There are critical demands for sweeping change in colleges, prompting most institutions to examine how leadership can effectively manage this "crisis in higher education" (Heuck, 2012, p.39), while serving their respective clients and meeting their goals. Department chairs in universities are one key to meeting the challenges this "crisis" represents, as they serve as frontline supervisors, providing leadership to staff, students, and various programs. Research of leadership in higher education consistently points to the importance of three interrelated aspects of purposeful institutional change: (1) transformational leadership, (2) trust, and (3) follower "buy in" or internalization of the organizational vision. Therefore, colleges would benefit from enhancing the perceptions of department chair leadership in relation to these areas. Harrison (2011) recommended conducting qualitative studies of midlevel student affairs professionals from diverse colleges to more fully understand their experience of leadership in higher education. Therefore, this qualitative study explored and compared the perceptions of department chairs in selected upper Great Plains universities. A phenomenological research approach was used in this study. To better understand this phenomenon, six ROTC commanders and six social science chairs at universities in the Upper Great Plains were engaged in face-to-face or phone interviews and asked to describe their experiences with leadership. In particular, these twelve department leaders described their experiences in how they lead, and how they perceive they foster trust and efficacy. A thorough analysis of the interview transcriptions identified six emerging themes among the data: being genuine, building trust, clear expectations, making connections/building relationship, caring, and inspiring investment in the organizational mission. The results of the study indicate that authentic leadership is a key leadership quality for these leaders in higher education. The qualities of trust, caring, inspiring investment in the organizational mission all stemmed from the essential quality of being genuine and authentic for both groups. In addition, the themes gathered from interviews were compared with scores from the MLQ which revealed a consistent tendency for all department chairs from both groups to identify with transformational leadership practice. Universities should support the authentic and transformational leadership paradigms and actively encourage mentorship. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]