Developing and piloting the Higher Education Leadership Instrument (HELI): 'Bootstrapping' theory and measurement.

摘要

The shared governance model of higher education requires leadership that effectively manages the myriad forces exerted on it by internal and external entities through distributing authority and responsibility among its bases (administrative, academic, and regent) and facilitating interaction between the people and processes of institutions of higher education (IHEs). Five dimensions were theorized to form the basis of this kind of leadership: (1)  Integral: The practices and behaviors necessary to enhance the organizational relationships in the administration of a shared governance system. (2)  Relational: Practices and behaviors that evidence the leader's relationships on a personal level with members of the IHE. (3) Credibility : Values-based behaviors that exemplify leaders' credibility. (4)  Competence: The work ethic of leaders. (5) Direction /Guidance: Behaviors that direct the course of the IHE and its members as they confront internal and external challenges.; Instruments that assess these dimensions of higher education leadership do not exist; thus, the Higher Education Leadership Instrument (HELI) was developed. Indicators for each dimension were developed in dichotomous versions; 32 described demonstrated leadership behaviors (HELI-D) and 32 were core, or possessed, attributes (HELI-C). The HELI was administered over the internet to a sample of 452 deans from colleges of agriculture, arts and sciences, business, education, engineering, and nursing derived from the 2001 Higher Education Directory; 232 deans responded, for a 51.3% response rate.; Internal consistency of the instrument was high (alpha ranged from .74 to .91). Principal components analyses (PCA) tested hypotheses of whether the indicators of the demonstrated and core resources would load on their respective dimensions. In all PCAs a general leadership factor emerged that accounted for the lion's share of the test variance, along with other smaller, bipolar, ambiguous factors. These findings did not support the 10 research hypotheses but indicated the instrument tapped the higher education leadership construct. Regression analysis revealed a strong association between the demonstrated and core behaviors, confirming all five research hypotheses. Recommendations were offered for (a) revision of the HELI items to more clearly delineate the dimensions, (b) restructuring of the construct itself, (c) improvement of the survey protocol, and (d) further study.