By Adeline Rozendaal, Principal Consultant, Interim Leadership and Executive Search, Education.
Higher education has long operated in an environment of continual change. Financial pressures, workforce challenges, digital transformation, evolving student expectations and increasing regulatory scrutiny have all shaped leadership agendas for some time. What appears to be changing now is not simply the scale of these challenges, but the pace at which institutions are expected to respond.
As part of a recent leadership insight exercise, I spoke with HR Directors and Chief Operating Officers across UK higher education to explore the most pressing leadership challenges facing their organisations today. We asked a straightforward question:
What is the biggest leadership challenge in education right now?
The responses were telling:
- 43% Delivering transformation fast
- 21% Building leadership capability
- 21% Attracting senior talent
- 12% Workforce strategy alignment
While the sample is modest, the findings point to an important shift. The challenge is no longer determining what needs to change. Most institutions are already clear on their strategic priorities. The challenge is delivering those priorities at the pace required.
From Strategy to Delivery
Universities are simultaneously seeking to enhance the student experience, embed digital and AI capabilities, diversify income streams, reshape operating models, and improve organisational efficiency. These ambitions are not new. What is new is the expectation that progress will be visible, measurable, and delivered within increasingly compressed timescales.
Across our conversations, one theme emerged consistently: institutions generally know what they want to achieve. The greater challenge is ensuring they have the leadership capacity and capability to achieve it.
This raises important questions:
- Do we have sufficient leadership capacity to deliver our ambitions?
- Are senior leaders balancing operational demands and transformation effectively?
- Where are competing priorities slowing progress?
- Do we have access to the expertise needed to deliver complex change?
For many institutions, success is becoming less dependent on strategy and more dependent on execution.
The Growing Role of Interim Leadership
One of the clearest themes emerging from our discussions is that leadership capacity is often becoming the limiting factor in transformation. Senior leaders are increasingly expected to lead major change programmes while continuing to manage demanding operational responsibilities. As a result, organisations are exploring more flexible ways to access leadership expertise.
This is one reason interim leadership is playing a more strategic role within higher education. Traditionally associated with vacancy management, interim leaders are increasingly being appointed to provide additional capacity, lead transformation programmes, support organisational transitions and bring specialist expertise into critical initiatives.
The benefits can include:
- Immediate leadership capacity during periods of significant change.
- Specialist transformation expertise drawn from experience across multiple organisations.
- Independent insight and challenge to support better decision-making.
- Dedicated focus on key strategic priorities and delivery.
- Flexible access to leadership skills without the need for a permanent appointment.
Importantly, interim leadership is not simply about filling gaps. It can help institutions strengthen delivery capability and maintain momentum at critical points in a transformation journey.
Leadership Expectations Are Evolving
The findings also highlighted leadership capability and senior talent attraction as key challenges, both cited by 21% of respondents. Today’s leaders are expected not only to deliver operational excellence but also to lead transformation, navigate ambiguity and maintain performance through periods of change. The challenge is therefore not simply attracting talented leaders. It is ensuring organisations have the capability, support and leadership infrastructure required to enable success.
Through our work across higher education, we are seeing growing demand for leadership assessment, development and succession planning aligned to future organisational needs. Leadership capability is increasingly being viewed as a strategic asset requiring deliberate investment and ongoing development.
What Leading Institutions Are Doing Differently
Successful institutions often share several characteristics:
- They are realistic about leadership capacity as well as ambition.
- They focus as much attention on delivery as they do on strategy.
- They invest in leadership capability and succession planning.
- They remain open to different models for accessing leadership expertise.
Most importantly, they recognise that momentum is rarely accidental. It is supported through effective leadership and a clear focus on execution.
Looking Ahead
Higher education leaders have never been strangers to complexity, what is changing is the speed at which institutions are expected to respond, adapt, and deliver. Our findings suggest that the defining leadership challenge is no longer understanding what needs to change. It is creating the capability, capacity and organisational conditions required to make change happen.
As transformation programmes become more complex and timelines more demanding, institutions are exploring a range of approaches to strengthen delivery capability. For many, this includes leadership development, succession planning, organisational redesign and, where appropriate, interim leadership.
For organisations seeking to deliver ambitious outcomes in an increasingly demanding environment, having access to the right leadership expertise at the right time will remain a critical factor in successful delivery.
How we can help
At GatenbySanderson, we support higher education institutions to strengthen leadership capacity, access specialist expertise, and deliver complex change. Our Interim Leadership practice connects organisations with experienced leaders who can support transformation programmes, organisational change and periods of transition. Alongside this, our Leadership & Talent practice helps institutions assess, develop and strengthen leadership capability for the future.
If these findings resonate with the challenges facing your institution, I will welcome a conversation about what we are seeing across the sector and how leadership capability, capacity and specialist expertise can help organisations deliver change at pace.
Connect with Adeline Rozendaal, Principal Consultant, Interim Leadership and Executive Search, Education.