Portraits in Leadership: Six Extraordinary University Presidents
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Book Review Portraits in Leadership: Six Extraordinary University Presidents By Arthur Padilla, 2005 ACE/Praeger Series on Higher Education; ISBN: 0-275-98490-7; 288pp; $39.95 International Journal of Educational Advancement (2006) 6, 173–176. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ijea.2150016
Portraits in Leadership by Arthur Padilla examines six university presidents: Clark Kerr of California; William Friday of North Carolina; Father Ted Hesburgh of Notre Dame; John Slaughter of Maryland; Bill Bowen of Princeton; and Hanna Gray of Chicago. They were selected for their contributions to their campus communities, and because “they had faced relatively difficult and complex situations that were well known nationally” (Padilla, 2005, p. 73). Padilla articulates the skills and qualities he feels presidents need for successful and effective leadership in the collegiate environment. He explores the university as a complex organizational structure via a discussion of organizational theory. The book concludes with a description of the leadership patterns and commonalities among the six presidents. Padilla believes universities are unique and complex organizational structures, which merit non-traditional
forms of leadership and management. The book’s premise is that universities “offer a particularly useful organizational setting for the study of leadership, precisely because it is so complicated and because there are so many different demands upon, and boundaries on the power of, its leaders” (p. 1). Controversial events from each president’s tenure serve as case studies that illustrate the challenges and pressures that they faced and give insight into the leadership skills that they demonstrated. The book’s research derives from interviews with the presidents and their former colleagues as well as from written materials, including articles, biographies, and archival documents. Explaining his research method, Padilla writes, “the complexity of leadership, and the corollary need for qualitative approaches, arises because leadership involves multiple levels of relationships” (p. 70). Using these six cases, he hopes to demonstrate a
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT. VOL.6 NO.2 173–176 © 2006 PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD. ISSN 1744–6503 $30.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/ijea
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Book Review
framework of leadership unique to the college presidency. Padilla’s overview of universities as complex organizational structures is brief but provides a solid review of characteristics found in other research. He acknowledges that owing to the tenure and free speech allowed to the faculty, universities are unique places of employment. Padilla alludes to the many different relationships that universities have in serving multiple constituencies, such as state and federal government, students, and alumni. He refers to Kerr’s (1963) concept of the “multiversity” and notes the additional challenges inherent within them, as three of the case studies fall into this category. An academician and administrator himself, Padilla furthers his argument a
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