Leadership plays an important role in an educational establishment as they help to manage the day-to-day activities. Instructional leadership has always played a distinct role in higher education as the role of instructional leadership was always to influence on effective teaching and learning processes. The purpose of this research is intended to…

Departmental Heads (DH) has huge responsibilities of heading phases, departments, and teaching of subjects. At the same time, they need to focus on their leadership and management tasks as senior teachers. The predicament of being a teacher and leader-manager is exacerbated by more expectations from the principals and school management teams…

This paper provides a small-scale exploration of the evolvement of leadership roles in higher education academic units (AUs), namely Departments, Schools & Faculties. A literature review provides theoretical examples of the evolution of professional services (PS) staff. Changes in PS leadership roles are also explored alongside the emergence…

The academic department is a key administrative unit in universities, and so heading, or chairing, a department is a key role. However, it is also known to be a challenging role and academics are often reluctant assume this position. Despite its importance, the head's role has not received sufficient academic attention and needs further…

As excellence in teaching and learning, in combination with a focus on student performance rates, are guiding the demands placed on higher education institutions, modern universities are attributing strategic importance to leadership of teaching and learning. Previous studies on educational leadership have, nevertheless, identified significant…

Purpose: While current research is reporting on a crisis in school leadership aspirations and appointments, this research sheds light on the mediating factors that school middle leaders (MLs) attribute to their appointment as a leader and their aspirations to senior leadership positions. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative data from a larger,…

Knowledge management is one of the valuable dimensions essential for the educational institution to support teachers' performance. Therefore, the role of leaders in encouraging teachers to create and share knowledge is vital to earn a competitive advantage. This research was planned to find the relationship among leadership styles…

This article takes the author's personal experience of being a Head of Department (HOD) in an English University, and frames this experience as a transition narrative. The format draws on the work of Sandra Acker, who framed her own experience as a Head of Department in Canada, in three areas. Utilising literature both on Higher Education…

This qualitative research investigated the applicability of teacher leadership, a notion mostly grounded in the Western literatures, to the educational settings in China. The current research focused on the Chinese lead teachers, backbone teachers (BTs), their experiences, and perspectives of teacher leadership. As a program designed to increase…

Too often, instructional leadership is perceived as an area of competence for principals with less focus on teachers, especially those with subject leadership responsibilities. In the study reported on here we investigated the perspectives of subject leaders and their perceived competence in instructional leadership as a basis for its correlation.…

This study explores the experiences of department heads at Haramaya University, Ethiopia with regard to academic leadership perceptions and practices. Qualitative research approach with phenomenological strategy was employed in this study. Five department heads were selected using purposive sampling techniques. Semistructured interview,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine leading from the middle, which is consistent with calls to distribute leadership, while expanding the direction of influence, from the normal top-down to include a bottomup or lateral direction. The paper proposes that the position of the vice-principal enables the role incumbent to lead from the…

This study aimed to understand the lived experience of department chairs in a Canadian university context. Guided by phenomenological inquiry, 21 individual interviews of experienced academic chairs were analyzed. Findings focus on the rewards and challenges of the position, advice for professors interested in taking on this role, and the systemic…

This article aims to report on the barriers experienced by HODs in executing their curriculum leadership roles within the theoretical framework of human capital theory (HCT). The research followed a qualitative, phenomenological approach underpinned by an interpretative paradigm. Purposive sampling was used to select n = 12 HOD participants due to…

Teacher leadership is often connected to experienced teachers as it is assumed that a certain level of knowledge and experience is needed. Informal teacher leadership, however, can also be expected from beginning teachers. The aim of this study is to study beginning teachers' opportunities for enacting leadership. Twelve pairs, consisting of one…