Academic Leaders Leadership Styles and Job Satisfaction of Academic Staffs in Ethiopian Public Universities

1. INTRODUCTION

Higher education has unique academic freedom and the critical mass and diversity of skills to develop new ideas, to comment on society and its challenges, and to engage in bold experimentation in sustainable living. The significance of higher education for the development of any nation, developed and developing, was clearly spelt out in the large body of literature. Assefa (2013) universities are sources of key research and development innovation that concurrently can be beneficial to society and conducive economic growth. Moreover, Teshome (2005), signifies that higher education is fundamental for the production of vital human resources, such as teachers, healthcare professionals, lawyers, engineers, managers, businessmen and researchers which are critical for socio-economic development of a nation. Furthermore, he described higher education as a center for knowledge and skills creation, adaptation and dissemination. They also play a significant role in providing relevant and quality community and public services (Assefa 2013). The learning and benefit to society of higher education forming partnerships with local and regional communities to make them socially vibrant, economically secure, and environmentally sustainable will be a crucial part of successful higher education (Hawken 1997). The 20th century‘s scientific and technological achievements were essentially due to the growth of higher education and the enormous contribution and endeavor of personnel trained within it. Without sufficient number of higher education and research institutions providing a critical mass of skilled and educated people, no country can ensure genuine endogenous and sustainable development (UNESCO, 1998).

the investigation was both on leadership style and the impact on job satisfaction of academic staffs. Hoppock initially proposed the concept of job satisfaction in 1935 (Tsai et al., 2007). Locke (1969) defined job satisfaction as the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one‘s job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of one‘s job values. Besides job satisfaction is a subjective term, defined in various ways, however it was generally agreed that job satisfaction is considered a global feeling about the job (Yucel and Bektas, 2012). Moreover, Churchill et al (1974) cleared up job satisfaction as all features of the job itself and the work environment which salesmen find rewarding, fulfilling, and satisfying, or frustrating and unsatisfying. Like ways, Locke (1976) well-defined job satisfaction as a positive relationship characterized by pleasurable or positive state of mind resulting from the job experience. Various researchers defined job satisfaction as a set of evaluative emotional state that staff members' have toward their job or position situation (Le Rouge et al., 2006). Job satisfaction is the extent to which staff members' feel positively or negatively about his/her job (Locke 1969, 1976; Kim et al., 2005; Arnold et al., 2009; Alniacik et al., 2011; Yamaguchi, 2012). Job satisfaction is the most frequently measured organizational variables in the empirical research settings because job satisfaction is considered an important indicator of how staff members' feel about their jobs committed to their organization and a predictor of turnover (Yucel and Bektas, 2012). As many researchers, besides a school leader‘s leadership style, teacher job satisfaction is another critical factor affecting school effectiveness. And in the current research the researcher raised the two critical issues leadership style and teachers job satisfaction. Northouse (2010) assumed that a teachers‘ job satisfaction may serve to impact their morale, motivation and general willingness to maximize their teaching potential. Teachers who are not satisfied with their jobs may result in bad teaching or learning process, and school effectiveness will consequently be negatively impacted. Spector (1985) found that if the employees find their job fulfilling and rewarding, they tend to be more satisfied with their jobs. Hence, good school leadership with appropriate leadership style is essential to turning around the nation‘s deteriorating schools.

Ethiopia is presently engaged in a highly ambitious effort to calibrate its higher education system more direct support of its national strategy for economic growth and poverty reduction by enhancing a Higher of universities and colleges, increasing the intake capacity of the existing universities (more than double), diversification of academic programs and Business Process Reengineering of organizational and management approaches were among the reform agendas of the country. Thus, organizational environment in HEIs of Ethiopia is changing from time to time. The involvement of a complex range of stake holders in university affairs has influenced the governance structure of these institutions, embedding more transparent approaches to leadership, management and communication with stakeholders to meet the expectations. The challenges facing higher education institutions are bigger and more complex. This requires competent of leaders who can bring about the challenges needed for sustained performance (Bisbee & Miller, 2006). In countries like Ethiopia, where higher education institutions are expected to address the multifaceted societal problems, it is increasingly important to study the impact of leadership styles on the job satisfaction of academic staffs which determinants of success in achieving goals.The researcher experience showed that studies conducted in academic leadership are originated from other disciplines and sectors specifically business and industries leadership styles. In the same way many more researches has been conducted on job satisfaction abroad but only few tried to investigate the impact of leadership style on the job satisfaction of academic staffs. What initiated the researcher more is, the leadership styles of academic leaders (deans and department heads) is the crucial element in achieving higher education institution goals. Hence, the satisfaction of academic staffs in Ethiopian Public universities need to be investigated in relation to the leadership style of academic leaders (deans and department heads). Moreover, this study focused on the investigation of the particular leadership model and leadership styles mentioned by Tridimensional Leader Effectiveness Model of Hersey and Blanchard, (1982) comprises of a Relationship Behavior Axis, a Task Behavior Axis, and the Effectiveness Dimension Axis. Accordingly, these axes or grids form four quadrants of leadership styles: telling, selling, participating and delegating. So the aim of this research is investigating job satisfaction of lecturers/teachers in relation of the aforementioned leadership styles. Moreover, this research identifies which leadership style would play its role for the satisfaction of teachers/lecturers. This is because the researcher has strong believe that teachers‘

