ABSTRACT
‘Leadership is a team sport’ is an often-repeated assertion. One of the early transition challenges that most heads of universities (HoUs) face therefore unsurprisingly relates to their ‘top team’. This chapter builds on corporate sector experience by exploring the types of analyses that a new HoU may wish to undertake when thinking about their senior team. ‘Mutual accountability’ could, understandably, be a novel concept in higher education. The route to a senior role is heavily influenced by individual success, as a researcher, through driving financial performance or through success in a specialist area. Groups of high-power individuals appeared less likely to engage in positive interactions with each other. High-power individuals’ propensity to interrupt more often and speak out of turn, ignore others’ perspectives and devalue others’ contributions led to these groups of individuals’ being less likely to positively reinforce each other’s ideas, thereby hampering collaboration, cohesion and performance.
