ABSTRACT
Leadership is situated at the interface between the social and natural worlds, with sustainability bridging internal and external organizational domains. While critical realism has had little influence upon management studies, it is expected to become important in the field given the systemic challenges of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The chapter uses the prism of critical realism to explore how meaning was negotiated and change led in a UK public university that embarked upon pan-institutional transformation in pursuit of a new and differentiated strategic mission given profound disruption in the global higher education sector. Exploring the relationships between institutional mission and individual responses, metaphor played an important affective role in change management at Plymouth University, helping people ‘see’ things differently and become more aware of their agency. Exploring metaphors as leaders grappled with cleavage, that is, change and continuity, revealed contradictions and conflicts at a community level against the public narrative of leader-led change and is relevant to those leading systemic change for sustainable development.
