Administrative Leadership

Administrative leadership encompasses all leadership roles and responsibilities existing within postsecondary educational institutions that are not explicitly related to leading the academic core. While key decisions about the creation, implementation, and improvement of the curriculum fall to academic leadership, the myriad decisions to be made, conflicts resolved, and consensuses built outside of strictly academic matters rest with administrative leadership.

Administrative leadership is a contentious subject among higher education stakeholders. Some within and outside the academy have expressed concern that a primary factor driving increased costs of postsecondary education is what has been popularly referred to as “administrative bloat”—that is, having more, and more expensive, administrative leaders than is truly necessary. Others, such as administrators and board members, have countered by suggesting that the need for leadership ...