Advancing the Institution and the Individual: Women’s Enactment of Equity-Minded Leadership in Colleges and Universities

Abstract

ABSTRACT Across colleges and universities, there is a need to foster campus leadership that is diverse, responsive, and effective. In the face of these needs, there is a lack of current research about how newly appointed campus leaders develop and enact their leadership practices in support of higher education institutions and their members. The purpose of this qualitative study, guided by Feminist Organization Theory, was to generate knowledge about women’s approaches to new leadership roles in today’s higher education environment. Interviews with women with scholarly backgrounds in higher education administration who had taken on new leadership roles generated the emergent Institutional-Individual Leadership Model, which should be tested and refined through further research.