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This chapter is concerned with academic citizenry in higher education, and the conditions created within institutions for transformative leadership. This is central to the fitness-for-purpose of higher education institutions to drive the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Drawing from a mixed-method study, the chapter explores the patterns which emerged from literature, questionnaire responses, and semi-structured interviews about the problematics at play within six institutions in the post-colonial contexts of India and South Africa. The two upper middle-income contexts have strong constitutional commitments to democracy and social justice at the macro-level, with bold policy interventions undertaken at meso-level to address the legacies of exclusion and oppression in student enrollment and staff composition in HE. However, recent fraught dynamics and unrest within the sector in each country have brought renewed attention to the politics of participation and a breakdown in trust of governance and management.

In this study, the standpoint of key stakeholders was prioritized, including those in assigned leadership positions and academic staff. Particular attention was paid to gender and intersectional inequalities, impacting academic staff, and what they revealed about the persistence of policy-implementation gaps and their relation to principle-implementation gaps. Concerns are raised about impoverished comprehensions of, and conditions for, sustainable ethical leadership which emerged across both contexts.

Academic institutions are undergoing drastic changes in recent years due to dwindling funds, low enrollment numbers, and fierce domestic and international competition, along with a two-year closure of university premises due to the pandemic. Quality assurance of academic institution has also come under scrutiny with mounting criticism for its failure to adapt to current social and economic requirements. Incoherent and ad hoc reform system and hurried strategic vision have been blamed on the role of the leaders and their lack of engagement with the stakeholders. Students have been repeatedly asking for the necessity to focus on academic teaching along with learning activities, active participative strategies with a focus toward increasing acquired competence and capabilities that will enable their marketability, post-completion of their education. This book volume stresses the role of leaders in educational institutions. The collection of work by various authors talks about the autonomy of faculty members based on bonds created on ethics. The style of leadership and the concept of democracy and social justice also play a role in leadership. Authors have emphasized that higher educational institutions need to look beyond regular extrinsic motivators to ensure employee engagement to mentor students effectively as well as explore the concept of the glass ceiling and regressive cultures that poses impediments to women as leaders in universities and other educational institutions.