The Dilemma of Presidential Leadership

Every decade, about five thousand persons serve as college or university presidents. Over a term of office averaging less than seven years, the president is expected to serve simultaneously as the chief administrator of a large and complex bureaucracy, as the convening colleague of a professional community, as a symbolic elder in a campus culture of shared values and symbols, and (in some institutions) as a public official accountable to a public board and responsive to the demands of other governmental agencies. Balancing the conflicting expectations of these roles has always been difficult; changing demographic trends, fiscal constraints, the complexity and diversity of tasks, university dynamics, and unrealistic public expectations make it virtually impossible for most presidents to provide the leadership that is expected.