Academic Leadership in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: A Personal Reflection on one Programme Director’s Professional Development

This article provides a critical commentary on my development in academic leadership in a number of learning and teaching roles in Higher Education, principally that of Programme Director of the BMus programme at City University London (2009–13). It proceeds by interweaving discussion of aspects of the scholarly literature that has influenced my academic leadership over the years with personal reflection on the application of these theories to activities associated with my roles. Ground covered in the course of the article includes the ways in which academic leadership is distinct from other forms of leadership; the collaborative nature of academic leadership; the implications to leadership of the substantial changes witnessed in UK Higher Education in recent years; approaches to change management in relation to academic leadership; the current emphasis given nationally to metric-based performance measures, and the dangers posed by unrealistic goal-setting; the different qualities that may be embodied by an academic leader; and the transferral of leadership experience to different roles and institutional contexts