Presentation Summary

Higher education today faces its greatest combinations of challenges: economic uncertainty, accountability, competition, financial sustainability, globalisation, and emerging technologies that are daunting to learn and intimidating to implement. VUCA accurately describes this complex, evolving and dynamic environment confronted by global higher education with even greater challenges in form of impacts from COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, global higher education institutions are forced to develop the resilience capacity to adapt and modify the new models of knowledge transfer, information, and change. New antidotes for VUCA challenges are prerequisites in university leadership to confront and create the way forward. Leadership is about inspiring people in recognizing their worth and value, believing in themselves, appreciating their inherent strengths, recognising their skills and talents, and being more resilient in reaching their full potential. University leaders must innovate on the new models, enhance the capability of the educators and students’ learning experience. This is called VUCA 2.0 in the form of Vision, Understanding, Courage and Adaptability. Adaptive leadership is considered as one of the key enablers in facing VUCA challenges in higher education. Adaptive leaders are flexible in adapting to this rapidly changing environment. Flexible tactics are required for rapid adaptation to changing external circumstances, without altering institution’s overarching vision and mission. Leaders need multiple contingency plans to cope with unforeseen and challenging events such as COVID-19. Some deliberation about competency-based leadership framework in higher education and how selected competencies that relevant to resilience and adaptive leadership in navigating the new normal will be presented in this discourse. The attributes of future leaders in facing these challenges will be discussed and elaborated further.