Abstract: Mental modal and thinking style are prominent for the decision making in university governance. The paper combines the individual mental modal and collective decision making modal, explores the psychological basis of university governance and seeks explanations and solutions to practical problems. It integrates the JOHARI Window modal with collective thinking and decision making modals, by adding the perspectives of external and internal others as well as the illusion of perception. Based on the communication level and consensus level, the paper formulates four collective thinking modals: defensive modal (low communication and low consensus), laissez-faire modal (high communication and low consensus), arbitrary modal (low communication and high consensus), and effective modal (high communication and high consensus). The four models can partially reflect the situation of some universities, but none can fully cover all situations of a university. The effective modal, based on collective decision making and considers individual mental modal, is ideal for university governance, as it recognizes the illusion and has the willingness to erase it, keeps open to different ideas and accepts their reasonable parts, makes use of positive force in conflict, ensures all opinions can be heard and constructs the best decision for inner and outer situations.

Key words: university governance, decision making, mental model, collective thinking