Abstract

Education should not be limited to storage of information in our

brain but should be in such a manner that it develops characters,
moral, self- reliance and wisdom in a man
Swamy Vivekananda

The importance of academic leader behaviour and influence tactics

needs to be overemphasized, as these are the most essential
components of practicality of every educational institution. A clear
understanding of educational institution requires a thorough
analysis of academic leader behaviour and influence tactics as main
features. Academic leaders regularly acquire and use power. They
do so deliberately and consciously as well as intuitively and
unconsciously. Leadership and power do differ in goal compatibility,
direction of influence on ones subordinates and research emphasis.
This study attempts to reduce drastically these differences and
focus on the positives of influence tactics and leadership processes
to be exercised by higher authorities for enhancing institutional
effectiveness.

The present investigation focused on understanding the leaders

behaviour and influence tactics adopted by individuals when they
hold power positions, how it hinders the growth of individuals and
institutions goals. Faculty Organizational Commitment, Work
Engagement and the intention of stay/leave the institution of both
academic leaders and faculty members working for higher
educational institutions (Engineering, MBA and MCA colleges) were
involved in thorough investigation. The dependent variables were
work engagement and organizational commitment. Five tools were
adopted to collect data. Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire
(1962) developed by staff members of Fisher College of Business,
Ohio State Leadership Studies, Influence Behaviour Questionnaire
(2002) developed by Gary Yukl, Organizational Commitment
Questionnaire (1991) developed by Meyer and Allen, Utrecht Work
Engagement Scale (2003) developed by Schaufeli et al., and
Intention to stay/leave tool developed by Dilyis Robinson. The
Cronbach Alpha reliability for Leadership Behaviour Description
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Questionnaire (LBDQ) was 0.907; Influence Behaviour Questionnaire
(IBQ) was 0.677 for academic leaders. The skewness and kurtosis
reliability test for Influence Tactics, Organizational Commitment
Questionnaire (OCQ) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES)
showed that the z values falls <1.96 stating that these tools are
reliable. Stage two - the final data collection from academic leaders
and faculty members was fulfilled. A demographic information sheet
was used to collect the details about the respondents. A sample of
542 respondents for this study representing 44 academic leaders
and 498 faculty members were concentrated. The statistical
techniques adopted were mean, standard deviation, analysis of
variance, Pearsons correlation, regression, Chi-square and
descriptive analysis. Sixty six hypotheses were tested, among them
25 hypotheses were rejected and 41 hypotheses were accepted.

The major findings of the study were Integration, Structure and

Superior Orientation is the most frequently exhibited leader
behaviours; Role Assumption, Tolerance Uncertainty and
Reconciliation were least exhibited behaviours. According to
perception of faculty members - Consultation and Inspirational
Appeals were the most frequently adopted influence tactics;
Ingratiation and Exchange were the least adopted tactics by
academic leaders and perception of academic leaders shows that
Consultation and Inspirational appeals were the most frequently
adopted tactics; Pressure and Exchange tactics were least adopted
by faculty members. Affective commitment and Dedication were
seen in faculty members at higher educational institutions.
Relationship exists between influence tactics and organizational
commitment, influence tactics and work engagement. Positive
relationship was observed between organization commitment and
work engagement. Regression analysis indicated leader behaviour
significantly predicted influence tactics, the twelve predictors of
leader behaviour explained 73.2% of the variance and Regression
indicated the eleven predictors of influence tactics explained 4%
and 4.5% of the variance in predicting organizational commitment
and work engagement. Regression indicated the three predictors of
organisation commitment explained 36.2% of the variance which
was significantly good enough in predicting Work Engagement.
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There exists significant relationship across academic leader, faculty
members and age; significant relationship was found across
academic leader, faculty members and corporate experience.

For effective results, academic leaders need to understand and

represent their faculty members when required. Provide freedom to
faculty members for initiative decisions and actions whilst academic
leaders need not surrender their role, avoid encouraging groups
based on biases like region, discipline or other factors like gender
and seniority. Academic leaders need to be precautious while
predicting the outcomes. To increase the commitment of faculty
members, academic leaders need to work on providing relevant and
sufficient resources, offer assistance as and when required. Connect
faculty members with expertise for effective results and
hypothetical analysis show that there is low positive relationship
between influence tactics and work engagement, as faculty
members willingly work, sometimes mistakes occur as said There is
no human being in this world who does not make mistakes, if he
does not make mistakes then he is GOD. Under such
circumstances, academic leaders need to approach faculty
members out of feelings, friendship and loyalty, if it does not work
then use demands, threats or frequent checking. Academic leaders
must avoid involving others in persuading the faculty members. Not
only, have the roles of academic leaders and faculty members affect
the sustainment of quality, even the availability of resources in the
attainment of goals affect the end results. One very relevant
indicator of leadership effectiveness is the extent to which the
performance of the team or organization is enhanced and the
attainment of goals is facilitated (Bass, 2008; Kaiser, Hogan & Craig,
2008). There is controversy in understanding the roles of leaders
and managers, they are qualitatively and mutually exclusive (Bennis
& Nanus, 1985; Zaleznik, 1977), management needs to realize and
understand that educational leaders are concerned about how
things get done and try to get people agree about the most
important things to be done.

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