Leadership Styles of University Managers in Colombia: An Analysis of Gender, Experience, and Type of Institution
Abstract
Purpose: To empirically determine if variables such as gender, job tenure, and type of Higher Education Institution promote certain leadership styles in university managers in Colombia.
Design/methodology: The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was applied to a sample of 272 university managers in 24 cities in Colombia. Among them, 60% work for private institutions; and 40%, for public ones. The data were analyzed by means of Student’s t-test for independent samples, and the hypotheses were tested using fitted linear regression models.
Findings: Transformational leadership was found to be predominant among these university managers, regardless of their gender and type of institution. There were no statistically significant differences in leadership styles due to gender or type of institution. It was found that longer job tenures promote transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles.
Conclusions: Although men and women can adopt the same leadership styles regardless of the type of institution, future studies should investigate other variables of the occupational profile of university managers and the demands of the higher education sector in order to understand the way leadership styles are configured and their effectiveness.
Originality: This study extends the analysis of leadership styles to biographic and workplace-related characteristics, i.e., gender, job tenure, and type of institution where university managers work. These variables have been little explored in Colombia.
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