When content is everyone’s job, who’s leading?
Schools, colleges and universities are full of brilliant content creators. From academics writing research blogs, to marketing teams crafting campaign pages, to student services updating FAQs - content is being created everywhere, every day.
But when content is everyone’s job, who’s really leading?
The risks of content without leadership
If your institution treats content as something that “just happens,” you’re not alone. It’s common in higher education. But without clear leadership, things start to unravel fast:
Inconsistent voice and tone make it harder for your audience to trust or understand your brand
Duplication and inefficiency waste time and resources (how many versions of that programme description are floating around right now?)
Poor user journeys frustrate your audiences and can damage recruitment, reputation, and relationships
Lack of accountability means no one’s empowered to fix issues or to plan for the future
Never ending edits will keep circulating when it’s not clear who has the ultimate sign-off in a content project.
When leadership is missing, the impact is felt far beyond your content teams. But your content teams will inevitably feel the frustration.
Content is everyone’s job, but leadership is a discipline
The truth is, everyone creating content doesn’t mean no one should lead it.
Strong content strategy leadership doesn’t mean centralised control over every word. It means building a shared vision, defining clear standards, and enabling distributed teams to do their best work.
Leadership looks like:
Establishing content governance frameworks that define roles, responsibilities and decision-making processes
Creating editorial guidelines and workflows that support consistency and efficiency across departments
Developing content models and structures that allow content to connect and adapt across systems
Championing training and support so that everyone - from senior academics to student interns - can create content that works.
Leadership is about holding the big picture and creating the conditions for others to succeed.
What does content maturity really look like?
In our content maturity model, leadership and understanding is one of the 10 core pillars. Why? Because clear leadership is one of the strongest indicators of an organisation that’s ready to take content seriously and invest in it strategically.
If you're not sure how your institution measures up, our free assessment tool can help you reflect on your current position:
Take the content maturity quiz
Use it to spark conversations about where content leadership currently sits and where it needs to be. Or invite us in to share our insights and expertise on content leadership structures to help you progress yours.
So, who should lead?
Content strategy needs ownership, but not from a single department. One of the biggest mistakes institutions make is assuming content “belongs” to marketing, IT, or the web team alone. But content ownership and content leadership aren’t the same thing.
Content leadership should be:
Cross-functional, bringing together expertise from across marketing, digital, academic and support teams
Strategic, with a seat at the table where institutional priorities are shaped
Independent, not beholden to one objective (like recruitment or research comms), but aligned with all of them
Empowered, with the authority to set direction, shape policy, and invest in long-term change.
Sometimes that looks like a central content strategy lead. Sometimes it’s a working group or governance board. What matters is that someone is empowered to lead, and that others are supported to follow.
Need help shaping your content team?
We know this isn’t always easy to navigate, especially when team structures and decisions are often made top-down, without consulting those doing the work.
That’s why our ContentEd+ course on “Building content teams” is designed to help. It explores:
How to identify the skills and roles your team really needs
Practical ways to assess current capacity and fill the gaps
How to make your team part of the design process, not just subject to it
Premium institutional members can access this course now on ContentEd+. Not a premium member yet? We’ve made institutional access more affordable than ever so your whole institution can benefit from high-quality training at scale. See the costs and benefits of joining.
Leading with intent
If your content is currently “owned” by everyone and no one it’s time to change that. At Pickle Jar, we help universities put the structures, systems and leadership in place to make content work harder and smarter.
Because great content doesn’t just happen. It’s led.