Scholars are agreed that one’s epistemological definition of leadership determines one’s theoretical understanding of the concept and, more so, that leadership has no universally acceptable definition (Namubiru et al., 2017). Effective leadership in this regard would influence followers to perform as expected or beyond (AIOqla, 2021), and effective leaders are defined and distinguished by their decisional skills, because leadership is viewed as synonymous to decision-making (SUNY, 2009). Conceptualisation of the concept (leadership) and the subsequent discussion of the leadership styles enable one to visualise the symbiotic relationship between leadership and the decision-making process.

Bass (1990) views leadership as:

While Bass’s definition seems to incorporate elements of the transactional and transformational leadership styles which are elaborated below, it also epitomises the perception adopted in this study that managerial leadership at tertiary level, in its attempt to motivate employees to perform as expected, cannot be confined to an individual (cf. Bush & West-Burnham, 1994; Fiedler, 1972; Portugal, 2006). On the other hand, Hersey and Blanchard (1996) and Phuthi and Mpofu (2021) view leadership as a process of influencing individuals or group activities to attain common goals. In essence, effective managerial leadership would entail directing and influencing the task-related activities of group members towards the attainment of organisational goals in an inspirational and motivational manner (Stoner et al., 2008).

Effective leadership plays a pivotal role in the accomplishment of organisational goals (AIOqla, 2021). Because organisations are hierarchically and bureaucratically structured for their functionality, the leader’s responsibility is to coordinate the activities of the followers for the purposes of attaining organisational goals using the appropriate leadership style(s) (Stoner et al., 2008). Managerial leadership in this context is determined by one’s philosophical orientation (Black, 2015). Leaders who are task- or production-oriented are good at goal-setting, planning and organising while the human- or people-oriented ones focus on interpersonal relationships among their followers and achieve a position of personal acceptance to the exclusion of the task (Bush & West-Burnham, 1994). However, depending on the prevailing situational variables, both orientations may be adopted with adaptations. Such an exposition would demand effective leadership with effective decision-making skills (Luneburg, 2010) to decide between utilising a transactional, transformational, laissez-faire or eclectic leadership style to get the job done (Bass, 2008).

According to Bush and West-Burnham (1994), transactional leadership is a functional or psychological contract between the leader and followers empowering the leader to accomplish performance objectives, complete given tasks, maintain current organisational situations, motivate followers through contractual agreements, direct behaviour of followers towards achievement of established goals, emphasise extrinsic rewards, avoid unnecessary risks and focus on improving organisational efficiency (Jomah, 2017). In turn, it allows followers to fulfil their own self-interest, minimise workplace anxiety and concentrate on their organisational objectives such as increased production, quality customer service and reduced costs (McCleskey, 2014). The focus in this study is the leader’s exchange with followers, as both parties are interested in the fruitful production of the educative enterprise (Bass, 2008). The fact that the leader determines what followers need to do to achieve objectives classifies these requirements and helps followers become confident in the process, but this makes it dictatorial in practice (Stoner et al., 2008).

Furthermore, the transactional leadership’s production-oriented emphasis aligns it with Taylor’s classical scientific management thought (Black, 2015). In Taylorism, followers were scientifically chosen and trained to produce high-quality goods in a hierarchically structured organisation, with bureaucratic systems put in place stipulating how tasks were to be executed in order to achieve organisational efficiency and effectiveness (Amey, 2010). Crucial decisions were made at the managerial level and cascaded to the followers in a top-down fashion (Amey, 2010). Command and control compelled the followers to perform assigned tasks according to stipulated standards, and the leader wielded considerable authority in the process (AIOqla, 2021). Moreover, leaders used coercion to compel followers to perform tasks according to their wishes (Owens, 1996). Both the leader and follower were held accountable for their decisions and actions respectively (Black, 2015). Followers who excelled were rewarded accordingly (Khan et al., 2016).

While transactional leadership in tertiary institutions may be suitable in situations requiring immediate action or prompt decisions without consultation or in a crisis (Bennet, Glatter, & Levacic, 1994), universities, employers of high levels of expertise in their specialist fields and administrative structures, loathe a command-and-control mindset (Black, 2015). Besides, when leaders become overly responsible, followers feel ‘underutilised, over-controlled and ultimately uncommitted’ (Keith & Girling, 1991, p. 64). Thus, the leadership theory construction that disregards situational and contextual factors related to organisational challenges would curtail and frustrate the academic freedom most academic staff yearn for (Black, 2015). Instead, an adaptive and open-sense leadership which minimises the ‘us and them’ mentality would be ideal (Black, 2015).

