Diversifying Positive Leadership in Higher Education: An Integrative Approach to Organizational Change in the Academy

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Racism in Higher Education: Strategies to Disrupt Institutionalized Oppression and Lead Toward Racial Justice

Abstract

Objectives: This paper explores how educators and scholar-practitioners can effectively create spaces where people with diverse backgrounds and experiences feel welcome to discuss and integrate topics among power, privilege, racism, oppression, and identity. Leaders at institutions of higher education will benefit from supporting their roles and those of others using positive leadership that allows for critical perspectives, personal development, and community building to occur. By building consensus and a common mission, promoting cooperation, and bridging divisions, leaders at institutes of higher education can help break down the silos that exist in higher learning environments.

Theoretical framework: Transformational leadership draws on critical and justice-based perspectives (Kexar & Posselt, 2019). Positive leadership is inclusive of its constituents, stakeholders, and the change agents who bring desirable attributes to their organizations and their work (Pless & Maak, 2011). With positive leadership implemented around organizational leadership and transitional models involved in the process, the study examines leadership through the lens of advancing student success.

Methods: The use of qualitative methodology through phenomenology was used to develop insights about the dynamics of positive leadership and describe experiences with organizational change in the workplace. An analysis of the quantitative data collected from survey responses (n = 201) were used to identify four major themes. These themes can help to inform the intersection of positive leadership and organizational change in the academy as well as institutes of higher learning activity.

Data: The researcher used Qualtrics software to create and disseminate the survey to faculty, staff, and administrators at an institute of higher education, consisting of demographic questions, as well as Likert-scale questions to rank characteristics of positive leadership, inclusivity, and organizational change. The researcher analyzed the data using Qualtrics and SPSS to interpret the results and identify any other themes regarding the intersection of positive leadership and organizational change, as well as its significance to equitable and inclusive student success outcomes.

Results: The participants stated that understanding culturally responsive pedagogy and cultural proficiency are connected to the issues and barriers related to developing faculty diversity in the institution. Four dominant themes emerged: (a) maintaining an inclusive work environment, (b) bringing action and awareness to social justice and human rights issues, (c) encouraging ethical risk-taking, and (d) fostering spiritual and mutual trust in the workplace.
Significance: As suggested by the study’s findings, it is critical to identify how both social and professional identities impact one’s identity as an organizational leader. Transformational leadership involves inspiring and motivating employees to raise their level of motivation. Central components that accentuate transformational leadership practices include idealized influence, uplifting inspiration, and orientated change (Grant, 2012). Using positive leadership and transformational leadership in institutes of higher education, specifically in human resources departments, and including transformational objectives in employee job descriptions and project management outcomes can help academicians, educators, and administrators to respond to and work with diverse student populations through student services, curriculum, and other areas impacting student success.

Author

• Sonya Sharififard, Pepperdine University