The Advance HE Leadership Survey project for higher education was established to pose the question ‘What works for higher education leadership?’ with long-term objectives of generating a unique evidence base for leadership in HE and supporting organisations in designing, developing, and nurturing their leadership capacity.
To inform and shape the survey itself, Advance HE commissioned a comprehensive, year-long, scoping study, undertaken by an independent research team, with strong expertise in the field of higher education leadership at the Universities of Bristol and the University of the West of England. A separate literature review was also commissioned; as was a robust approach to global engagement via a series of roundtables. Our aim was to provide a strong, contemporary and conceptual basis for the survey, and to inform detailed survey design.
The survey report is based on responses from more than 530 leaders HE leaders from around the world at all levels of leadership experience. They were asked to respond through the perspective of their own leadership (‘Leading’) and their experience of leadership in their organisation (‘Being led’) – a deliberate comparison between how respondees see things as leaders and their experience as followers.
