Emotion and leadership in higher education : five case studies
Charles, Kathy Evelyn (2020)
2020
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202002112305
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202002112305
Tiivistelmä
Higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (particularly England) has arguably transitioned into a fully marketized service sector during the last 25 years. This change, along with generalisation of expertise and a shift towards distributed leadership and has placed mid-level academic leaders in contexts where they may experience emotional labour and emotional dissonance previously limited to the traditional service sector.
This study uses a parallel mixed methods approach underpinned by phenomenology to explore five case studies of leadership in UK HE. The foci are: exploring how academic leaders manage their emotions; the extent to which emotional management is related to their personality; and how academic leaders could be better prepared for leadership roles.
Findings reveal that personality appears to play little role in understanding how leaders manage their emotions. Leaders learn to adopt advice seeking and support behaviours, and purposefully mute their emotional expression in order to maintain positive affect in their followers. These findings suggest some support for the behavioural approach to leadership.
Stories of leadership generated by the participants are used to form the basis of a suggested training resource for new academic leaders with a recommendation on greater organisational context in training programmes. Further longitudinal research is recommended in order to appreciate the dynamic complexity of leadership, and limitations of the research are discussed with a specific focus on the methodology chosen.
This study uses a parallel mixed methods approach underpinned by phenomenology to explore five case studies of leadership in UK HE. The foci are: exploring how academic leaders manage their emotions; the extent to which emotional management is related to their personality; and how academic leaders could be better prepared for leadership roles.
Findings reveal that personality appears to play little role in understanding how leaders manage their emotions. Leaders learn to adopt advice seeking and support behaviours, and purposefully mute their emotional expression in order to maintain positive affect in their followers. These findings suggest some support for the behavioural approach to leadership.
Stories of leadership generated by the participants are used to form the basis of a suggested training resource for new academic leaders with a recommendation on greater organisational context in training programmes. Further longitudinal research is recommended in order to appreciate the dynamic complexity of leadership, and limitations of the research are discussed with a specific focus on the methodology chosen.