Teachers who are satisfied with their job are more enthusiastic and interested in devoting more energy and time to student achievement (Nguni et al., 2006). Therefore, understanding the important factors affecting teacher job satisfaction is vital to attain the required information to support an educational system to succeed in its objectives (Perie et al., 1997). Since the academic leaders leadership behavior is one of the positive factors that have a direct relationship with job satisfaction (Bogler, 1999, Miears, 2004). Furthermore, the leaders decision making style also affects teacher job satisfaction. Working with a leader who encourages teachers to get involved in decision making tasks has a positive influence on teachers‘ involvement and commitment to their teaching duties and classes (Bogler, 2001). Teachers who work with principals or academic leaders who share information with them, and involve them more in management decisions are more satisfied The drive of this study was to determine if leadership style of academic leaders has an impact on job satisfaction of academic staffs in Ethiopian Public Universities. A problem of academic staff attrition and high turnover among teachers have diminish the opportunities of students to have access veteran teachers. One promising way to retain teachers in the profession is to study those factors affection job satisfaction of academic staffs. A stronger understanding of teachers‘ job satisfaction in relation of academic leaders may help universities to create up-to-date training to academic leaders (deans and department heads) to improve academic staffs‘ job satisfaction. Thus, the researcher believes that this is a crucial insight in leadership studies conducted so far for academia and academic development specifically in Ethiopian higher education context. Therefore, the present study is designed to assess the leadership style of academic leaders (Deans and Department Heads) and its impact on the job satisfaction of academic staffs in Ethiopian Public Universities.

In order to carry out the objectives of the study, attempts were made to seek reliable answers for the following research questions: 1) What is the perception of academic staffs on the leadership styles of academic leaders (deans and Department heads?) 2) Do academic leaders (deans and department heads) leadership styles have affect academic staffs‘ job satisfaction? 4) Is there a particular leadership style that has more of an impact on academic staffs‘ job satisfaction than other leadership style?

4.1. General Objectives The general objective of this study was to assess the leadership styles of academic leaders (deans and department heads) and its impact on the job satisfaction of academic staffs in Ethiopian public Universities.

To this end, the study was aimed at: 1) Examine the perception of teachers towards academic leaders (deans and department heads) leadership style 2) Investigate the impact of academic leaders (deans and department heads) leadership styles on academic staffs job satisfaction. 3) Realize if there was difference of job satisfaction in academic staffs due to leadership style of academic leaders. 4) Identify a particular leadership style that has more impact on academic staffs‘ job satisfaction.

The purpose of this study was to investigate leadership styles of academic leaders (deans and department heads and its impact on job satisfactions of academic staffs in Ethiopia Public Universities. To arrive at the stated objective, situational leadership model developed by Hersey and Blanchard (1974), which consists of four styles of leadership, namely, telling, selling, participating and delegating was reviewed. And Paul E. Spector (1994) Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) was employed to assess about the job and aspects of the job. It consists 36 questions about nine areas of satisfaction. Accordingly descriptive survey design was employed. As the result quantitative approach used to enrich the study.

