Exploring Authoritative Leadership Among Department Heads in Sabah, Malaysia: A Quantitative Study
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine lecturers’ perceptions of authoritative leadership among department heads in Sabah, Malaysia. The sample consisted of 46 lecturers from three private higher educational institutions (PHEIs) located in Kota Kinabalu, who were asked to fill out the Authoritative Leadership Questionnaire on Google Forms. Responses were subsequently transferred onto a spreadsheet and SPSS 29.0 was used to analyze the data. Findings imply that low-average to average proportions of lecturers tend to perceive their department heads as authoritative. Only three items imply that slightly above average proportion of lecturers tend to perceive their department heads as authoritative. Further, nonparametric tests showed that there were no significant differences in perceived authoritative leadership by way of gender, age, and job experience. Wilcoxon signed rank test revealed that all authoritative leadership items were significant at p < .001, with medians significantly different from the hypothesized value of 3.5, indicating strong disagreement. In light of the findings, implications and recommendations on authoritative leadership were made in the context of PHEIs in Sabah, Malaysia.
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References
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