| The purpose of this quantitative non-experimental comparative study was to measure and compare the leadership styles of higher education professionals across levels of responsibility between Asian-American and Caucasian-American individuals. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and additional demographic surveys were used to obtain measurements and personal leadership traits for the dependent and independent variables. A self-rated questionnaire of the MLQ survey measured nine characteristics of leadership qualities (subscales) of the transformational, transactional, or passive/avoidant (laissez-faire) of the participants. Stratified random sampling technique helped identify these two groups of higher education leaders. Inferential statistical tests of the Mann-Whitney U test were used to identify if significant difference of leadership styles existed for the independent variables of race, mentored experience, birth country, SES background, age, and gender between Asian-American and Caucasian-American higher educational leaders. Significant differences were indicated on transformational leadership quality subscale for IM and transactional leadership quality subscale for MBEA. A third independent factor of age also indicated a significant difference between older and younger leaders in the transformational leadership quality subscale for IS. Higher education institutions and decision makers could use the study result as a point of reference to guide diverse Asian-American individuals in higher education to leadership training and development in their institutions with the aid of a modified PDCA map for a conceptual framework of implementing such process. Such action could advance Asian Americans into open leadership positions and make institutions more diverse to represent its respective community. |
