Leadership of department heads in higher education and their professionalization as leaders

The aim of this study is to reveal the perceptions of department heads working in public and private universities in Turkey about their leadership roles and styles and professionalization. Gender and university type, as the variables of this study, are also investigated in terms of leadership and professionalization of department heads. This study has the quality of being the first study, connecting leadership and professionalization concepts in Turkey. By using a qualitative approach, fourteen department heads from four universities in the province of Istanbul were interviewed. The interview questions were semi-structured and formed by the researcher based on the interview questions of similar studies. All participants had at least two years of experience as a department head in their institution. In this study, thematic analysis method was used for data analysis and four main themes emerged during the analysis: becoming a department head, administration of a department, perceptions on the extent of leadership and perceptions on the extent of professionalization. All main themes were supported by sub-themes and statements of participants. The findings of this study indicated that department heads usually expressed negative opinions on their roles because they had some problems related to their position. These problems included their obligation to undertake this role, heavy workload, responsibility without authority, and having no incentives. It was also concluded from this study that most department heads adopted some leadership styles without recognizing them and some even did not like the concept of leadership. However; they especially made use of servant leadership and transformational leadership unwittingly to fulfill this role. Lastly, it reached the conclusion that being a department head was not a professionalized field in Turkey, as it was not in most countries in the world. In the light of the findings, it can be stated that there needs to be new regulations to determine the future of being a department head in Turkey.