| The pluralistic and often competing goals of myriad constituents, the changing demographics of students, the uncertainty of funding, and the growing demands for accountability from stakeholders have increased the complexity of systems which community college leaders must manage. Emerging from the recent literature on community colleges is a call for new models of leadership in the context of leading in an increasingly uncertain and complex environment. Systems thinking offers a potential means to help leaders respond to these growing organizational complexities and move leadership from a traditional bureaucratic model to a more adaptive model better suited for today's complex organizations. The purpose of this study is to examine the relevancy of systems thinking as a competency for community college leaders in an era of increasing complexity. In the context of this study, systems thinking refers to the ability to view systems as wholes rather than compilations of individual components, to see the interconnectedness and interdependencies of agents within systems, to frame problems as patterns, and to get at underlying causality. Findings from a systematic review of empirical evidence in healthcare and higher education revealed that a leader's use of systems thinking has a positive impact on organizational performance. A kaleidoscope model of community college leadership that posits systems thinking as a meta-competency for dynamically integrating the American Association of Community College's leadership competencies is presented. |
