Effective supervisory leadership and followership for graduate students fulfilment in saudi arabia’s higher education

Abstract

Many studies emphasized that effective academic supervision has a significant impact on the graduate student's outcome; and vice versa.Examining supervisors’ leadership and understanding the expectation of students and supervisors of the effective supervisory activities increase the chance of students' achievement and resilience in graduate studies. There is limited research that focused on supervisor leadership and its impact on graduate students. Thus, this study aims to investigate effective supervision leadership and relationship from the lens of graduate students' and supervisors' perspectives in higher education in Saudi Arabia. A qualitative approach was used with the use of interviews as a tool to acquire genuine perspective regarding the study’s questions. The findings indicate that graduate students value the characteristics and practices of empowerment, approachability, caring, and abstaining from the added hurdle. Whereas, supervisors value graduate students who have the character and practices of accountability, commitment, integrity, and abstaining from the hustle.