University leadership within the neoliberal agenda: Reframing the landscape through a principled leadership approach

This article emerged from a doctoral study that explored Nova Scotia university leaders’ leadership beliefs and values, and change agency approaches. “Principled leadership” was conceptualized as an expansion of authentic leadership theory and involved – authenticity (identity), spirituality, and love (an ethic of care). Principled leadership was examined as a possible approach which could facilitate successful change agency. The leader-participants included university presidents, vice-presidents, directors, and deans. A key finding was that leaders were operating within a conceptualization of authenticity. They held honesty, integrity, and trust as critical to their change agency. Another finding was that principled leadership offered an antidote to the depredations on positive leadership resulting from neoliberalism that has seriously impacted Canadian higher education. This study raised questions surrounding the nature of authentic leadership and identity; that is, the core of authenticity is knowing oneself and being true to one’s own values, but what if a leader has “drunk the Kool-Aid of neoliberalism” thereby truly believes that their top-down, autocratic (or destructive leadership) approach was ‘efficient’ (a neoliberal tenet) and crucial to organizational effectiveness and change agency. Can they still be considered authentic leaders? Thus, this study indicated that principled leadership was a useful expansion of Avolio and his colleagues’ authentic leadership theory.