According to Black (2015), transformational leadership is a 1970’s behaviourist theory which sought to infuse a human-relation approach to organisational effectiveness. Transformational leaders use their personal vision and energy to inspire followers to perform as expected through involvement which promotes organisational effectiveness (Khan et al., 2016). Bass (2008) reiterates that such leaders aim to raise followers from lower-level needs to self-actualisation through idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration with high psychological impact. The leaders’ inspirational powers derived from attributes such as referent power, strong connection to righteousness and beliefs and the ability to convince others make them charismatic (McCleskey, 2014). Resultantly, it becomes easier for such leaders to communicate their visions to followers and capture their energy and commitment, inculcating confidence and high expectations in them (Northouse, 2016). Leaders who possess such attributes become drivers of change in organisations (Gronn, 2011). Besides, they are usually portrayed as heroes capable of transforming the loyalties and behaviours of the staff through a shared organisational culture (Black, 2015).

Because transformational leadership is inspirational and ostensibly people-centred, it resonates well with democratic principles of leadership (Gronn, 2011), ensuring that transformations entail the participation and persuasion of followers who must first change themselves for successful organisational change (Namubiru et al., 2017). This feat may be achieved through a group-centred approach with decentralised authority and decision-making powers under the influence of a delegated leader (Bennet et al., 1994). In that light, a formal leader would be required to mentor or coach capable followers in a flexible manner in pursuance of common goals and involve them in determining or planning the objectives, making decisions and executing activities so that both have a shared responsibility in their undertakings to evoke ownership and commitment (Khan et al., 2016). Most importantly, managerial leaders follow an open-door policy towards their followers by valuing their inputs in decision-making to develop a positive group spirit (Bennet et al., 1994).

While transactional leadership styles have previously dominated organisational leadership, current trends demonstrate that transformational leadership styles produce quality outcomes (Khan et al., 2016). However, the latter’s major flaw is that over-participation, if improperly handled, may degenerate into conflicts and alienation (Davar, 1993). Moreover, being a recent phenomenon, transformational leadership’s influence on organisations as a whole is not yet clear (Stoner et al., 2008), and furthermore, some university experts do need close supervision (Bennet et al., 1994).

On a continuum, leadership styles range from transactional to laissez-faire, the pivot being transformational (Bennet et al., 1994). The laissez-faire leadership style is thus perceived as the opposite of the transactional one as it allows the ‘let everyone do as they wish’ philosophy reign in an organisation (Bennet et al., 1994), prompting Bass and Avolio (1990) to describe it as ‘the absence of leadership’. While encouraging follower participation, it does not provide the direction or framework for constructive participation (Khan et al., 2016). Leadership in this context is practised by suggestion and delegation, with the formal leader remaining in the background, assuming that followers have all the experience, maturity and expertise needed to execute whatever task is assigned to them and are intrinsically motivated to achieve (Al-Malki & Juan, 2018). Furthermore, the organisation has no vision or mission statement to direct the activities of the followers and planning lacks a strategic orientation. To make matters worse, no goals are set for followers, and problems are solved randomly by whoever is available (Khan et al., 2015). In the long run, followers must be self-motivated because they operate autonomously, and there is minimum leadership feedback on their performances (Ekmekci & Tosunnoglu, 2016). Resultantly, followers are frustrated by the formal leader’s inactivity on leadership duties (Bass & Avolio, 1990). The successful completion of various tasks depends entirely on the inputs of the followers (Khan et al., 2016). While too much freedom of action associated with this leadership style might be found to be attractive to followers, as it allows them to be creative and innovative, if it is not checked by the formal leader, the organisation may lose direction; followers may fail to meet deadlines, leading to chaos and anarchy (Khan et al., 2016).

Effective decision-making entails a deliberate, interactive thought process of making a best choice, informed by the best data, alternatives or ideas available within the limited resources about what future actions to pursue given a set of objectives (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012; Uzonwanne, 2016). Conclusions drawn from gathered intelligent data become learning experiences (Schoemaker & Russo, 2014). To achieve this, an effective leader utilises different decision-making models matching one’s preferred leadership style depending on the prevailing situation. Noteworthy is that some problems may demand inaction (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012).

Decisions must be made regarding planning, coordination, execution, evaluation and leadership patterns in different operational departments (Salmi & Pham, 2019). Decision-making is deemed to be a social process that develops with time (Iqbali et al., 2020), and having a skilled decision-maker in an organisation is an indispensable ingredient for success (SUNY, 2009). Consequently, effective leaders seek to make effective decisions which enhance productivity and attainment of the organisational goals (Salmi & Pham, 2019), determined by one’s philosophical orientation (Iqbali et al., 2020) and influencing how decisions made are successfully communicated to the followers (Loveren, 2007; Namubiru et al., 2017). For that reason, leaders must know when to make a decision, who to involve and the appropriate model to employ, as decisions made may either hinder or promote organisational performance (Jomah, 2017), and moreover, every individual in an organisation is affected by whatever decision is made and each reacts and responds as interest dictates (SUNY, 2009).

