Abstract
Applying a critical gendered lens, this article examines academic leadership ideals. It draws on a content analysis of job advertisements for Vice-Chancellors at Swedish higher education institutions from 1990 until 2018. The aim of the article is to investigate to what extent masculine or feminine wordings have been used to describe the ideal Vice-Chancellor in these documents. The analysis reveals that a shift in the leadership ideal has taken place during the time period investigated. Before this shift, during the 1990s, the ideal Vice-Chancellor was described as competitive, bold, strong, tough, decisive, driven, and assertive. These wordings are still included in the job advertisements from the 2000s and the 2010s. However, a more communicative and collaborative leadership ideal also emerges during these decades. There is thus a significant shift in how the leadership ideal is described. This shift is analyzed from a gendered perspective, suggesting that the traditional masculine-biased leadership ideal has decreased in influence with the feminine, transformational leadership ideal acting as a counterweight. The article argues that the shift in leadership ideals, as constructed in the job advertisements, mirrors the increase of women Vice-Chancellors appointed in the Swedish higher education sector.
Highlights
Women continue to be under-represented in academic decision-making in Europe
The ongoing recruitment processes between 2014–2018 were monitored as part of a research project and the recruitment profiles and job advertisements from those years were collected from online resources, e.g., the webpages of the higher education institutions as they were being published and the searches were in progress
These words were not explicitly used in the job advertisements, it was obvious that the image of the ideal Vice-Chancellor included traits such as ambitious and career-oriented
Summary
Women continue to be under-represented in academic decision-making in Europe. This is apparent when considering the proportion of female heads of institutions in the higher education sector and the proportion of female heads of universities [1]. This article makes a contribution to the existing body of research by extending our knowledge about academic leadership ideals to the Swedish higher education sector, where these issues have remained largely unexplored. The population selected for the present study is constituted by 27 of the largest and oldest higher education institutions (see Appendix A). Most of these are public institutions, accountable to the Swedish Government, and entitled to award first, secondand third-cycle qualifications. It is important to note, that the selection of 27 higher education institutions should not be interpreted as indicating that these 27 are a homogenous group of institutions
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