Cultural Transformation and Academic Leadership

Abstract

This chapter aims to elaborate on the leadership properties in the transformation in higher education across the world by advancing specific illustration from the Turkish higher education context. Three specific objectives were identified around this broad aim: (1) document the current forces of change surrounding HEIs, (2) identify the culture shift in HEIs, and (3) provide literature-based evidence for the leadership gap in the face of culture shift and develop preposition for academic leadership. Higher education institutions (HEIs) form one of the sectors which has been drastically affected from the trends and developments in the economic, political, social, and technological spheres and responded to these change forces by radical transformations that have touched their traditional and historical value systems. This chapter argues that HEIs need leadership practices to survive the crisis and conflict era successfully, which carry some properties of transformational leadership while holding the traditional academic leadership perspective.