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Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions pp 1–8Cite as

Leadership in Higher Education, Concepts and Theories

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Leadership theories and concepts number in the hundreds making a summary even within a narrow field like higher education extremely difficult (This entry relies heavily on the author’s book on this topic: Kezar et al. 2006). Instead of referring to single theories or concepts, it is better to begin by introducing oneself to this scholarship through various schools of thought. Both leadership studies as a field and higher education as a field use these same schools of thoughts and theories to guide research. There is a distinction made in these various schools of thought related to leader and leadership. In trait and behavioral theories, leadership is synonymous with leader. Studies often focus on certain types of leaders such as presidents, deans, or provosts. Later theories of contingency and power/influence examine leadership as a process, and leader is no longer synonymous with leadership. Studies are beginning to examine leadership as groups and distributed among various...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, University of Southern California, 3470 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA

    Adrianna Kezar

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  1. Adrianna Kezar
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Correspondence to Adrianna Kezar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Jung Cheol Shin

  2. CIPES, Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Pedro Teixeira

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Kezar, A. (2017). Leadership in Higher Education, Concepts and Theories. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_537-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_537-1

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