Kerstin Sahlin, researcher and former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University.
Photo: Mattias Pettersson
THE AUTONOMY reform introduced in 2011 triggered a lively, and sometimes heated debate in the higher education sector. Many saw the reform as a death blow to collegiality.
Kerstin Sahlin is professor of business administration at Uppsala University focusing on public organisations. She recalls being rather annoyed about it at the time.
"THE WORD 'COLLEGIALITY' came to be a weapon in the debate — but nobody spoke of what collegiality actually means," says Kerstin Sahlin.
This irritation resulted in Kerstin Sahlin writing the textbook 'Collegiality — A modern form of governance' together with Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist.
The book covers what collegiality is, why it is needed, how it mixes with other types of governance, and how to make it work in practice.
"When I'm out lecturing, it's common that people add a question mark at the end of the title," says Kerstin Sahlin. "But I'd rather add an exclamation mark: collegiality is a modern form of governance!"
Kerstin Sahlin defines collegiality as an autonomous form of self governance where colleagues govern each other.
HER VISIT TO UMEÅ University took place on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the University's Leadership and Development Programme, UCL (see pp. 12—13). Vice- Chancellor Hans Adolfsson talks about the balance between governance and leadership, about trust-based governance at Umeå University, and his view of his own leadership task. "There is basically no difference between leading a university and leading a research group," reasons Hans Adolfsson.
Kerstin Sahlin also points out:
"This is a management that begins when the seminar ends. The leaders are selected directly from the operations and should have one foot left there," she says.
She finds the concept of trust-based governance quite interesting.
"Much of this is based on how the academic community has worked for so many years," says Kerstin Sahlin. "It has to be exported to investigators, consultants and experts before it comes back to us again."
However, the fact that collegiality is a modern and useful form of governance does not mean that it's simple and unproblematic to succeed in practice."
"It's assumed that everyone knows how to conduct collegiality, that everyone knows how to be a good colleague. And that's where things often go wrong. Because it's not quite as easy and obvious as that," emphasises Kerstin Sahlin.
In the book, Kerstin Sahlin and Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist also write about the negative aspects of collegiality. The most negative aspect emerges when groupthink takes over. When collegiality goes outside of mutual control and lacks critical discussion, without any mutual back-scratching.
"MALE DOMINANCE. CLIQUES. There has been far too much of that," says Kerstin Sahlin frankly. "There are two ways to handle this. One way is to gain a better understanding of what the collegial processes look like. The other is that collegiality doesn't stand on its own two feet. It's essential to have an outstanding administration that both keeps an eye on colleagues and sets limits, but also supports with expertise."
TEXT: Jonas Lidström PHOTO: Mattias Pettersson
This text was published in Aktum no 2 2019.