Authoritarian Leadership Among Department Heads in Sabah, Malaysia: A Quantitative Study on Lecturers’ Perceptions
Abstract
The primary purpose of this study was to investigate lecturers’ perceptions of authoritarian leadership 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 Authoritarian Leadership Questionnaire on Google Forms. Responses were subsequently transferred onto a spreadsheet and SPSS 29.0 was used to analyze the data. For this study, a 30 percent agreement on authoritarianism was deemed high and would fall into a concerning range especially within a democratic context. Findings showed that a high proportion (30.4 to 52.2 percent) of PHEI lecturers strongly agreed/agreed that department heads tend to practice authoritarian leadership. On the other hand, nonparametric tests revealed nonsignificant differences in perceived authoritarian leadership by way of gender, age, and job experience. Additionally, Wilcoxon signed rank test showed that 22 of the items were significant at p < .001, with medians significantly different from the hypothesized value of 3.5. Another 15 of the items were significant at p < .05, with medians significantly different from the hypothesized value of 3.5. In light of the findings, implications and recommendations on authoritarian leadership were made in the context of PHEIs in Sabah, Malaysia.
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