Leaders in Higher Education and Corporate America

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Leaders in Higher Education and Corporate America

Introduction

The leadership from corporate sector has often made it to the news because of their overwhelming contribution to the industry they are working for. For the last few decades, media has been following corporate leadership and giving exposure to their contribution. Steve Jobs overshadowed almost all the leaders in the corporate sector with his charismatic and enduring personality. Alan Mulally has been seen as one of the most influential leaders because he drove Ford to the path of success. On the other hand, education sector has not witness any kind of change because of the incapability of leadership that has been leading the domain for years (Portney, 2011). The paper will discuss the differences between the leadership of higher education sector and the one that has been dominating the corporate sector.

Discussion

The reason behind the subsistence of an ineffective leadership in the education sector is the system of succession that has been encouraging the professors to assume leadership positions. It is said that leadership qualities are inborn, which is why no one can help an individual to be a leader. They are the chosen one with inborn leadership characteristics. The professors that assume leadership roles are resistant to change because they have never wanted to challenge the status quo. They followed a structure to assume these positions and would never try to change it. It is to be said that the leadership in higher education lacks the agility unlike corporate leadership. A leader is the one that can inspire his followers to be like him. In the education sector, there is no leader that can nurture the followers to be his successors. The corporate leaders are not only welcoming the change but they also are creating a shared vision so that their followers can work for the common goals, whereas the education leadership is following an exactly opposite direction.

It is important to note that a leader needs to be trained before he is supposed to assume a position. This is something that is totally ignored in the higher education sector. Despite the fact that the higher education sector gets an immense amount of federal funds from the government, there is no proper framework for training in order to groom leaders in the particular sector. It is the multiplicity of constituencies that makes it important for the educational ...