This morning’s induction for our faculty and Deans, prepared and led by Dr Maria Casoria, did more than cover policies and processes. It asked a harder question: what does leadership in higher education actually require?

Maria introduced two useful terms from Roman public life: potestas and auctoritas. Potestas is formal authority, the legal power to command. Auctoritas is less tangible and more durable: influence that flows from wisdom, trust and respect. The distinction is ancient, but its relevance to modern leadership could not be clearer.

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Potestas vs Auctoritas: Authority and Influence

In Rome, potestas described the formal authority granted by office — the legal power to command. By contrast, auctoritas meant something less tangible but more enduring: the influence that comes from wisdom, trust, and respect.

Every Dean arrives in post with a measure of potestas. The title itself carries weight. It conveys responsibility for students, staff, budgets, and programmes. Yet the effectiveness of that authority depends on something deeper: the ability to earn auctoritas in the eyes of colleagues and students alike.

This is not unique to academia. Across sectors, titles confer authority, but real leadership depends on credibility. In universities, where academic freedom and professional autonomy are core values, auctoritas matters more than potestas. You cannot simply command; you must persuade, inspire, and build trust.

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Managers and Leaders: Echoes of the Same Tension

The Roman distinction has long found echoes in modern leadership thinking. Warren Bennis and Peter Drucker famously observed that “managers do things right; leaders do the right things.” Grace Hopper put it more succinctly: “You manage things; you lead people.”

These distinctions remind us that management and leadership are not the same. Management focuses on processes, compliance, and systems — the realm of potestas. Leadership focuses on people, vision and influence — the realm of auctoritas.

In higher education, both are needed. Universities are complex organisations. Without processes, systems falter. Without leadership, culture stagnates. The task for academic leaders is not to choose between the two, but to balance them wisely.

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Confidence and Humility: The Balance Point

How do leaders navigate that balance? I believe the answer lies in the twin qualities of confidence and humility.

• Confidence gives leaders the courage to make decisions, allocate resources, and take responsibility. It enables them to stand firm when choices are difficult and outcomes uncertain.
• Humility keeps leaders grounded. It opens them to feedback, ensures they listen carefully, and reminds them that leadership is not about personal prestige but about service to others.

Confidence without humility becomes arrogance, alienating those we are meant to lead. Humility without confidence becomes insecurity, paralysing progress. But when the two are held together, they generate trust. Staff and students can sense when a leader is both steady enough to decide and humble enough to listen.

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Leadership in Service of Strategy

Leadership is not abstract. It is always in service of a purpose. For our Deans, that purpose includes the successful delivery of the university’s strategic plan.

Strategic documents are important, but they do not achieve themselves. Progress depends on the choices leaders make every day: how resources are prioritised, how programmes are shaped, how opportunities are seized, and how setbacks are addressed.

Deans sit at the fulcrum of this work. They connect institutional vision to faculty reality. Their leadership is what transforms goals on paper into actions that matter: new programmes launched, partnerships built, standards enforced, students recruited, and staff supported.

Here, confidence and humility are not optional. They are essential. Confidence provides the decisiveness to move strategy forward. Humility ensures that strategy is translated in ways that respect the expertise and experience of academic staff.

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Leadership in Service of People

If strategy provides the framework, people are the lifeblood. The success of any plan ultimately depends on the growth and development of those who deliver it. Academic leadership is inseparable from staff development: our responsibility is to create the conditions in which colleagues flourish as teachers, researchers, and mentors. That means:

• Building trust so staff feel safe to innovate
• Listening carefully to concerns and acting with fairness
• Providing recognition and encouragement
• Giving clear direction while leaving room for autonomy

This is where humility becomes visible. Leaders who see their role as service create the space for others to grow. As staff grow, the institution grows.

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Accountability: Where the balance is tested

Leadership is not privilege; it is responsibility. Every decision carries consequences for budgets, programmes, careers and students. Leaders must be willing to own those consequences when things go well and, especially, when they do not.

Accountability requires confidence to act and humility to admit mistakes and learn from them. People respect consistency and ownership, even when outcomes are difficult. Inconsistency or blame-shifting erodes both potestas and auctoritas.

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Closing Reflection: Leadership as Service

Today’s session reminded me that leadership in higher education is both demanding and profoundly important. It is not about occupying a position, but about shaping an environment where strategy is delivered and people can thrive.

Dr Maria Casoria‘s reminder of potestas and auctoritas grounds this in a truth we easily forget: titles may grant authority, but trust grants influence. Formal power will carry you some distance, but only credibility sustains leadership over time.

The balance is simple to name and hard to live: confidence to act decisively, humility to serve others first. Together they generate auctoritas — the kind of authority that inspires, not compels. That is the mark of great leadership: not how much power one holds, but how faithfully one serves the success of the institution and the flourishing of its people.

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