Analysis of Head of Departments Leadership Styles: Implication for Improving Research University Management Practices

AbstractBeing an international center of excellence in higher education is considered as a comprehensive goal of the Ministry of Higher Education in Malaysia. In satisfying this goal, Malaysian higher education institutions and specifically Research Universities (RUs) are in center of attention, as they play a crucial role in developing the community. Administrators’ leadership styles has influenced on lecturers’ job satisfaction and play essential role in materialization of research university's goals and vision. Utilizing a descriptive correlational design, this study aimed to determine head of departments’ leadership style and its correlation with lecturers’ job satisfaction. The target populations were the lecturers of three Malaysian RUs. The MLQ 5x and WFJSDS were used as the instruments of the study.Based on lecturers’ perception, the head of departments applied a combination of three distinct leadership styles in terms of transformational leadership (fairly often), transactional leadership (sometimes), and laissez-faire (once in a while). Among three discernable leadership styles, the transformational and the transactional leadership styles were positively and laissez-faire were negatively correlated with the lecturers’ job satisfaction. In terms of job satisfaction RUs’ lecturers were moderately satisfied. The study concludes that head of departments in RUs are encouraged to practice transformational leadership since multiple regression analysis revealed that it is a significant predictor of lecturer's job satisfaction