Dear Innocent Otache

When examining the leadership style of a university, the researcher would typically measure the leadership style of the highest-ranking executive, who is usually the Vice-Chancellor (VC) or President. This individual has sweeping influence over the strategic direction, institutional decision-making processes, and cultural dynamics of the organization, and therefore shapes the collective leadership ethos of the university. Once again depending on the focus of the research and the particular context, the researcher might also want to explore the leadership styles of other key figures in the university hierarchy, such as deans, heads of department, or influential faculty members. Each of these figures can influence the portable collective dynamics and performance of the university.

I hope this helps.

A university is an institution with an organizational structure. The apex organ in most Universities has 'Management level staff'. The leadership style of such an institution is exemplified by senior management staff. The overall leadership style is an amalgam from the senior managers, not a single individual. How is the leadership in the Finance section, Procurement, Academics, Administration - Each of these key sections have implications on the overall leadership styles adopted by the institution. My view.

What might be more reasonable is to consider examining the leadership style characteristics et cetera of the top team of a university but without trying to then consider that has been fully representative of the organisation as a whole. Of course it will have a major impact so you might want to consider constraining your question just a little. Anyway as we disagree and that's fine and I wish you well with your work take care

You may want to look at leadership at different levels. My work with universities suggests that they struggle to contain two distinctly different cultures - the faculty ad the administration - and subcultures within each. The faculty operates largely on a star culture (Handy) while the administration adheres to a role culture. These two often clash in terms of priorities. So look at leadership in both cultures and of course also at the levels above e.g. VC. Each culture seems to require different things of its leaders.

Often the primary driver of organizational culture; the attitudes of the people, interactions, values; is often a product of influence from top level management. You may need to consider that view.

We do a lot of work around leadership in large organisations of all types. Earlier answers all make good points. The single biggest influence on culture is the VC or CEO. Sometimes in a more democratic set up it can be the senior leadership team and we assess that.

However leadership style is situational and it is not unusual to see differences in leadership style at different levels as the leaders task moves from strategic to operational and they have a closer connection to their followers.

So it is possible for the VC to be controlling. This will echo down the organisation but may manifest itself differently at different levels. A supervisor may know his/her staff so well that they may operate in more engaging way.

The idea of situation can have another implication for Universities. Many are more like co-operatives and consist of number of faculties. Each is separately funded and each can be very independent of the rest of the organisation. In this case the major influence can be the Head of Faculty not the VC.

That can be true of conglomerates too.