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AHUA Expert Exchange: Leading in the Mess: Making Sense of University Leadership

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This Exchange is for AHUA member representatives only (no alternates)

How do you lead in a risk-averse organisation when you have limited control, stakeholders with conflicting expectations, and a world changing faster than your institution can adapt? University leaders at every level face these challenges, often working with distributed authority and colleagues who interpret the same situation very differently. 

Drawing on research and conversations with university leaders in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Daniel Atlin will introduce a practical framework connecting outer sensemaking (how we understand and navigate our organisations) with inner sensemaking (how our assumptions, emotions and experiences shape our leadership). The session is specially adapted specifically for Heads of University Administration to think about their role in leading through complexity, bringing focus to competing priorities and sense amongst the chaos. Through discussion and reflection on their own challenges, participants will explore how these perspectives can help them exercise judgment, build shared understanding and take purposeful action amid uncertainty.

Speaker

Daniel Atlin

Daniel Atlin is an executive coach, advisor and facilitator with more than 30 years of senior leadership experience across higher education, government and the cooperative sector. An Adjunct Professor and Advisor at the University of Guelph’s Gordon S. Lang School of Management and Economics, he holds an Executive Master’s in Change Leadership from Oxford Saïd Business School and HEC Paris. His research explores how university leaders make sense of complexity and change. He brings together this research, his executive experience and conversations from his podcast, Messy with Daniel Atlin, to help leaders navigate organisational challenges and develop their own leadership practice.