowledging the absence of uniformity)268
2001: 11