Declining public finances and ever increasing national and international competition force state-owned German universities to adapt to an increasingly competitive environment. In a first phase the universities have concentrated their efforts on the optimisation of budgeting processes and on the development of strategies and goals to come to a more efficient way of distributing scarce financial resources. This has been accompanied by a sharpening of their profiles, a process that is still in full flight in a majority of the universities. However, the more dynamic institutions are now entering a second stage of reforms and focusing their efforts on the professionalism of their decision makers as well as their internal management structures in order to become more competitive on an international scale. The greater autonomy from the formerly very rigid system of state control works like an accelerator in this process. In this article, I discuss the framework in which the adaptation of the internationally common system of a professional dean at school level could take place to help the achievement of the strategic goals of the school. The second part of this article analyses the dangers of an unaltered adaptation of this approach in the German system and the steps that should be taken to avoid friction and dysfunctional effects.