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The purpose of this paper is to report findings from a larger study into the role of middle leaders of change in New Zealand higher education.

In total, ten middle leaders from the New Zealand higher education sector took part in a recent research project which examined successful change leadership in higher education. As part of that larger study, each middle leader answered questions about their views on being in the “middle” in their change leadership roles and their views on middle leadership in general.

The ten middle leaders all described their place in their respective organisations in terms of being “caught in between”, or “sandwiched between” senior management to whom they were accountable, lecturers whom they described as colleagues or peers, and subordinates for whom they had some functional and often moral responsibility. The paper discusses the perceptions of being in the “middle” and how change leaders reconcile their position as a subordinate, an equal and a superior. Insight is gained into how educational leaders reconcile their position in the “middle” as they hold management responsibility for both academic and general staff who are hierarchically, beneath them; lead teams of colleagues in collegial decision making; and answer to higher authority in the form of senior organisational leadership.

The participant contributions of personal observations and unfolding real life stories which meld personal common sense with local meaning have formed a unique local ontology therefore allowing for a deeper understanding of the contributing factors toward being in the “middle”. Some of these perspectives have been used by the author's own organisation in the development of leadership training for future organisational change, particularly those aspects concerning communication and participation that are tailored to meet the unique needs of management and staff.

For middle change leaders the focussed examination of the working relationship between middle change leaders and staff groups might prove to be a rich area of further study. These relationships take a variety of forms, including where a staff member has risen through the ranks (off the shop floor as it were) to take on the mantle of leadership, or simply where there is a shared understanding based on subject or professional backgrounds which binds the two together. Further investigation into these relationships may provide perspectives that enable leaders to develop a greater understanding of how change occurs.

The paper shows how the participants locate themselves as being “very much” in the middle in terms of line management of both resources and academic matters and often as being caught between competing imperatives, institutional dynamics and institutional structures.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that leadership cannot and should not be “defined” but rather considered as a process. The paper goes on to refute the notion that leadership can be defined or fully understood in management terms or associations. The paper then attempts to synthesise the construct of leadership as a system of processes.

The paper compares and contrasts management and leadership to three organisational processes; time, culture and change in order to non‐define or synthesise a system of leadership.

Leadership might be more usefully understood as a process of individual and organisational engagement with time, culture and change that differ from management's relationships with these processes. That through these engagements leadership creates organisation whilst management maintains it.

The paper does not explore other systemic constructs that might be equally fruitful such as leadership and management in relation to entropy and negentropy.

The paper is attempting to demonstrate that organisations may need to create leadership in tandem with management rather than find individual leaders “defined” as able to lead.

The paper attempts to consider leadership as a process of interrelationships rather than a separate definable behaviour or competence.

The purpose of this paper is to identify processes which may contribute to followers’ positive reactions to change. By focusing on the relationship between change antecedents and explicit reactions, the authors investigate the direct and indirect relationships between leadership styles (transformational and transactional) and followers’ appraisal of change through manager engagement.

Using data from a longitudinal survey among 351 followers in two Danish organizations, the study tracked the planned implementation of team organization at two different times. Data were analyzed using structural equation modelling.

Transformational and transactional leadership styles were positively related to the engagement of managers. Managers’ engagement was associated with followers’ appraisal of change. The two leadership styles also had a direct, long-term effect on followers’ change appraisal; positive for transformational leadership and negative for transactional leadership.

The results have potential implications for change management, as followers’ change appraisal may be improved by developing managers’ leadership style and engagement.

This is the first study to provide longitudinal evidence of the direct and indirect effects of leadership styles on followers’ change appraisal.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of change leadership on staff organizational citizenship behavior in a university setting. Moreover, the study aims to explore forces that influencing on staff organizational citizenship behavior in higher education institutions.

The study adopts a qualitative research design. An interview protocol along with field notes were used as major approaches for collecting in-depth data. Coding and categorizing approach were used to analyze interview transcriptions to help for emerging the study’s themes.

The findings reveal that change leadership builds confidence of staff, motivate them and helps to ensure trust. Moreover, results show that staff organizational citizenship behavior is influenced by personal, organizational, social-cultural and economic forces. To increase the organizational citizenship behavior of staff in higher education institutions, there is a need for leaders to use appropriate change-oriented style in leading their organizations. Findings also revealed that change leaders must serve as role-model to their subordinates as a way on enhancing staff organizational citizenship behavior.

