Abstract
UK higher education institutions (HEIs) are facing uncharted territory in the 21st century with new financial challenges in the post-Browne environment. Traditional leadership models based on bureaucracy, hierarchy, and rational analysis are not well suited to new challenges posed by a volatile world economy, global competition, rapid technological advances, and cultural diversity. Amidst calls for greater cross-fertilization of ideas between arts and management (Adler, 2006; Austin and Devin, 2003; Whyte, 1994), this paper examines the potential of design-inspired leadership to tackle the complex organisational problems (Cooperrider, 2010) facing UK HEIs.
This paper will discuss an exciting emerging paradigm for higher education (HE) which is at the intersection of leadership, creativity, design thinking, and innovation and consider how educational leaders can use design-inspired leadership as an integral component of strategic innovation at the institutional level. The authors define design-inspired leadership as leadership that imagines new possibilities, discovers new insights, and generates innovative design solutions using right-brain capabilities. At the heart of design-inspired leadership lies design thinking (Brown, 2008; Carr et al. 2010; Dunne and Martin, 2006; Martin, 2004, 2007, 2009; Meiner and Leifer, 2011) which involves a range of human-centered innovation and experimentation activities nurtured by observing and understanding what stakeholders need and want in their lives. There has been little research that has focused on the role of harnessing creativity and design thinking in leading universities in the 21st century. This paper will address this gap by introducing the concept of design-inspired leadership for HE leaders.
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