Leadership in a Private Higher Education Institution in Mexico:

Abstract

Leadership for the new digital era and the 4.0 industry comes with some challenges for organizations across the board; and, in the education field, for institutions and educators alike. Understanding the need to transform and innovate processes is necessary to offer high-quality programs to students and competitive opportunities to educators. In Higher Education (HE) institutions, it is of great urgency to assign and distribute such leadership skills and tasks to educators and students, to provide and ease specific tasks at hand, and to encourage collaborators in the development of leadership skills for the classroom and to promote lifelong leadership skills for students too. In Mexico, the HE system looks to include new ways to innovate, collaborate and even compete with other national and foreign institutions for the most qualified human capital. Tecnologico de Monterrey, a private institution, is not only one of the top-ranking universities in Mexico, but it also has a strong emphasis on leadership development for its students and collaborators. The case of Sonora Norte Campus is a successful one, its empowerment approach toward building, nurturing, and developing quality leaders. A qualitative study was conducted to identify the practices of the institution and the leadership practices in the institution's different schools. We conducted semi-structured interviews with leaders and collaborators which resulted in understanding the leadership dynamics on the campus, the different styles of leadership among its collaborators as well as some of the challenges they face. This study provides a look into the leadership in a private HE institution, and some of its successful practices. This study proves to be relevant for other heads of HE institutions in the world (and in other Tecnologico de Monterrey campuses nationwide) interested in adding and researching effective leadership practices to their agendas.