Is courageous leadership rare in academia?

Denne teksten er et debatt­inn­legg. Inn­holdet i teksten uttrykker forfatterens egen mening.

On 29. October of this year, the Valencia region of Spain suffered its most severe flooding in the modern era. Flash floods claimed over 220 lives, leaving the region in shock and bristling with anger at the government’s failure to alert citizens in time. 

In the days that followed the tragedy, a remarkable scene unfolded: the king and queen of Spain, accompanied by the Spanish Prime Minister, visited the town of Paiporta to assess the damage and to offer comfort to its citizens. In an almost surreal encounter, many citizens greeted the royals and the PM with shouts of «murderer», while others hurled mud in protest. News outlets broadcast images of Queen Letizia, visibly distraught, face speckled with mud, and surrounded by anxious security officers.

Debatt ● Tom Karp og Trond Blindheim

— Det er blitt så mange ledere at det er vanskelig å få øye på kjernevirksomheten for bare ledelse

It is unlikely that the Spanish leaders fully anticipated the level of hostility they were to encounter. Still, they must have had some inkling about the anger that might bubble to the surface in that cauldron of emotions. Whatever one thinks about the response of Spain’s leaders—and there is much to critique—one may perhaps recognize that it takes considerable courage to face a crowd of angry and grieving citizens, many of whom see you as the cause of their suffering.

Perhaps, as the leaders and representatives of a democratic nation, they had no choice but to go to Paiporta.

Watching these scenes replay on the news over the next few days, I began to reflect on the role of dutiful courage in leadership—not courage as bravado or performative boldness, but a self-reflexive form of valor that emerges when humility and a commitment to personal accountability unite in a person with high responsibility. This form of courage requires one to stand exposed and vulnerable before the very people that one leads. 

These reflections naturally led me to think about leadership within academic institutions. Earlier in the year, I argued that trends in the governance of universities require rethinking.

Debatt ● Matthew Landers

Survey Democracy

Do we favor a model in which faculty and students are invited to make significant contributions to institutional decision-making processes? This possibility is being discussed at my institution now. Or do we prefer a more corporate system of governance, in which the governed occasionally provide feedback about important matters, but are given no political assurances that their ideas will influence final decisions? In that earlier piece, I questioned whether the idea of a «survey democracy» can rightly be called democratic.

In 2024, many of us participated in the ARK survey on work environments (Arbeidsmiljø- og arbeidsklimaundersøkelser). Like many surveys before, we were asked to distill complex experiences and opinions into simple Likert-scale responses. Many of us found that the survey questions lacked meaningful nuance. 

Worse still, the phrasing of certain questions made even a relatively straight-forward task—discerning what level of the leadership hierarchy was being evaluated—nearly impossible. Were we meant to evaluate middle-management, or top leadership? Consequently, responses—at least in my group—revealed confusion, rather than providing sought after clarity.

The results of the survey, once compiled, were presented to us in small groups by our immediate supervisors. We were given an opportunity to ask for clarifications about the data, and to raise a few concerns, but substantive discussions were deferred to a future meeting with our immediate supervisor. Et voilà.

Debatt ● Johan Bergh

Kjerneverdienes iboende faenskap

None of our senior-level decision-makers were present. The numbered responses would have to climb the hierarchical ladder, burdened with the impossible task of representing us, clumsily and impersonally, with the insufficient granularity afforded by distributions of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5. We would not be given an opportunity to explain our responses face-to-face. That would be handled by an intermediary.

It was during this meeting that my thoughts returned to Paiporta—specifically, I thought about how different the ‘face-to-face’ approach to leadership is from the statistical sterility of survey democracies. 

We all understand that there are obvious benefits to the collection of survey data. The point I am trying to make is, of course, larger than surveys like ARK, which are hollow substitutes for real accountability, if they do not prompt leaders to initiate meaningful encounters. Leaders who never ‘go to Paiporta’ never achieve a nuanced understanding of the situation, never hear the sometimes unhappy voices of the people with their own ears, and thus cannot claim to lead with either knowledge or courage.

Debatt ● Kristoffer Jul-Larsen og Heidi Støa

Vi trenger faglig med­bestemmelse ved Høgskulen på Vestlandet

Humble leaders voluntarily place themselves in vulnerable positions. They accept that they may go home with a bit of (metaphorical) ‘mud’ on their faces occasionally. Courageous leaders understand that their decisions are praised when praise is justified, and criticized when criticism is more appropriate. No one claims that criticism is pleasant; but responsibility and accountability are two sides of the same coin. 

Courageous leaders accept that they must live with the consequences of their decisions. It is only fair, since the people too must live with the effects of their leaders’ choices—only in an unequal manner. Courageous leaders must be willing to ‘go to Paiporta,’ because they see these encounters as essential for truly understanding the lived realities of the people that they lead.

I will conclude by stating that the prevailing governing structures are not designed to foster courageous leadership. Nearly every management mechanism within these systems—from endless survey-style feedback instruments, to bureaucratic dependence on middle-managers, who are used too easily to insulate decision-makers from interacting with those positioned at the bottom of the pyramid—functions to prevent face-to-face conversations. Managerial accountability flows upward to an external board, of course, but unidirectional, up-the-chain accountability does not often promote humble, courageous, or democratic management. 

Holding one’s self accountable to the people is vitally important for good leadership. Perhaps surveys and bureaucratic intermediaries are meant—no doubt, with good intentions—to provide that accountability; but, in reality, they are often barriers to it. Genuine accountability requires occasional trips to Paiporta. If we can normalize these encounters, we can create opportunities for positive exchanges and partnerships, not just discontent.

Debatt ● Matthew Landers

So, you want to be a university? A short essay on loyalty