'Universities need to value their staff' – five tips for management

1) Communicate a clear vision

"A lot depends on where your university is and what you want the vice-chancellor to do. Do you need more student recruitment? Do you need more research grant money? So often the university's strategic plan says things like, 'Be the best world-leading university at, er, everything.' Well, sorry, but we don't believe you. Some universities – I am thinking De Montfort, Coventry, or Sheffield – have strategic plans you can actually believe, and at least one of those universities have linked the vice-chancellor's pay explicitly to whether that job got done." (officeslob, commenter)

"A vision must be understandable. This for me is a real issue – I think I have not made things as readily understandable as they ought to be. This is also a message from Gordon Tredgold, who has been making a real contribution to management and leadership. His approach is the FAST approach, ie Focus, Accountability, Simplicity and Transparency. (Michael Gunn, vice-chancellor, Staffordshire University)

"University leaders need to be able not just to have a vision, but to have a vision which is understandable, which is focused and transparent, which can be communicated and which everyone believes that they can follow, believe in and contribute to." (ShropshireMike, commenter)

2) Trust your staff

"It is an essential quality of any leader that they should develop and empower their staff. This means trusting them to innovate and get on with things without always looking over their shoulder or filling a form to say they've done something." (Sue Shepherd, higher education management consultant, University of Kent)

"Trust is critical when you rely on others to deliver your agenda. Hard to win, easy to lose. And being perceived as acting unjustly and unreasonably is a good start to losing it." (cjblondon, commenter)

"Leadership is best when it is both trustworthy and trusting of staff. The evidence from prior research is clear that trust, once lost, is very difficult to rebuild. However, it is not impossible, and I would say that there may be a need to respond to calls for some changes as regards openness, integrity, benevolence and procedural fairness in pay." (Jill Jameson, director of the centre for leadership and enterprise, University of Greenwich)

3) Be fair

"Academics are slightly strange animals and difficult to lead (and we all know they are difficult to manage!) – very individualistic and therefore many may not be considered team players. However all academics want to work in organisations where they are treated fairly e.g. don't bully someone for not being REFable when their admin/teaching workload is enormous etc." (Paula Nicolson, emeritus professor, Royal Holloway, University of London)

"What I don't like – and it annoys me rather than demotivates – is 'Do as I say not as I do'. And that especially applies to remuneration. I have no issue at all with vice-chancellor's being very highly paid. The differential is established and agreed when they start, and that is fine, whatever it may be. I do not then understand why they feel the need to further widen these differentials, paying themselves proportionately much more that others. That is unfair, unjust and unnecessary." (cjblondon, commenter)

4) Appoint good people

"I see 'leaderful' practices in classrooms, research teams and student-led activity throughout the HE sector. Sometimes this is found despite prevailing managerial cultures in institutions; sometimes it is purposefully engendered by leaders dispersed through universities whose activity seems clearly-defined by enacting their values and their belief in the potential of higher education to engage and transform." (Paul Gentle, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education)

"I think it comes down to how you treat those good people. Making time for them, acting as a broker between all the good people so they know about one another's priorities; brokering things when those priorities conflict. Above all, making sure that these highly paid managers get stuff done, visibly, because otherwise all the vice-chancellor is doing is creating a culture of inflated management salaries." (officeslob, commenter)

"It's essential to select good people, but they must be prepared to challenge the views of others, including the vice-chancellor. However, my research into the appointment ofpro vice-chancellor has found that there is a lot of emphasis on 'fit' with the existing team and a tendency to recruit more of the same kind of people. This is not the best recipe for achieving a team of diverse talents and one where there is plenty of healthy challenge." (Sue Shepherd)

5) Value all staff

"Universities need to value their staff – permanent and casual. Many casual staff are the academics and administrative managers of the future and need to be engaged by the leaders because both have a future together." (Paula Nicolson)

"I would like people to reflect on whom exactly is being led by these visionary leaders; from my experience, an army of casual, underpaid and underprotected temporary staff, tasked with delivering teaching, marking and support to students. It suits management and sadly, it suits the permanent members of staff, relieved of their boring teaching duties and more able to work on their research and seek external funding. This is the model, let's not forget it in this fog of management-speak and emotional intelligence talk." (Enheduanna, commenter)

Do you have any extra advice? Add your thoughts in the comments section below.

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