Change Leadership, Ethics and the Future of Higher Education 127sudden requests for action. They know what they have to do
and why.
These ethical principles are the bedrock of an approach to change
which others have called “planned change” (Burnes and By, 2011). In
this approach there are focused outcomes agreed by stakeholders and the
journey to these outcomes is negotiated with stakeholders, who feel a
true sense of engagement. This contrasts with a different approach to
change, known as “emergent change” (Burnes and By, 2011) where new
decisions are made which surprise stakeholders and the information base
on which the change is being made keeps changing. Indeed, the
emergent model is one in which change is a serial set of surprise
activities as opposed to a set of inter-related and planned moves leading
to agreed outcomes. Some changes in higher education institutions can
be seen as planned and others as emergent.
One key difference between these two kinds of change – planned and
emergent – is the ethical bases of the change. In planned change ethics
are front and centre and are guiding the process of change. In emergent
change expediency and urgency drive the process, with ethical behavior
sometimes sacrificed for a “quick win”. This leads to very different
sense of stakeholder engagement and a very different focus for
leadership. In emergent change, leadership is often focused on mediating
between conflicting groups whereas in planned change the focus is more
on engagement with all stakeholders on an agreed journey and
destination. One is built on trust and the other is built on mistrust.
Given the commitment to collegiality and peer decision making
within the higher education sector, planned and ethical change seem to
fit culturally, especially if coupled with a strong use of empathy and
evidence based decision making. Emergent change is often seen in a
higher education context as expediency and is generally done with poor
or no consultation and a lack of genuine engagement.