Academic leaders are the pivot of change in higher education institutions. Accordingly, the effectiveness of higher education institution, staff and students are depending on the effectiveness of the leadership. In this regard, academic leaders’ willingness to change is the most effective factor that not only sets the credibility of the organization, but, more importantly, influence on staff organizational behavior.

It is hoped that the outcome of this research will contribute to the current knowledge of change leadership and organizational behavior in universities.

This is an original research and makes a great contribution to higher education in Asian countries.

The purpose of this paper is to present a dispositional model using self‐regulation as a foundation for the strategic leadership of organizational change.

This paper reviews the self‐regulation literature and regulatory‐focus theory in particular, and integrates this literature within the strategic leadership and organizational change literatures to present a dispositional model with propositions about the relationships between these literatures.

Strategic leadership of organizational change should allow for co‐existent states of both continuity and change. Leadership teams should include a mix of individuals with promotion and prevention foci of self‐regulation and should provide for a regulatory fit that cascades throughout the organization.

Leaders should increase their self‐awareness of promotion and prevention styles of self‐regulation and rely on a mix of individuals that increase the chances of valuing and enhancing both continuity and change in their organizations.

This paper integrates the self‐regulation literature and concepts into discussion and theoretical development in the area of leadership and organizational change.

The research aims to investigate the impact of transformational leadership on employee championing behavior and to determine the mediating effect of work engagement in the context of organizational change.

This is a quantitative approach, which is based on cross-sectional data. In total, 300 available cases are processed through structural equation modeling in order to infer the results.

The results indicate that transformational leadership is significantly related to championing behavior during organizational change. Moreover, work engagement fully mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and championing behavior in the context of organizational change.

Managers should emphasize the practice of the transformational leadership approach, as well as should stress the antecedents of work engagement in order to foster the employee championing behavior in the context of organizational change.

The research contributes to the change management and human resource management literature by providing a plausible explanation of the mediating role of work engagement in connecting transformational leadership and employee championing behavior in the context of organizational change.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of transformational school leadership on teachers’ commitment to change and the effects of organizational and teachers’ factors on teachers’ perception of transformational school leadership in the Chinese urban upper secondary school context.

The paper mainly uses quantitative methods to explore the relationships between different constructs. The author asks: to what extent can transformational school leadership practices in the urban upper secondary schools of a particular Chinese city explain the variation in teachers’ commitment to change during curriculum reform? What are the effects of organizational and teachers’ factors on teachers’ perceptions of transformational school leadership?

The results of multiple regression analysis showed that the effect of transformational school leadership was moderate when transformational school leadership and teachers’ commitment to change were treated as single variables. Four dimensions of transformational leadership practice together explained the moderate effects on four dimensions of teachers’ commitment to change, among which the effect of managing the instructional program was the most prominent. The results of multiple regression analysis also revealed that variables like culture, strategy, environment, and teachers’ age had significant relationships with teachers’ perceptions of transformational school leadership. Culture, environment, strategy, structure, and teachers’ factors such as age and grade taught had moderate effects on different dimensions of teachers’ perceptions of transformational school leadership.

This study is one of the first to explore the effects of transformational school leadership on teachers’ commitment to change in the Chinese urban upper secondary school context. The findings contribute to educational management in China and similar contexts, and this study advances knowledge and furthers the understandings of the transferability of theories to different contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of change leadership (informing, communicating, involving and supporting) and change management (reasons and competencies for change) for organisational change processes and their outcomes across public and private organisations. The study includes three specific change situations: first, layoffs; second, mergers; and third, closures, relocations and outsourcing, focusing on how change leadership and change management relate to employees’ experience of the change processes and their outcomes across these change situations.

The study is based on panel data forming a representative sample of the Danish working population. A total of 2,120 responses were collected, 1,000 from public organisations and 1,120 from private organisations. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

The study findings show that both change leadership and change management predict positive change experiences and change consequences – and that they do so similarly across public and private sectors. Despite this similarity, the study reveals important sectorial differences, with public sector employees reporting less positive change experiences and consequences.

The paper provides valuable knowledge for researchers and public and private leaders interested in the impact of change leadership and change management on change outcomes.