Perceptions of Leadership Styles of Department Chairs.

Abstract

Much has been written about leadership in business management, but very little research has been done on leadership in academic departments. Department chairs have the authority to make most departmental decisions, but rarely does formal training exist for this position. Therefore, there is a need to study how the leadership styles among department chairs at the university level may be affected by perceptions of those involved. This qualitative study compared the leadership styles of chairs on the campus of a small, southeastern university in the spring of 2002. Department chairs and faculty members were interviewed about their perceptions of leadership styles. ********** Although much has been written on the subject of leadership in terms of business management, very little research has been done on leadership in academics. Comparatively research has been done on leadership within the academic department. Department chairs have the authority to make most departmental decisions, but rarely does formal training or instruction for this position exist. This can put the department chair in charge of a unit without really knowing how to manage people or how to accomplish group goals. They are left, so to speak, without an instruction manual, and some people may flounder in this situation. As Redwood, Goldwasser, and Street (1999) put it, Some leaders are born, but most need help (p. 64). Glaser and Smalley (1995) cited a 1992 survey by Industry Week that reported less than half (46 percent) of the respondents said their bosses were good listeners. And a whopping 55 percent complained that their supervisors were 'poor' or 'average' in providing direction, in their knowledge of subordinates jobs, and at communicating goals (1995, p.32). Therefore, there is a need to further study predominant leadership styles among department chairs. It was the researcher's position that this preliminary study would make available information about the leadership styles of department chairs a small southeastern university. This information would come from perceptions of leadership by department chairs and faculty members and would be used as the base for future, more comprehensive, research. This study compared the perception department chairs had about their personal style of leadership with the perception faculty had of their department chair's style of leadership. The Leadership Effectiveness and Adaptability Description and the Personal Information Data Sheet were used to conduct this study. The LEAD is a validated research instrument on leadership. Permission to use the LEAD was granted by its developers, and the instrument was purchased from The Center for Leadership Studies, Escondido, California. A Personal Information Data Sheet was developed to obtain demographic data for comparison. The LEAD and the personal information data sheet were mailed to the 10 department chairs and 126 faculty members of the sample institution. The LEAD instruments were scored based on the directions by The Center for Leadership Studies (2000). These results and the information from the personal information data sheet were statistically analyzed using the SPSS version 11.0. This research study was designed to identify the leadership styles, adaptability, and range of flexibility of department chairs at the sample institution; to compare these factors in terms of gender of individual participants; and to examine how these factors may be affected by selected demographic factors. Two hypotheses and three research questions were stated in this study. The hypotheses were: Quantitative Null Hypothesis 1: There is no significant difference on the mean scores of leadership adaptability of department chairs between department chairs and faculty members. Quantitative Null Hypothesis 2: There is no significant difference between leadership adaptability levels among department chairs as perceived by faculty members for each of the following demographic factors. …