This study aims at providing an understanding into how deans in Kenyan universities manage their faculties and the effects of their leadership styles on staff commitment. This endeavour is guided by three research questions presented in section 1.5. The first part of this chapter deals with our first research question “what are the leadership styles of Kenyan deans?” This requires us to make a description of how Kenyan deans manage their faculties, i.e. to describe their leadership styles. In section 3.1.2, we defined a style as a way of doing things repeatedly within a given context and generally viewed it as a repeated way of behaviour. In the context of this study, the leadership styles of the Kenyan deans would then imply their repeated behaviours as they manage their faculties. Fishbein & Ajzen (2010:29) view behaviour as observable events which take place in a certain place within a certain context at a given time and directed at some target. Since behaviour is a complex phenomenon, explaining one’s behaviour would require the specification of that behaviour and then evaluating or measuring it. In this view, understanding the
leadership behaviours or styles of the Kenyan deans would mean that we specify the behaviours of interest and measure them (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980).
In our theoretical framework, we presented and discussed the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as our model of explaining behaviour. We noted that the theory relies on attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural controls to explain behaviour. We relied on these components of TPB to explain the leadership behaviours or styles of the deans. This required first identifying and specifying the leadership behaviours of interest that we would use to establish the dominant leadership styles of the deans. The identification and specification of the behaviours of interest was part of the main rationale for adding the Competing Values Framework (CVF) to our model. In section 3.2 we discussed the CVF and its applicability to our study. Importantly, we noted that within its four quadrants, the CVF presents leadership roles that organizational leaders are expected to execute.
We evaluated the extent to which the deans executed these roles by analyzing their leadership behaviours.
Our starting point was the Competing Values Managerial Skills Instrument (Quinn, 1988) of CVF which provides a way of defining and measuring leadership behaviours. The instrument lists 32 behaviours that organizational leaders could exhibit in managing their organizations. We evaluated the extent to which the Kenyan deans exhibited these 32 behaviours4 in managing their faculties. The outcome from the responses of the deans on these behaviours (see Appendix B) shows that in general they viewed themselves as quite frequently performing all the 32 leadership behaviours as they managed their faculties. On a Likert scale of 1 to 7 the mean scores of the deans’ responses on each of the 32 behaviour items ranged
4 We presented the deans with statements containing the 32 statements in our questionnaire survey based on a Likert Scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always)
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from 5.0 (least performed behaviour) to 6.6 (most performed behaviour). It is striking that the deans perceive themselves as performing all the 32 behaviours.
Important to our study is the observation that they view themselves as performing all 32 behaviours quite frequently. It is also notable that some behaviours were performed even more frequently than others.
Since according to the CVF these leadership behaviours are important for the success of organizations, this behavioural pattern could imply that the Kenyan faculties have good leadership. If these self-reports of deans of their leadership behaviours is true, then it could be further argued that they exhibit peculiar behavioural complexity. As suggested by Quinn (1988) such behavioural complexity could mean that the deans are very dynamic, all round, multifaceted and that their faculties are well managed5. The CVF also notes that it is quite a task for leaders to perform all these behaviours regularly, as the deans portray i.e. performing different and even contradictory leadership behaviours. As demonstrated by the review of literature on Kenya’s higher education sector, such exemplary leadership by the deans might not actually be the case, noting the several challenges facing the sector.
Other research that support our suspicion about such exemplary leadership indicates that leadership is one of the main challenges facing Kenyan universities (Sifuna, 1997; Owino, Oanda & Olel, 2011; Dinku & Shitemi, 2011). Leadership at the faculty level in Kenyan universities has always been one of the main challenges of institutional governance (Mwiria, Ngethe, Ngome, Ouma-Odero, Wawire &
Wesonga, 2007). In fact, Dinku & Shitemi (2011) argue that most deans in Kenyan universities face many leadership challenges in their faculties and are in most cases
5According to CVF, balancing different behaviours as the deans do would imply that they are good leaders able to deal with different leadership requirements. As such the faculties would therefore seem to be well run.
not professionally prepared for these positions beforehand (Mwiria, 2003; Kamaara, 2011, Mathooko, & Ogutu, 2014). These impressions from the literature suggest that deans may not be able to deploy the level of behavioural complexity as is depicted by the outcomes of their responses regarding their performance of the leadership roles. It could be possible that the deans are frequently performing most of the roles as they are reporting, but maybe they are not doing them so well, to impact positively on their leadership and faculties. Again, and related to the literature above, performing so many roles, in a context of several challenges such as that of the Kenyan dean, could possibly be counterproductive. It could mean that the deans try to do everything at the same time, but this does not necessarily imply that they do them well. Even the opposite might be true.