Journal of Education, Law and Social Sciences

Exploring Leadership Styles in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Public and Private Universities

Sajjad Saleem

PhD Scholar, School of Public Administration, Hangzhou University of Science and Technology, China.

Azam Bucha

PhD Scholar, University of Lahore, Pakistan

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Abstract

In Pakistan’s world of higher education, leadership plays a pivotal role in the balancing of the policy framework, the development of the teaching workforce, and the learner’s productive outcomes. In the current context characterized by governance gaps, persistent shortages of resources, and a strong drive for excellence, the rigorous examination of observable leadership paradigms becomes essential for the simultaneous and continuous renewal and reform of the institutions. This study compares the incidence and impact of five important types of leadership—transformational, transactional, democratic, authoritarian, and laissez-faire—within the public and private university sectors of the country. The empirical basis for the study is a purposive multi-regional sample of schools in the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Baluchistan, from which a purposively designed survey instrument was sent to academic and administrative staff. The quantitative information was subjected to a wide range of parametric and non-parametric statistical tests, which revealed a different sufficient magnitude of variance across sectors to warrant diagnosis. In the public sector, the leadership is characterized as hybridity-producing, in which democratic discourse is temporarily supplemented by authoritarian control, a composite inherited from deep-rooted bureaucratic customs and externally imposed departmental rules. The competitive landscape of the proprietary sector indicates the simultaneous interweaving of transformational and transactional modalities. This integrated duality of transactional and transformational traits in the proprietary sector demonstrates a response to rudimentary and adaptive competitive levels in the market.