A new age of leadership in academia: Need for change and innovation during COVID-19

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2025.The aim of this study is to explore the role of academic leadership and adaptive leadership on organizational readiness for change. During times of pandemic, adaptive leadership has emerged as a vital leadership discipline along with academic leadership due to uncertainty and sensitivity of situation. In addition, demand of innovative behavior has also increased over the years particularly during Covid-19. The study has been carried out in Higher Education Institutions of Pakistan where the data was collected from deans, directors and head of departments in two phases. Quantitative research strategy was opted for the study. Survey research design was followed to respond objectives of the study. The purpose behind the selection of senior academicians is to draw empirical results from the perspective of all the heads of their relevant departments. The data was collected from seven public sector universities across Pakistan. About 251 responses were found valid. Covariance based SEM was used to analyze the data. Analysis reveals a positive and direct relationship between academic and adaptive leadership and organizational readiness for change and similar results were found by placing innovative behavior as a mediator leading to the acceptance of all developed hypotheses. This study is unique in nature and has implications for leaders in academia in terms of unleashing the potential toward uncertain situation in higher education institutions. Study’s major limitation include less representation of the Pakistan as whole country as it included Punjab province only for data collection.Unfunde