The present study assessed the leadership style of academic leaders‘ (deans and department heads)

These universities are categorized as first, second and third generation based on the time of establishment. The universities are distributed in to 9 regions and two city administrations of the country. Among these, half of the universities are located in two regions, Oromia (9) and Amhara (7). Public universities located in Amhara region were purposefully selected for the study. This is because Amhara regional state is the second populated in terms of numbers of universities next to Oromia regional state on one hand and physical proximity of the researcher to the study area and hence it was cost effective in terms of time and finance on the other hand. Most importantly there was no a single study on leadership style exclusively on academic leaders in universities of Amhara Regional State. However, there was an effort made to study by Gemechis and Ayalew (2012) in Oromia Regional State at Jimma University at department level. In Amhara region there are seven universities categorized in to three categories. First generation (Gondar and Bahir Dar Universities), Second generation ( Wolo, Debre Markos, and Debre Berhan Universities), and third generation (Debre Tabor and Woldeya Universities) . The researcher selected one university from each first generation and third generation universities and two universities form second generation universities by stratified random sampling method. Thus, academic leaders (Deans and Department Heads and academic staff who were working as full time lecturer in four universities had been taken as a sample. 123 deans and department heads and, 197 instructors, which was totally 320 were participated in the study. 5.3. Instrumentation Data was collected using three instruments: Hersey and Blanchard (1974) the Leadership Effectiveness and Adaptability Description (LEAD)-Self and other Instrument, Paul E. Spector (1994) Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) and the Personal Information Data Sheet. LEAD-Self rating instrument, introduced in 1974 by Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson (1996). The LEAD-Self Instrument accumulates and analyzes self-perceptions of a leader‘s effectiveness. The LEAD-Self Instrument has been employed in this study to evaluate behaviors displayed by academic leaders (deans and department heads) as they perceive themselves and the LEAD-others were employed to know leadership style of academic leaders through academic staffs. Both yielded four style score from 12 management situational questions. Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS): Paul E. Spector (1994) was created Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) to assess employee attitude about the job and aspects of the job. It consists 36 questions about nine areas and communication. Each area was assessed with four questions and a total score is computed using all thirty-six questions. Respondents are asked to rate each item with six choices of per item ranging from ―Strongly agree‖ to ―Strongly disagree.‖ The items are written in two directions, some positive, some negative. The survey is scored by assigning number to each answer, one representing strongly disagreement to six representing strongly agreement. The negatively worded items are reversed scored, one represents strong agreement whereas six represents strong disagreement. Scores in each area can range from one to twenty-four. The total scores from JSS range from 36 to 216. High scores on the scale represents high job satisfaction. The JSS was chosen to this study because it is ease of use by respondents in relation to other developed instruments. 5.4. Data Analysis The data collected from the research instrument was coded, fed, scored, in to SPSS version 20. And then the analysis was made to the relevant statistical methods. The perceived leadership styles of academic leaders computed and analyzed by descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage and mean. Mean, ANOVA and Post Hoc were compute to know the impact of leadership style on the job satisfaction of academic staffs.

Hersey and Blanchard‘s (1977) work was based on Ohio studies on leadership. It is a two-dimensional model with four leadership styles. The emphasis in Situational Leadership Model is that there is no one effective style in all situations. These scholars suggest that effective leadership is only possible if the leader determines the maturity/readiness level of subordinates before selecting appropriate leadership style. Effective leadership in higher education is seen as involving the ability to navigate the many challenges, cultures, and stakeholders involved in higher education and engaging colleagues to collaborate in these activities (Ruben, De Lisi, & Gigliotti, 2017). Thus, the model is used to determine which of the four leadership styles (telling, selling, participating and delegating) fits the situation (subordinates‘ maturity level to perform and complete a specific task) to enhance performance (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 2001). Hersey and Blanchard (1993) state that situational leadership attempts to provide the leader with a possible match between an effective leadership style and the

level of subordinates as a major situational factor, which moderates between leadership styles and effectiveness. Hersey and Blanchard (1993) define maturity/readiness as the extent to which an individual or group exhibits willingness and ability to accomplish a task. In essence, an individual is not perceived as ready or not ready in a general sense, but an individual is seen as ready or not ready with regard to performing and completing a specific task. Therefore, Hersey and Blanchard (1993) highlight ability and willingness as the major components of readiness. According to them, ability refers to the knowledge, experience and skill which a person or a group brings to a specific task or activity and willingness as the amount of confidence and motivation that a person or group has to complete a particular task. Therefore to get much from the followers the leader should know the maturity and ability of the one he/she is leading. Leaders have different leadership styles through which they can lead their subordinates, some are authoritarian, some might be democratic, some are achievement oriented, and many other. Different organizations demands for different leaderships styles. Leadership styles may vary from organization to organization and even within the organization. Also a leader does not possess any fixed style throughout his life; he must have to change his style according to situations and contexts. That is why the concept of situational leadership is becoming very popular. Hersey and Blanchard (1993) discuss four leadership styles that are built on two dimensional concepts, that is, task and relationship behavior, with emphasis on the maturity level of followers. These leadership styles are: telling, selling, participating and delegating.

