Effects of Perceived Leadership Effectiveness on Academic Leaders’ Multi-Dimension Leadership Orientation and Lecturers’ Commitment

The purpose of this study is to determine if heads of departments’ multi-dimensional leadership orientation effects lecturers’ work commitment, and to identify the mediating mechanisme through their leadership effectiveness in executing their roles. the department heads’ leadership orientation is determined by the structural, human resource, political, cultural, and educational leadership practices based on bolman and deal’s leadership model as well as sergiovanni’s leadership model. this study involves 841 lecturers and 76 department heads from 24 polytechnics in malaysia. multilevel analyses with hierarchical linear modeling are used to determine the effect of department head’s multi-dimensional leadership on lecturers’ work commitment. this study finds that heads of departments practice multi-dimensional leadership, with human resource leadership prevails as the dominant leadership dimension. this study also finds that there are significant relationships between human resource and cultural leaderships and lecturers’ work commitment. the relationship between heads of departments’ multi-dimensional leadership orientation effects lecturers’ work commitment is mediated by the lectures’ perception about the heads of departments leadership effectiveness.