It has been almost a year since I moved from leading a medical faculty as Dean to taking responsibility for a university campus as Campus Director.
Both are senior leadership positions within the university, but the transition has shown me that they require quite different perspectives.
The difference is not simply one of scale. A Dean primarily leads an academic organisation. A Campus Director has to look across multiple academic and administrative entities, physical infrastructure, institutional resources, external relationships and the longer-term direction of the campus.
In many ways, it is a shift from academic leadership towards institutional stewardship.
From academic leadership to institutional stewardship
The work of a Dean is already complex, but most issues remain anchored to the academic mission. Teaching, examinations, research, staffing, postgraduate training, accreditation, clinical services and faculty finances occupy much of the leadership space.
Campus leadership considerably widens that space.
Land use, major development projects, infrastructure, IT, security, facilities and long-term financial sustainability become part of the leadership agenda. Some decisions may have little immediate academic visibility but significant consequences for the future of the university.
This requires a different time horizon.
An academic decision may shape a programme for the next several years. Decisions concerning land, infrastructure or major development may constrain or enable the campus for decades.
At the same time, the Campus Director has more immediate access to specialised administrative support. Finance, IT, development and other functions are closer to the campus leadership structure. This is quite different from the experience of being Dean, where many administrative matters still have to be pursued by the faculty itself.
The availability of specialised support should not encourage greater involvement in operational details. It should allow leadership to operate at a more strategic level.
The role is therefore less about personally solving every problem and more about ensuring that different functions are aligned towards a coherent direction for the campus.
Interestingly, this aspect of the role is not entirely unfamiliar to me.
Before joining academia, I had leadership and management responsibilities at community clinic, district and state levels within the health system. Management and planning were also important components of my public health training.
Campus leadership has brought some of those earlier competencies back into use.
The setting is different, but the underlying questions are familiar: What are the priorities? What resources are available? What are the competing needs? Who needs to be involved? What are the longer-term consequences of today’s decisions?
Leadership becomes progressively more professionally isolated
Professional isolation is not unique to campus leadership.
It already becomes apparent when assuming a Deanship.
Within a faculty, most academics understandably view the organisation from the perspective of their departments, disciplines, programmes or specific responsibilities. The Dean has to view the faculty as a whole and reconcile priorities that may sometimes compete with one another.
Very few people within the faculty are therefore looking at exactly the same picture as the Dean.
However, a Dean still has an important external peer community.
There are many medical Deans across Malaysia. They meet, communicate and encounter remarkably similar issues involving medical education, accreditation, specialist training, staffing, clinical services and university governance. Different universities may approach these issues differently, but there is usually someone who understands the problem because they occupy a comparable position.
That network is valuable.
Campus leadership takes professional isolation another step further.
Campus Directors, or leaders holding genuinely comparable responsibilities, are relatively rare. Even where similar positions exist, branch campuses and satellite campuses differ substantially in their structure, mandate, autonomy and relationship with their main university.
More importantly, there is no established network connecting these leaders.
There is no equivalent community where Campus Directors regularly compare experiences, share solutions or discuss common challenges.
This creates a particular form of professional isolation. It is not about being alone. It is about having relatively few peers who carry a comparable range of responsibilities and view the institution from the same level.
Perhaps this is also an opportunity. If campus leadership is indeed a relatively uncommon role, there may be value in creating stronger networks among those who occupy it.
Rare roles benefit from deliberate communities of practice.
Leadership increasingly happens across boundaries
Another major shift is the number of organisational boundaries that have to be crossed.
The Campus Director operates between academic and administrative units, between different Kulliyyahs and offices, between immediate operational needs and long-term institutional priorities, and between the campus and the main university.
The role also extends substantially beyond the university.
Relationships with the State Government, state agencies, local authorities, industries and surrounding communities become increasingly important.
This is again somewhat familiar from public health management. At district and state levels, many important outcomes cannot be achieved by the health sector working alone. Progress depends on coordination with other agencies, local authorities and communities, many of whom sit outside the formal chain of command.
Campus leadership operates on a similar principle.
A university campus does not exist independently of its surrounding environment. Its future development is influenced by state priorities, infrastructure, economic development, community needs and relationships with external institutions.
There are areas where the university needs external partners. There are equally areas where the university possesses expertise and resources that can contribute to the state and community.
Leadership therefore involves identifying where those interests intersect.
This is consistent with the concept of boundary-spanning leadership, where influence is exercised across organisational, professional and sectoral boundaries rather than solely through formal authority.
Many important institutional outcomes cannot be achieved through instruction.
They depend on relationships, credibility and the ability to align different interests.
