Leadership Development In Ethiopias Public Universities Policy Practices And Challenges

The leadership development requires an integrated model to expand leadership competenciesrnin learning organization; whereas the integrated model of academic leadership development isrnless documented in Ethiopia’s public university context. Hence, the main purpose statement ofrnthis study is to understand the academic leadership development policy, practices, and challengesrnin Ethiopia’s public universities. The objectives of this study, therefore, is to examine the statusrnof academic leadership development practices, to investigate leadership behaviors that attributernto improve leadership outcome, to investigate the leadership development, methodological formsrnthat envisage useful leadership behaviors, and to examine the challenges that foresee therndevelopment of academic leadership outcome. Further, the focus of the study is to understandrnwhether the legislative policy standard criteria support the academic leadership developmentrnphases in Ethiopia’s public universities. The researcher employed equal weight, concurrentrnmixed method design to guide the research process through the philosophical underpinnings ofrnpragmatism; a random sampling technique to select six public universities; and stratified randomrnsampling technique to draw 450 academic leaders from band1, band2, and band6 for thernquantitative inquiry. Further, he employed purposive and snowball sampling techniques to selectrn18 senior academic officers for qualitative inquiry. The author used modified multifactorrnleadership questionnaire, principal instructional management rating scale, and self-developedrnchallenge and leadership development methodological form items to construct the researchrnquestionnaire. Among 450 questionnaires distributed to academic leaders, 401 (89%) werernproperly filled and returned. Besides, partially open-ended interview protocol administered to 18rnsenior academic officers. Finally, the author employed IBM-SPSS-20 to record, organize, andrnanalyze the quantitative data. Besides, he manually analyzed the qualitatively gathered data. Asrnresults, the author verified the status of academic leadership development practices is partiallyrneffective (transformational =2.7, transactional = 2.3, laissez-faire = 1.8, and instructional = 2.4rnmean scores). Except the instructional leadership (t = 2.6, df = 399, P=0.01), the perceivedrntransformational (t =1.7, df=399, P=0.09), transaction (t = 0.9, df = 399, P=0.39), and laissezviiirnfaire (t = 1.9, df = 399, P=0.06) leadership behaviors could not make a significant differencernbetween faculty members and academic officers. Besides, the stepwise regression resultsrnjustified that the combination of transformational, instructional, and laissez-faire leadershiprnbehaviors best explain the development of academic leadership outcome (R2 = 0.63). Thernmethodological best practices in leadership development are better to explain instructionalrnleadership behaviors (R2 = 0.39) than to explain full range leadership behaviors (R2 = 0.15).rnChallenging the status quo, self-updating, and questioning systematic discriminations account tornimprove leadership outcome (R2 = 0.13). In contrast, the role mix conflicts, lack of novelty, lackrnof clear goal, lack of commitments, the emerging invisible rules domination over legal rules, andrnthe growing conflicts of personal interest against the collective interest are the sources ofrnchallenges that require immediate alteration. Transforming the emerging challenges intorndevelopmental challenges are gaining through deriving the expansion processes of setting goals,rnaligning the academic task and competencies, and subsuming individual interest in collectives’rninterest towards institutional goal. In sum, the legislative policy standard criteria endorsed tornguide the recruiting, selecting, developing, and retaining phases of academic leadershiprndevelopment partially support the ongoing academic leadership development practices inrnEthiopia’s public university context.rnKey Words: Leadership, leadership development, policy, practices, and challenges

Get Full Work

Report copyright infringement or plagiarism