Transformational leadership styles and change processes in higher education

As higher education institutions attempt to address issues pertaining to institutional change, very few scholarly studies have examined how transformational leadership processes influence changes to institutional cultures and structures. To address this gap, the current study explores how leadership processes contribute to changes in the institutional culture and structure of a university in South Africa by gathering interview data from 69 academic and professional staff. The findings revealed that for the university to achieve its transformation objectives, leaders should challenge the cognitive abilities of their staff, scaffold strategies for meeting high work standards, negotiating the attainment of staff personal and career goals, engender staff motivation and assist their staff to understand the institutional culture and structure. These findings among others lead the author to propose ways that future studies could examine how the leadership processes could enhance institutional transformation.