Is Chance the Gardener the new model for leadership in higher ed?

Gardener Gardening (Photo credit: Wikipedia)In this essay from Inside Higher Ed, the author suggests that the new model for academic leadership is a gardening model:

http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/08/08/essay-leadership-higher-education#.UCJ4FmA-ngQ.mailto

The metaphor is borrowed from a May 2012 column by Thomas Friedman, upon whose every word academics now seem to hang:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/friedman-do-you-want-the-good-news-first.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

I couldn't help recalling Chance the Gardener in the novel and film "Being There":

http://www.amazon.com/Being-There-Jerzy-Kosinski/dp/0802136346

http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/294/

http://www.bookrags.com/Being_There

Those of you who have read Jerzy Kosinski's satirical novel and/or seen the Peter Sellers film will recall that Chance the Gardener (Sellers) is an ignorant employee of a rich man, who dies, leaving his estate to, well, Chance.  After that, people simply assume that "Chauncey Gardener" (how they hear his name when he identifies himself) is some sort of cryptic, enigmatic guru.  When he's asked about the economy, which seems to be in a tailspin, he talks about how plants that are pruned back grown and blossom anew.  His words are considered to be brilliant.  The markets rally around them.

Leaders as gardeners, eh?  Well, maybe...

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