HOW LEADERS CAN SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE CHANGE IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES - Leadership Tools and Cooperation Tools

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rhys

Higher education change leaders face shared governance dynamics where presidents cannot simply direct institutions toward new goals. The work explains how to assess internal stakeholder agreement on both desired outcomes and cause-and-effect beliefs, arguing that many conventional cooperation tools fail under mismatched conditions. It introduces a tools framework for leadership, management, culture, and power, including separation and cooperation mechanisms, and applies it through examples from multiple universities to guide successful rollout and movement.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Shared governance and leadership challenges

Understanding the Level of Agreement: Tools of Cooperation

Assessing stakeholder agreement on goals

Assessing agreement on cause and effect

Leadership Tools

Management Tools

Culture Tools

Power Tools and the Tool of Separation

Tools of Cooperation in Action in Higher Ed

Leadership Tools at Yale University

Management Tools at Northeastern University

Power Tools and Separation at Southern New Hampshire University

Culture Tools at Simmons University

Mechanisms of Movement

Success, Common Language, and the Power of Education

Notes

About the Institute, About the Author

HOW LEADERS CAN SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE CHANGE IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES BY MICHAEL B . HORN WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM RYAN MACINNIS AND RICHARD PRICE OCTOBER 2022 C HR IST E NS E N INS T I T U TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3 Understanding the Level of Agreement: Tools of Cooperation 4 Leadership Tools 6 Management Tools 8 Culture Tools 8 Power Tools 9 Tool of Separation 10 Tools of Cooperation in Action in Higher Ed 11 Leadership Tools at Yale University 11 Management Tools at Northeastern University 12 Power Tools and the Tool of Separation at Southern New Hampshire University 13 Culture Tools at Simmons University 14 Mechanisms of Movement 16 Success 16 Common Language 16 The Power of Education 18 Notes 19 About the Institute, About the Author 20 T E : H OW L EA D E RS CA N S U CC ESS FU L LY MA NAG E C HA N G E I N HI G HE R E D 2 INTRODUCTION In traditional institutions of higher education, presidents can’t snap their fingers to move the college or university in a particular direction. Shared governance—the processes through which faculty, the administration, and even students and staff participate in creating the policies and charting a direction for an institution—is a major tenet of higher education. How to get cooperation and agreement to move an institution forward is one of the trickiest parts of the leader’s job. Yet moving forward must be a priority as higher education copes with the emergence of technology-enabled learning solutions while maintaining an increasingly expensive traditional educational model. Add to this environment a number of stressors—from the challenges of educating during the pandemic, to shrinking numbers of high school graduates, to turbulent debates over what schools can and can’t teach and what faculty can and can’t say—and it’s imperative to chart strategic paths forward rather than stay put or drift. There’s arguably never been a more difficult time to be a leader of a higher education institution. The average tenure of a college president has consistently and steadily declined over the last couple of decades. It’s no longer unusual to see presidential tenures end after three to five years. Against this backdrop, a theory from our research on innovation can help leaders. It’s a theory about what tools to use when there are varying levels of agreement within an organization. Used as a lens to better understand causal mechanisms, the theory reveals that not all the tools available to leaders work in all circumstances. To successfully chart a course forward, leaders need to understand the level of agreement inside their college or university and then use the right tools to forge ahead. C HR IST E NS E N INST IT UT E : H OW L EA D E RS CA N S U CC ESS FU L LY MA C HR IST E NS E N INS T I T U UNDERSTANDING THE LEVEL OF AGREEMENT: TOOLS OF COOPERATION Once a college or university leader has clarity around what they want to change, they still need to convince the individuals who play a role and have a say in the change—even if the leader has designed and tested the change with significant parts of the community. How can leaders convince individuals to cooperate and work together? There are a variety of tools, ranging from motivational, visionary speeches to command-and-control orders that an individual could use to elicit cooperative behavior. These are called the Tools of Cooperation. The first important thing to know is that most of these tools don’t work most of the time. As a result, leaders often fail when trying to manage change, as the tools they use waste credibility, energy, and resources. Therefore, the most important upfront action is to assess the organization’s circumstance in terms of stakeholders’ agreement on what the organization’s goals should be and how it can achieve them. Figure 1 depicts these two variables. The vertical axis measures the extent to which the people involved agree on the go

FAQs

How do leaders assess stakeholder agreement to choose the right tools?

They evaluate two dimensions: agreement on the organization’s goals (what people want) and agreement on cause and effect (how actions lead to desired outcomes). Correct diagnosis strongly influences how changes should be rolled out.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rhys