Invisible leadership is the only style that fosters innovations in academia. If somebody does remember Charles William Eliot, who was the President of Harvard university in 1869-1909 and moved Harvard from the outskirts of the global science and education into the first U.S. university of world significance?

Do you know the heads of RAND corporation, which is associated with 32 recipients of Nobel Prize?

Invisible leadership creates the sense of freedom for talented and very talented people, and hides from them administrative and financial constrains. All the rest will be done by the faculty itself.

Kesting et al. (2015) appear to have answered your research question. You would have to justify why and how universities differ from the organizations included in their comprehensive review.

Maris Martinsons Thanks for your feedback, its really useful, maybe i can find some gap from it

I do not believe autocratic styles of management fosters creativity as creativity tends to require some level of autonomy and a generally decentralized system to grow. Transactional could be the next level after autocratic in that it only reaches a certain point, or is limited in it's ability to produce innovation. Transformational leadership is more ideal. However, these days, mixed styles produce a dynamism that fits the different preferences that inevitably exist among various generations and individuals in the work environment.

Sandra Obiora i agree with you on the point of autonomy and decentralization but again charisma is not all the solution to innovation. we need people who guide with their wisdom of knowledge and intuition for innovation. we need people who know innovation so that they understand and help in innovation.

Invisible leadership is the only style that fosters innovations in academia. If somebody does remember Charles William Eliot, who was the President of Harvard university in 1869-1909 and moved Harvard from the outskirts of the global science and education into the first U.S. university of world significance?

Do you know the heads of RAND corporation, which is associated with 32 recipients of Nobel Prize?

Invisible leadership creates the sense of freedom for talented and very talented people, and hides from them administrative and financial constrains. All the rest will be done by the faculty itself.

Igor Gurkov thanks for your valuable feedback. i am gonna learn about it soon.

Tahseen you are right that "we need people who guide with their wisdom of knowledge and intuition for innovation. we need people who know innovation so that they understand and help in innovation;" to be helpful, whether less or more visibly, academic institutions' leaders have to achieve interactional expertise (Collins & Evans, Rethinking Expertise, 2007) gained by trust-creating vulnerable involvement in researchers' problems ( Zand, 1972. Trust and managerial problem solving. Administrative Science Quarterly), as Warren Bennis did when becoming a university leader and finding that being a successful academic is not enough to lead a university ( Why Leaders Can’t Lead. 1989). Vulnerable involvement requires jeopardizing a leader's authority hence many avoid it and fail. See my attached works.

This is an interesting discussion, i believe a hybrid of transformational and transactional leadership should increase innovation in universities. Regarding your research question it would be pertinent to try exploring - 'Transformational leadership style increases innovation in top universities?'. You can select a mix of top-20 US, European and Asian universities (list from QS rankings), look at the patents issued by these universities and relate them with the management styles (Transformational, Transactional and Autocratic) of the head of the university. Measuring the leadership style will require a qualitative evaluation of the leader of the university (through an interview or administering a questionnaire over a call or if you get enough secondary data you can build a leader profile by recognizing leadership style words across literature on the leader spread across the web).The period maybe standardized by taking the patents growth since appointment of the head of the university (min. 5years or lesser in case the leader is newly appointed). The results will allow to establish a relationship between leadership style and innovation and help you to conceive a more empirical evaluation of leadership interplay to enhance innovation output of universities.

Azam Pasha Thanks for your ideas and road map to study. i shall surely consider your advice.

The best I know is Grid Leadership 9,9... but only a small % of managers have reached it so far...

Arnulf D. Schircks can you share any paper on Grid leadership

watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz5hgX2MYbE

and look in Wikipedia and a lot of articles,,, I have only written in German... and at the present we work on a book about Leadership Grid 4.0

Arnulf D. Schircks thanks for sharing, after watching video, i perceive Grid style of leadership focuses more between people and task oriented. well that's really innovative idea but the leadership that i am looking for should be effective in innovation, creativity and ideation in universities, research labs and institutes. I would like to hear more on it from you. Thanks

you are right... but INNOVATION is people driven... i.e. style 9,9 is the only style leading to innovation...Besides my experience in economy world and admin I have even trained chief-psychiatrists :-)

In our new online tool "Industrie 4.0" with seven operational fields one is called INNOVATION and a second on is called LEADERSHIP, in both are included the core competence COMMUNICATION... INNOVATION (in any sector be it academia, industry...) need superier new concern for people i.e. excellent COMMUNICATION...

A blend of all leadership style would foster innovation in top innovation university. Universities function as a system and thus different leadership styles are required to foster innovation. There is no unitary leadership style that might be effective. Even where a specific leadership style is chosen and predominant ,there are latent elements of others that are inherent in the dominant leadership style.