Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere in the Kalahari Desert, you would have noticed that there is a serious collapse in the leadership of our universities across the country.
The current leadership crisis is unprecedented in scale (many universities at the same time), scope (not only the usual suspects) and in severity (captured institutions, in some cases).
It is a crisis at all levels, not only the vice-chancellor but including chairs of council (UCT), members of parliamentary portfolio committees (see my recent book, Corrupted), union bosses (Unisa, SMU), student leaders (UKZN), registrars and premiers (UFH), deans and professors, and so on.
The question often posed to me is why?
How did we get into this rut in university leadership to begin with?
I can think of seven key reasons.
One, in the necessary and understandable rush to transform the senior leadership of our universities, we hire the wrong people.
And in SA universities at the moment, the gold standard is the black African woman.
As the former chair of council (a black man) of one of our eminent universities told me: "We told the candidate she was not our first choice, but ..."
My question is, then why did you hire her? This of course has nothing to do with race or gender.
Contrast the current leadership mess with one of our eminent university leaders Prof Sibongile Muthwa at Nelson Mandela University; she combines top-class academic credentials (PhD from the famed School for Oriental and African Studies, University College London, with a MSc from London School of Economics) with excellent personal qualities for university leadership.
Two, in the necessary and important focus on the academic qualifications of the candidate for leadership, we forget there is a range of other critical attributes that must be taken into account in the selection of leaders, such as individual temperament, management capacity, team sense, leadership instincts, self-awareness and personal humility.
Three, in coming to leadership of large institutions like universities, some of our leaders do not know how to make sense of and carry their newfound power.
In the Afrikaans universities the vice-chancellor was regarded for years as a close relative of the Almighty and you could order left and right across the campus, unless you learnt quickly to rein in your power especially after 1994.
As first-generation black vice-chancellors coming from powerless communities as far as leading large organisations (outside church or mosque) is concerned, it takes an enormous amount of self-awareness not to wield your new power irresponsibly.
It is worth reminding ourselves of this precious statement by our country’s founding father, the late Nelson Mandela: “If you want the co-operation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important — and you do that by being genuine and humble.” — Interview with Oprah for O Magazine, April 2001.
Four, in running complex organisations such as universities, new leaders do not always realise their success depends crucially on the quality and co-operation of their second-tier leadership.
Consider the fraught relationship between the vice-chancellor and the registrar at Unisa, or the former vice-chancellor and the deputy vice-chancellors at UCT.
Regardless of who is at fault, if that relationship between the head of the university and the second layer of expertise is weak or compromised, you will fail as a vice-chancellor.
Five, in running small or large universities, any vice-chancellor’s leadership can be fatally compromised by excessive interference by political forces.
This can be in the form of a provincial premier who thinks the local university, a national entity, is his personal fiefdom and then allegedly becomes involved in trying to scam a degree off the institution.
Political interference can take many forms, like seeking to influence tender decisions for personal gain, running your own party candidates for senior positions, or simply acting partially with respect to a particular vice-chancellor by withholding supporting in a crisis.
Where the vice-chancellor is aligned to the ruling party (nothing wrong with that in principle) but then sees his or her role as enabling external politics on campus, then that corrupt relationship will further undermine independent, academic leadership of a public university.
Six, when a university leader comes to power with a strong and explicit racial or ethnic bias in their leadership choices, then building relationships will be compromised and crisis becomes inevitable.
As I told a then new vice-chancellor who asked for advice, and who is known to wear her racial and ethnic alliances on her sleeves: “You must understand that when you lead an SA university (or any organisation for that matter) you lead all our people, not only those who look like you or me.”
Seven, in choosing a university leader, it has become more and more important to gain a sense in the selection process of their steering values.
What drives the person? Is it personal acclaim and aggrandisement?
Is it self-enrichment for a person consumed by material gain, a flashy lifestyle and the status bestowed?
Or is it selfless service to the university community first and, of course, to the broader society?
A self-obsessed, narcissistic, materialistic leader will bring down a great university because the focus would not be solely on the academic project, but on how that person is seen, loved and admired in the outside world.
Whether it is the president of a country or the vice-chancellor of a university, never forget that they did not choose themselves.
We bear responsibility for our leadership choices and the awful consequences that sometimes follow.
Excerpt from a speech to the Cape Town Press Club on June 21