According to Hersey and Blanchard (1993), leadership style is characterized by high task and low relationship behavior. This style is effective when leading low maturity (unable and unwilling or insecure) subordinates, who lack both job skill and motivation. The manager who uses this style has well-defined strategies to accomplish set goals. He/she gives detailed instructions as to what the task is and when, where and how to perform it. The manager directs supports and closely supervises subordinates‘ performance. Decisions are made without subordinates‘ input thus communication is one sided that is, top down. This style is not effective when the manager is seen by his/her subordinates as an individual who imposes methods on others, and who is only concern with the output, and B. Selling style This style comprises both high task and high relationship. It is said to be appropriate when leading low to moderate (unable, but willing or confident) job maturity but psychologically mature subordinates. The manager who employs this style gives the subordinates specific instructions and supervises their work. In addition to that, he/she supports the teachers by explaining what and why the task should be performed as instructed. The subordinates‘ doubts are cleared, by answering their questions. The manager makes decisions and sometimes consults the subordinates. Thus two-way communication is encouraged. However, the manager has the final say. The style is ineffective if the subordinates do not believe that the manager is genuine in his/her interpersonal relationship and perceive him/her to be initiating more structures/jobs than is needed. Hersey and Blanchard (1993) refer to this style as persuading, explaining or clarifying.

Participative leadership style is characterized by low task and high relationship behavior. It is effective when leading followers with high moderate (able but unwilling or insecure) maturity. Here, subordinates have high job maturity but low psychological maturity. Hersey and Blanchard (1993) however, explain that followers‘ unwillingness to do the job may be as a result of lack of confidence if it is their first time of handling such task, if they lack of motivation as a result of performing routine tasks for a long time or as a result of a clash between the management and the followers. This style is best with highly creative subordinates who have necessary skills and self-confidence. The manager has implicit trust in the subordinates and is basically focused on facilitating their goal accomplishment. The manager spends a short time to give general instructions and most of the time is used to encourage, support and build subordinates‘ self-confidence. Subordinates are given a free hand to do the task their own way while the head teacher acts as a facilitator in problem solving and decision-making processes. Communication is two-way because subordinates have ample opportunity to suggest ideas and their suggestions are highly valued (Lussier & Achua 2001). It is ineffective when the subordinates perceive the manager as a leader who is interested in peace and harmony so much so that he/she would not emphasize accomplishment of a task at the expense of his good relationships with subordinates (Hersey &

Hersey and Blanchard (1993) state that this style is characterized by low task and low relationship behavior. It is used effectively when leading subordinates with both high job and psychological maturity (able and willing or confident). Followers in this category are well competent and highly motivated. The manager tells the followers what to do, answers their questions and provides little or no direction. The followers are allowed to make their own decisions subject to the manager‘s limitations. Innovations are encouraged by the manager who equally demonstrates trust and confidence by supporting this set of followers. However, Hersey and Blanchard (1993) preach that this style is not effective when followers feel that the manager is providing little structure and support when necessary.

