Chair Interview Data

Department chairs hold a contradictory role in higher education; they are responsible for spearheading organizational change while operating under frameworks intended to maintain stability, autonomy, and equity. This study investigates the role of chairs in facilitating change leadership within a tenured, unionized university environment. Utilizing Katz and Kahn’s (1978) organizational role theory, we performed a qualitative case study involving 15 department chairs from six colleges at a regional university in the United States. Findings indicate that chairs are not simply administrators "caught in the middle," but rather proactive interpreters, translators, and negotiators of change. Their leadership manifests through interactions including the transmission, reception, and negotiation of expectations among administrators, faculty, and staff. Union contracts, shared governance, and departmental culture exacerbate ambiguity and limit authority, necessitating that chairs engage in persuasion, coalition-building, and emotional labor instead of exercising directive control. The research provides novel insights by redefining chairs as agents of relational transformation, illustrating how role ambiguity and conflict influence adaptive leadership practices, and emphasizing the inadequately examined dynamics within unionized academic settings. The implications involve reevaluating leadership development for chairs, acknowledging the emotional labor inherent in academic leadership, and expanding role theory to encompass the intricate realities of change leadership in higher education.