The symbolic role of leadership should not be underestimated
One of the less obvious differences between faculty and campus leadership is the increased ceremonial role.
There are many occasions where staff or students expect the Campus Director to attend, officiate, present an award or simply be present.
From a purely operational perspective, many of these programmes would proceed perfectly well without the Campus Director.
Yet that misses the purpose of leadership presence.
For those who have organised a programme, institutional presence can represent recognition. Attendance signals that their effort matters and that the institution acknowledges what they have accomplished.
This is not merely ceremonial protocol.
Mintzberg identified the figurehead as one of the interpersonal roles of managers, while Bolman and Deal emphasised the symbolic dimension of organisational leadership. Ceremonies, rituals and leadership presence contribute to how people interpret their relationship with an institution.
This is an aspect of leadership that can easily be underestimated by those accustomed to technical or academic environments.
Leadership is exercised through decisions and strategy, but sometimes it is also exercised through presence.
From the classroom to the wider student environment
The transition has also changed my relationship with the academic mission.
A Dean is deeply involved in academic matters. Curriculum, examinations, teaching quality, postgraduate education, academic staff development and accreditation are part of everyday leadership.
The Campus Director has relatively little direct role in these matters because academic authority appropriately remains with the respective Kulliyyahs.
The academic role becomes more supportive, including university-required courses and broader student development through student activities and the Mahallah.
This creates greater visibility of an aspect of university education that may receive less attention at faculty level.
Students spend only part of their university life in formal teaching.
Their development also takes place through residential life, student organisations, sports, volunteering, leadership activities, friendships, disagreements, independence and the responsibilities of living within a community.
These experiences are not peripheral to university education.
They form part of the environment in which students develop as individuals.
Campus leadership therefore provides a broader view of the educational mission. The responsibility is not only to consider what students are taught, but also the environment within which they develop.
Mentorship remains a constant
One element has changed much less: mentorship.
At faculty level, mentorship naturally focuses heavily on academics, younger lecturers, postgraduate students and emerging academic leaders.
At campus level, the potential group becomes broader. It includes administrators, officers, student leaders and colleagues from disciplines and professional backgrounds beyond one’s own.
The target changes, but the purpose remains similar.
Leadership positions are temporary. Developing people who can subsequently take greater responsibility is likely to have a much longer institutional effect.
Bringing earlier experience back into use
There is an interesting circularity in this transition.
My earlier career in public health involved management at community, district and state levels. Public health training also introduced formal approaches to management, planning, resource allocation and working across sectors.
Moving into academia gradually shifted the emphasis towards teaching, research, medical education and academic leadership. The Deanship brought these together at faculty level.
Campus leadership now requires elements from both experiences.
Academic leadership provides an understanding of what faculties and academics need to fulfil the university’s core mission.
Public health management contributes systems thinking, planning, prioritisation, resource awareness and experience working across organisational boundaries.
Campus leadership requires these perspectives to be integrated.
This is perhaps an important observation about leadership development itself. Leadership experience is not necessarily cumulative in a simple linear progression. A new role may require competencies acquired much earlier in one’s career, combined with knowledge and judgement developed more recently.
Previous experiences that appeared distant from the current role may suddenly become relevant again.
A different altitude of leadership
After almost a year, I would not describe Campus Director as simply a bigger version of Dean.
The roles operate at different altitudes.
The Dean is closer to the academic engine, with substantial depth of involvement in the faculty’s core functions.
The Campus Director necessarily has less depth in each individual area but a much wider field of view.
The challenge is to see the relationships between those areas.
A campus is an ecosystem of academic entities, administrative services, students, staff, infrastructure, land, finances, external agencies and surrounding communities. Each has legitimate needs and priorities. A decision that appears entirely sensible from one perspective may have unintended consequences elsewhere.
The leadership task is therefore increasingly one of integration.
It requires knowing when to become involved and when to rely on expertise, distinguishing an immediate operational problem from a strategic issue, connecting internal priorities with external opportunities, and ensuring that today’s decisions remain consistent with the campus we hope to build for the future.
Perhaps that is the most important difference I have observed.
As the scope of responsibility widens, leadership becomes less about personally knowing every answer. It becomes more about seeing the whole system, asking the right questions, connecting the right people and maintaining a clear direction over the longer term.
Almost a year is still a relatively short period from which to draw conclusions.
But it has been long enough to appreciate that the transition from Dean to Campus Director is not merely a change in administrative responsibility.
It is a change in perspective.
References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (7th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Ernst, C., & Chrobot-Mason, D. (2011). Boundary spanning leadership: Six practices for solving problems, driving innovation, and transforming organizations. McGraw-Hill.
Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. Harper & Row.