Dimensions of Academic Leadership as Predictors of Leadership Capabilities and Competence of Deans and Department Chairs in Northern Mindanao

Abstract

Supporting the new international agenda for higher education founded on building leadership capacity for academic quality, the study examined the capabilities and competencies necessary to lead this transformation in higher education. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the perspectives of 114 deans and department heads in five universities determined the multidimensional nature and dynamics of academic leadership roles in higher education. The five dimensions of academic leadership are leadership work, academic context, leadership effectiveness, leadership support, and leadership capability and competence. This study found that the academic leaders demonstrated a strong positive role behavior. The hallmarks of the Philippine Higher Education leadership experience that characterize distinctly the deans and chairs were as follows: a team management style for their highest value on tasks and people, an adaptive leadership in coping with social and competitive pressures, an outcomes-based leadership with highest performance standards on effective implementation and learning and teaching outcomes, a strong skill-approach leadership with role-specific competencies as the key leadership capability, and high commitment to leadership development highly engaged in formal leadership development activities. Issues needing serious attention were on academic context, networking, external accountability, financial performance outcomes, of self-managed and informal learning, and decisive and diagnostic capabilities. Academic leadership varied significantly between academic roles on leadership work and leadership effectiveness, indicating that the academic leaders differed by role behavior and role expectations. Academic leadership also varied significantly between sectors on support for leadership development, indicating that academic leaders differ by types of universities. The study also validated an emerging academic leadership capability and competency framework of the deans and chairs with leadership support and academic context having significant positive regression weights on leadership capability and competence. The predictors contributed more to competencies than to capabilities, and most to cognitive capabilities and personal capabilities, and least to interpersonal capabilities. Keywords - academic leadership, personal and interpersonal capabilities, competencies, academic context, Philippine higher education