Evolution Trends Of The Leadership In The Romanian Academic Environment

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the trends that mark the evolution of leadership in the Romanian academic environment from a systemic perspective to integrate the past, present and future. In our approach we start from an analysis of how the multiple transformations that took place within the Romanian society in its whole has influenced the academic environment, emphasizing especially the moments of rupture caused by the numerous reforms started and never completed and the problems of chronic underfunding faced by the system. Starting from the observation that globally there are many voices questioning the level of adaptation of the current educational system to the realities of the contemporary world, we shall briefly present a couple of views on how the European and the American education of the future might look and also the way in which the academic leadership should manage this process of change. Since any vulnerability may represent in certain circumstances an opportunity, based on an existent analysis, as well as on some personal opinions we shall present the way in which the Romanian academic environment could develop. Believing that nowadays the exchange of experience and the know-how between different branches of the society are the key to obtaining a booster effect that will allow the occurrence of a synergy between them, we are proposing a vision through which the academic environment can take advantages, seizing on the experiences of the business environment, the effect of “leapfrogging” to eliminate the distance between the academic environment and similar systems in other countries with tradition. Such an approach would be not a benchmarking process, but a process of identifying the challenges of the future and discovering through creative means the most adequate methods to support them. After all, if there is a resource of which we can say with certainty that it is abundant in Romania, that resource is creativity. The academic leadership could ensure the success of the process of making changes by the optimal guidance of this resource and by this action would ensure the progress of the educational system, thus regaining the rightful role as the engine of progress in the Romanian society.