Job satisfaction is considered to be the measure of an employee satisfaction or contention with their work. This term is relatively new. This is said because not so long ago, jobs offered to a person were often only compatible with the person‘s parent‘s profession. A number of factors tend to affect a person‘s level of job satisfaction. A few of these factors are the salary and the nature of the job, the environment, Working conditions and leadership. In addition to a school leader‘s leadership style, teacher job satisfaction is another critical factor affecting school effectiveness. Northouse (2010) believed that a teachers‘ job satisfaction may serve to influence their morale, motivation and general willingness to maximize their teaching potential. Teachers who are not satisfied with their jobs may result in bad teaching or learning process, and school effectiveness will consequently be negatively impacted. Spector (1985) found that if the employees find their job fulfilling and rewarding, they tend to be more satisfied with their jobs. To this end, good school leadership is essential to turning around the nation‘s failing schools. Numerous research projects have focused on the study of the relationship between job satisfaction and the employed leadership style since the 1960s (Miles, 2010). The outcome of some of these studies is the discovery of a positive relationship between job satisfaction and leadership style (Cheng and Yang, 1977, Holdnak et al., 1993, Stogdill, 1963, Skinner, 1969). Some researchers have shown that behavior of directors in supporting educational institutions has a positive effect on job satisfaction of teachers and their desire and decision to remain in the institution (Kusum and Billingsley, 1996). Other researchers discovered that different leadership styles will create different working environments and that they have a According to Timoty and Ronald (2004) the positive connection between principals‘ people oriented style and teachers‘ satisfaction in the areas: school development, relationship with colleagues and teamwork. The people-oriented leadership style positively influences teacher‘s satisfaction in the areas school development, relationship with colleagues and teamwork. Principal concern for people tends to develop democratic relationships that have direct influence on the school development. Furthermore, principal who concerns for people is also concerned about relationships, so the relationship with colleagues in these areas is good. The good teamwork is an evidence of positive school climate and cooperation between teachers, which is expected from his/hers teachers. The research explained also that there is negative connection between principals‘ tasks-oriented style and communication, school development and safety. The tasks-oriented leadership style negatively influences teacher‘s satisfaction in the areas of communication, school development and safety. Conclusions that can be made from the results also show that principal who pays more attention to tasks will have lack of attention directed to communication and safety. Moreover, teachers think that principals oriented to tasks will not develop human resources and democratic relationships which encourage school development. Similar results obtained Robbins in his research (Robbins and Judge, 2009).

In this study the focus was leadership style of academic leaders and its impact on the job satisfaction of academic staffs in Ethiopian public universities. The total universities in Ethiopia are 31 excluding 10 universities which were established at the beginning of 2018. Among 31 universities 7 universities are found in Amhara region. Hence this study is focused on federal universities which are found in Amhara Regional state.

As the table 1 above depicts the four universities were selected from three generations based on years of establishment. Accordingly university of Gondar is from the first generation, Debre Markos and Wollo Universities are from second Generation and Debre Tabor University from third generation universities were inculcated as the ample of this particular research. The justification why two universities taken from second generation universities as repeatedly mentioned in methodology section, among the seven universities found in Amhara Regional State, three of them are second generation and the rest four universities are first and third generation two universities for each generation. When we see in terms of participation from each universities, 43.8% of the samples were taken from University of Gondar. This happened because University of Gondar is from first generation so that the number of staffs are much more in number than the rest of the universities included in this sample. Of course the demographic variables such as age, teaching experience, administrative experience, sex, and qualification were dealt in this study. However, for this particular publication we do not deal the demographic variables and leadership adaptability of academic leaders. Hence in this publication we just tried to see the impact of leadership style of academic leaders (deans and department heads) on job satisfaction of academic staffs. Therefore, we need to go through directly to the core of this research as follows. The first objective of the present study was to investigate the perception of teachers towards academic leaders (deans and department heads) leadership style. To achieve this objective, frequency and percentage of teachers towards academic leaders were computed.

Table 2 shows that majority of the academic staffs in this study were perceived academic leaders (Deans and Department Heads) employed selling [97(49.2%)] as the predominant and participating [50(25.4%)] as secondary leadership styles. That is, the academic staffs saw academic leaders (Deans and Department Heads) as frequently using a predominant style of selling (S2) and they perceived academic leaders (Deans and Department Heads) as occasionally using a supportive leadership style of participating (S3). The table also indicates that these deans and department heads as perceived by academic staffs sometimes using a telling style [40(20.3%)]. Besides, the table shows us that according to academic staffs perception academic leaders (Deans and Department Heads) very rarely employed leadership style S4 that is Delegating. The second and third objectives of the study would be discussed simultaneously as follows: The second objective of the present study was to investigate academic leaders (deans and department heads) leadership styles and the impact on academic staffs job satisfaction. Whereas the third objective was realizing if there was difference of job satisfaction in academic staffs due to leadership style of academic leaders. Accordingly, the effect of leadership style (selling, telling, participating and delegating) on total job satisfaction were computed by ANOVA. Besides, mean and standard deviation of total job satisfaction of leadership styles (selling, telling, participating and delegating).

Table 3 above displayed that the highest job satisfaction was observed for participating leadership style (mean=193.94) followed by delegating leadership style (mean=160.66). The next higher mean score of job satisfaction were observed for selling (mean=139.54) followed by telling (mean=132.72) leadership style. This indicated that the job satisfaction of teachers were above the expected mean (126) across all leadership styles. Next, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) of job satisfaction across leadership styles

Table 4 displayed that there were significant difference in mean score of job satisfaction across telling, selling, participating and delegating leadership styles,F(3,192)=108.833,P=0.00. As there were significant difference in job satisfaction of leadership styles, analysis of post hoc was computed.

