Good leadership practices as a basis for crisis resilience: How Finnish higher education can work better in crisis

Abstract

Higher education organizations in Finland have recently navigated multiple crises, both potential and realized, and face an ever-changing environment that contains a multitude of imaginable crises. In this study, we investigated how Finnish higher education organizations have functioned in past crises, and can function better in future crises, by conducting panel discussions and a nationwide survey with higher education workers across Finland. Our project’s goal is to facilitate the development of crisis leadership, including preparation for, management of, and recovery from crises at universities, universities of applied sciences, and other similar workplaces. We held two rounds of panel discussions from March to November of 2023 with a total of 25 participants from 14 separate Finnish higher education organizations in Finland. A total of ten discussions explored the participants’ conception of crisis, past crisis experiences, perceptions of the current crisis leadership situation at their organization, and their thoughts on development areas for higher education crisis leadership. Our survey was distributed to leaders—from department chairs and heads of administration to section directors and rectors—at 10 universities and 11 universities of applied sciences in Finland in February and March 2024, and we received 126 responses. The survey requested leaders to reflect on their prior experiences of crises, the ongoing preparation for crises occurring at their organization, and how to improve their own and their organization's ability to cope with future crises. Due to the ever-changing crisis environment, both the panel discussions and the survey encouraged the participants to reflect on more general themes of crisis leadership, and thus, in this research we do not explore any particular crisis or type of crisis in detail. In addition to the panels and the survey, we re-examined multiple datasets we had collected as parts of our previous studies and conducted a literature review of peer-reviewed studies on crisis leadership published since 2020. This review identified three major themes in crisis leadership research in the COVID-19 era: well-being impacts of crisis, the importance of communication, and organizational and leadership characteristics. The current study’s findings span four major areas: the participant’s conception of crisis, crisis practices, crisis communication, and well-being. The participants’ perceptions of crisis in higher education were multi-faceted: based on them, a crisis conceptualization which emphasized the variable, context-dependent, and fuzzy nature of crisis was created. Additionally, the participants identified individuals or groups who were at risk of being affected by crises more than others (based on, for instance, language, ethnicity, or disability). The diversity of possible crises presents significant challenges for higher education organizations and their leaders, staff, and students, as they prepare for, experience, and recover from crisis. The participants recognized several crises practices that were relevant to higher education organizations. These practices included individual, organizational, and leadership needs, along with broader themes of resilience and community. The participants in this study identified multiple elements of crisis communication which could help facilitate successful crisis outcomes. These crisis communication elements included bidirectional, inclusive, multichannel, resilient communication that is trustworthy, rumor- and misinformation-aware, useful, and thoughtful. The participants also expressed concern for the well-being of the organizational community and highlighted the importance of inclusion, support, and a sense of community for promoting well-being before, during, and after crisis. During our data analysis, three cross-cutting motifs emerged: first, the idea that everyday leadership is crisis leadership and/or crisis leadership is everyday leadership, i.e., crisis leadership skills are important skills to have and practice not just during crisis, but in the everyday. Second, diversity, or variation, appeared in nearly every area of the analysis and was recognized in practically countless ways (e.g., crisis types, linguistic, cultural, relationship to the organization, organizational culture, employment groups, student groups, physical location, disability, caregiver status, family status, experience of crisis). Finally, context was repeatedly discussed, as the particulars of any crisis or situation mattered greatly in determining their outcome and appropriate leadership response. After discussing our findings, the report concludes with recommendations for higher education organizations in five major areas: preparation, organization, communication, well-being, and future research directions.