According to Uzonwanne (2016, p. 2) the rational decision-making model (RDMM) can be defined as ‘a method of systematically selecting among possible choices that are based on reason and facts’. Similarly, Bauer and Erdogan (2012, p. 52) describe the RDMM as ‘a series of steps that decision makers should consider if their goal is to maximise the quality of their outcomes’. In this case, the leader or followers are using available facts and information to analyse the problem at hand, following prescribed procedures to make a decision (Uzonwanne, 2016). The proponents of the RDMM identified the following eight steps which may be utilised in the decision-making process:

The RDMM’s major weakness is that it does not represent how all decisions are made in an organisation, because some decisions are programmed while others are nonprogrammed (Stoner et al., 2008). The former occur frequently enough and demand ‘an automated response’ while the latter ‘require conscious thinking, information gathering and careful consideration of alternatives’ (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012, p. 520). Above all, ‘the generation of ideas may lead to analysis paralysis, a situation which arises when more time is spent on gathering information and pondering it without a decision being made’ (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012, p. 521).

Although akin to the RDMM, Bauer and Erdogan (2012, p. 521) claim that this model arises where ‘individuals knowingly limit their options to a manageable set and choose the first acceptable alternative without conducting an exhaustive search for alternatives’. Stoner et al. (2008) believe that coping with inadequate information about the nature of the problem and its possible solutions is better than being overwhelmed with information which one might not use or even remember. In that way, time and resources are saved. Turpin and Marais (2004) further opine that options are examined one at a time instead of examining all, the one arrived at is acceptable even if it is not the best. Similarly, Simon (in Stoner et al., 2008) a strong advocate for bounded rational decision-making model (BRDMM) posits that decision-makers satisfice, meaning that they accept the first satisfactory decision they uncover. The acceptance of the first alternative that meets the minimum threshold rather than searching for an alternative that produces the best results is its major flaw as it compromises the decision made (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012).

The intuitive decision-making model (IDMM) does not require conscious reasoning, as most such decisions ‘are made under challenging circumstances including time pressure, constraints, uncertainty, changing conditions and highly visible and high stakes outcomes’ (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012, p. 521). It is adopted on the premise that when presented with problems, experts use their past experiences related to the current problem to make decisions buoyed by training and technical knowhow to arrive at a workable decision (Uzonwanne, 2016). The potential options are weighed against past experiences, tested mentally and, if not workable, are discarded until workable solutions are found (Uzonwanne, 2016). However, its major flaw is that one decision is considered at a time and heavily relies on past experience and training, which might be problematic to novice leaders (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012).

The leader who intends to use the creative decision-making model (CDMM) must first flatten the hierarchical structure of the organisation to allow intense participation and competition among followers in the generation of new and imaginative ideas (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012). Although creating new ideas through brainstorming or wildstorming is a costly exercise, Bauer and Erdogan (2012) argue that the cost is worthwhile when doing business in a healthy and competitive environment. Its five distinctive phases are as follows:

The CDMM’s weakness is that creativity is determined by one’s personality traits, attributes, situational context, experience, background and perspective (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012). While group participation may enhance commitment and ownership of the decision at implementation because every individual will have invested time and energy in it, it may be time consuming and costly to prompt decisions which need immediate implementation. Furthermore, leaders who utilise the group approach must guard against outspoken members who might outshine passive ones during the brainstorming or wildstorming sessions (Bauer & Erdogan, 2012).

The philosophical assumption underpinning the mixed methods approach (MMA) utilising the convergent parallel model adopted for this study was pragmatism (Edmonds & Kennedy, 2017) in an attempt to answer the question: ‘How does the academic leader’s leadership style influence the decision-making process in Zimbabwean institutions of higher learning?’ The researchers believed that the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data would not only eliminate bias and weaknesses but neutralise the latter of each form of data in the attempt to resolve the phenomenon (Buchholtz, 2019). Besides, the ‘between-methods triangulation’ inherent in the MMA would enable researchers to triangulate their different viewpoints, data sources, methodology and theory (Salvador, 2016).

Because both qualitative and quantitative data were collected simultaneously, it allowed contradictions to be explained and further electronically probed until saturation was achieved (Mohajan, 2018). The former utilised a case study design and the latter a cross-sectional survey. The case study allowed the researchers to develop a detailed view of the meaning of the phenomenon from the participants’ views, while the survey results were meant to generalise from the sample to the population, boosting the full understanding of the phenomenon under investigation (Funmilola & David, 2019).

