Academic leadership: Prescriptions, practices and paradoxes

Ideas from the new public management philosophy infusing higher education often stress the need for strong and strategic academic leadership if successful adaptation to a changing environment is to take place. By showing some of the challenges facing academic leaders in Sweden and Norway, this article questions the wisdom of employing new public management ideas on leadership during change processes in higher education. It is argued that an academic leadership able to attach meaning to paradoxical situations and to illuminate challenging dilemmas may be a more promising option for a sector where change in the years to come will be more the standard situation than the exception.