Theoretically, it is assumed that leadership style of academic leaders (deans and department heads) could affect job satisfaction of teachers. Henceforth, the present study tried to investigate the effect of leadership style on job satisfaction of academic staffs. Accordingly, Mean ANOVA and Post Hoc were computed and the following results were found. The highest job satisfaction was observed for participating leadership style followed by delegating leadership style. The next higher mean score of job satisfaction were observed for selling followed by telling leadership style. This indicated that the job satisfaction of teachers were above the expected mean across all leadership styles. The leadership style participating according to Hersey and Blanchard (1986) is effective when used with those subordinates have high job maturity but low psychological maturity. Subordinates are given a free hand to do the task their own way while the academic leaders acts as a facilitator in problem solving and decision-making processes. Communication is two-way because subordinates have ample opportunity to suggest ideas and their suggestions are highly valued (Lussier & Achua 2001). It is ineffective when the subordinates perceive the manager as a leader who is interested in peace and harmony so much so that he/she would not emphasize accomplishment of a task at the expense of his good relationships with subordinates (Hersey & Blanchard, 1993). This style is described by Hersey and Blanchard as collaborating and facilitating. This study did not investigate on maturity or ability, motivation of participants. The findings of this research however contradicts with Karen M. Wetherell (2002) stated that in the total job satisfaction score, the leadership style telling tended to elicit statistically significant higher levels of teacher job satisfaction than leadership styles

importantly, in agreement with this research the United States Department of education Office of Educational Research (1997) found that teachers‘ job satisfaction is strongly associated with participation in decision making and influence over school policy. On the other hand, Blogger (1999) have found that teachers felt satisfied when the work allowed school based decision making. Benit(1991) found that job satisfaction had appositive correlation with principals perceived as selling and participating leadership style. In line with Benit (1991) both Perkins (1991) and Smith (200) found that teachers were more satisfied with leadership style 2- Selling.

The following conclusions were made based on the findings of the study: The predominant leadership style of academic leaders (deans and department heads) was selling. This means that the academic leaders spend time listening and advising and, where proper, helping the follower to advance necessary skills through coaching methods. The secondary leadership style of academic leaders was participating. This means that deans and department heads sometimes implement this leadership style in addition to the predominant one. Besides, academic leaders occasionally involve in subordinates/ instructors consulting and evaluate their opinions and suggestions before making the decisions. And of course, their perception of leadership style has been witnessed by the academic staffs who are led by them. That means the academic staffs has assured that their leaders (deans and department heads) employ selling leadership style predominantly and at the same time they perceived that participating leadership style is implemented as the secondary option. However, the predominant leadership style of academic leaders (deans and department heads) leadership style was found significantly affect the leadership style of academic staffs than the other leadership styles in situational leadership model.

Based on the findings and conclusion drawn the following recommendations were forwarded. ► A similar study should be conducted in wider context including public universities outside Amhara Regional State and which consisted of Academic Vice Presidents and directors as and academic leaders ► The study of academic leadership style should be extended to the level of teachers job satisfaction and its role to students achievement ► Because leadership is the core of academia, further studies need to be conducted on other leadership models since this research is focused only situational leadership model ► This study was focused one leadership style and job satisfaction of academic staff, to confidently determine whether leaders are employing the right leadership style, one need to know the ability and maturity level of the followers. So my strong recommendation to further studies is to investigate both followers maturity level and leadership style in higher education institution context. ► Investigate teachers‘ preferences to leadership style t in each specific situations. ► Situational Leadership Theory states that there is no single leadership style that fits all the situation. Hence, deans and department heads as leaders need to differ their leadership style in order to fit the situations. Principally, in universities and colleges, where majority of the academic staff hold post graduate degree and where academic leaders consumed most of their time with routine activities such as administrative, interpersonal and resource development, delegating leadership style seems to be appropriate and academic leaders, therefore, should exercise such kind of leadership style as needed thus, they would have enough time to their routines.

work and employees behavior. In order to equip academic leaders with such analysis skill. ► The universities or MoE should arrange continuous and appropriate training for academic leaders in various areas of leadership concepts as to develop the skill and knowledge so that they could apply their knowledge of leadership that fits the contexts/ situations while leading.

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Department of Educational Planning and Management, (Ph.D. Scholar in Andhra University) University of Gondar, Ethiopia