The study was concentrated in nine tertiary institutions located in the western part of Zimbabwe with an estimated population of n = 200. Ten participants judged to have rich qualitative data on the phenomenon were purposively selected and the sample was determined by saturation. In addition, 58 respondents responded to the quantitative questionnaire. The latter sample was far lower than expected, largely due to the reduced flexibility in movement during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown restrictions and the general apathy towards surveys by academic staff. Even the repeated visits and reminders ended in vain.

The sample comprised vice-chancellors, principal officers, deans, departmental chairs, director, college principals or vice-principals, heads of divisions or departments and registrars or assistant registrars. Their qualifications ranged from Higher National Diploma to PhDs and work experiences from 5 months to 22 years. It was the quality of participants and respondents which made the researchers proceed with the study, despite the low sample of the respondents. In addition, the use of both databases allowed member-checking of data generated and an in-depth analysis of each case over a period of 6 months (Samul, 2020).

Qualitative data was elicited from selected participants using an online semistructured open-ended questionnaire, while the quantitative portion used a closed-ended one in compliance with COVID-19 pandemic guidelines, with an option of hardcopies for both instruments. The open-ended questionnaire comprised 17 items, an attached letter explaining the purpose of the study and soliciting for voluntary participation. Section A (q1–3) sought biographic data, and Section B (q4–10) explored the concept of leadership and decision-making, leadership and decision-making styles or models, preferred style(s) or model(s), challenges or opportunities encountered and additional comments on the phenomenon. In some instances, clues were given to enhance the understanding of the technical terms used. The quantitative questionnaire had 39 content items utilising a five-point Likert scale. Section A captured biographic data (q1–5); Section B, the concept of leadership (q6–10); Section C, the concept of decision-making (q11–15); Section D, leadership styles (q16–27); and Section E, models of decision-making (q28–39).

The open-ended responses allowed participants to freely express their views on the phenomenon while the fixed responses allowed researchers to statistically analyse the responses (Eddles-Hirsch, 2015). Both instruments were pilot tested on five nonparticipants before administration, which enhanced their trustworthiness and reduced validity and reliability errors (Guest, Namey, & Mitchell, 2013). Furthermore, the triangulation of data sources, methodology and investigators employed (Mohajan, 2018) enhanced the credibility of both databases (Tonkin-Crine et al., 2015).

Analysis and interpretation of the qualitative database followed the traditional thematic approach, which was relied upon to produce trustworthy and insightful findings, even when the process could have been judged subjective (Nowell, Norris, White, & Moules, 2017). Thematic analysis typifies hermeneutic content analysis for interpreting non-numerical data, using pattern recognition to derive meaning and linking parts to the whole (Roberts, Dowell, & Nie, 2019). The quantitative database derived its interpretation and analysis through frequency tables and by means of a five-point Likert scale responses, together with a correlation test in response to objective 3.

Both ethical clearance and permission to conduct fieldwork in the research sites were sought from the Zimbabwe Open University (reference number ZQNSP/5/21) and the Secretary for the Ministry of Education (reference number REF/P) respectively. Permission was further sought from the heads of institutions before informed consent was sought from the targeted participants. Consenting parties were first informed of the risks associated with the research before they signed consent forms. They were also assured that their names and those of their institutions were going to be masked and data gathered was going to be reported anonymously. Confidentiality was guaranteed in the process as well, with an assurance that such data would be secured in encrypted files for a period of 5 years and used for academic purposes only. Thereafter the files would be deleted permanently from the laptop’s hard drive and hard copies shredded.

Participants collectively perceived leadership as ‘the ability to influence, guide, inspire or motivate followers and coordinate their activities towards the attainment of organisational goals’. Furthermore, the respondents admitted that their own leadership style influenced the performance of their followers (89.9% see Table 1). For that reason, ‘power should be devolved to all levels of the hierarchy’ to enable academic leaders to be ‘accountable for their actions’ (Participant H, I). This sentiment was also confirmed by 70.7% of the respondents. However, the mixed reactions of those who viewed leadership as an inborn trait (44.8%) and that it was confined to individuals (36.2%) are inconsistent with this study.

On the other hand, participants viewed decision-making as:

Similarly, the respondents viewed it as a process involving making choices among given alternatives (1.9 see Table 1), informed by the best available data (1.9) with conclusions being drawn based on the intelligent data gathered (2.0). However, they rejected inaction when a problem occurs (3.9) and a top-down decision-making model (3.8).

Arguably, the participants’ dominant views on these concepts resonate with those expressed in this study.

Institutional leaders operating in environments of rapid sociopolitical change have the onerous task of aligning their personal leadership styles with official institutional mandates, as well as ensuring effectiveness in their missions. Subsequently, the utilisation of the transformational leadership style, backed by the RDMM and the CDMM, together with shared governance must be a top priority in tertiary institutions. These findings reinforce the unfolding development in global organisational leadership patterns where leaders aim to give their followers space to transform in tandem with the prevailing dynamic environment.