Disagreements emerging from the competing priorities of faculty members and administrators are unavoidable. Conflict, however, can emerge from drama being used as a strategic tactic to achieve a desired outcome. This so-called drama triangle dynamic often manifests itself as the pressure administrators face to play the hero in disputes—only to risk being labeled the villain when they resist individual requests. Understanding how to recognize and manage these relationship patterns can aid sound decision-making and promote effective leadership.
Beyond the Credential Factory: Why Higher Education Must Shift from Management to Flourishing
For decades, higher education leadership has obsessed over “student success” as a purely operational metric. We track retention and graduation rates and postgraduation outcomes with the same linear precision that
Yoshitaka Iwasaki
August 3, 2026
