The goal of this study is to examine differences in leadership and decision-making practices in public and private universities in Pakistan, with a focus on transformational leadership (TL) and participative decision-making (PDM). We conducted semi-structured interviews with 46 deans and heads of department from two public and two private universities in Pakistan. Our findings indicate that leadership and decision-making practices are different in public and private universities. While differences were observed in all six types of TL-behaviour, the following three approaches emerged to be crucial in both public and private universities: (1) articulating a vision, (2) fostering the acceptance of group goals, and (3) high-performance expectations. In terms of PDM, deans and heads of department in public and private universities adopt a collaborative approach. However, on a practical level this approach is limited to teacher-and student-related matters. Overall, our findings suggest that the leadership and decision-making practices in Pakistani public and private universities are transformational and participative in nature.

No abstract

Leadership development is not considered as a core component in higher education policies specifically when we examine the higher education polices of developing countries. To fill this gap, an intervention is designed to evaluate the impact of a leadership development program in academic leaders. The prime objective of this intervention was to promote awareness among university deans and heads by adopting transformational leadership in their leadership practices. An experimental research design was adopted to map the effects of a 6-week intervention and to evaluate the variations in related six transformational leadership behaviors. Up to 37 academic deans and heads from public universities were involved in this research. Content analysis was carried out to analyze the collected data. Bloom’s taxonomy was adopted as a framework for the analysis. Three lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy were used to identify the awareness indicators. An extensive increase in awareness levels was identified in relation to all six transformational leadership behaviors, and more specifically, a prominent progress was observed at the application level. In addition to implications and limitations, directions for future research were also discussed.