The role of Head of Department (HoD) in universities is paradoxical. It is central to academic quality and institutional performance, yet increasingly unattractive to those expected to fill it. Unlike leadership roles in industry, HoDs are often appointed based on academic seniority or disciplinary expertise rather than managerial readiness. As higher education environments grow more complex, this mismatch has created a persistent leadership gap.

At a South African University of Technology (UoT), this challenge became increasingly visible across faculties. The institution struggled to attract and retain HoDs due to inadequate role preparation, heavy administrative burdens, limited institutional support, and a low perceived value attached to the position. Many capable academics felt unprepared or reluctant to step into leadership roles, resulting in a growing leadership vacuum that threatened both academic quality and organisational effectiveness.

In response, a pilot Leadership Development Programme (LDP) was conceived as an experimental intervention. Rather than imposing a standardised training model, the programme aimed to create a space for reflection, dialogue, and co-creation, allowing academic leaders themselves to shape pathways for strengthening leadership capacity.

The LDP was intentionally designed as a pragmatic and reflective initiative rather than a formalised training course. It combined facilitated workshops, peer learning, and engagement with experienced academic leaders, including former Vice-Chancellors, Executive Deans, and international higher education experts. The focus was on contextual leadership insight rather than generic management theory.

Two core interventions underpinned the programme.

Participants completed a structured competency survey adapted from Potgieter et al. (2011) to identify leadership capabilities most relevant to the HoD role. The results challenged several assumptions. While administrative and technical skills were important, participants consistently prioritised relational and strategic competencies.

The highest-priority competencies included leadership, communication, emotional intelligence, strategic planning, project management, and talent attraction. Financial administration, people management, and stakeholder engagement followed, while conflict resolution, diversity management, and IT proficiency were ranked as lower-priority but still necessary skills.

These findings provided an evidence-based foundation for future leadership development, grounded in lived academic experience rather than abstract expectations.

During a facilitated workshop, participants from five faculties collectively identified 146 institutional challenges affecting their leadership effectiveness. These challenges were prioritised by urgency and severity. Most concerns clustered around Human Capital Services, management and leadership structures, and financial systems. Common issues included delayed appointments, administrative overload, unclear role expectations, and complex approval processes.

This exercise proved pivotal. Leadership difficulties were reframed not as individual shortcomings, but as systemic constraints, shifting responsibility from personal capability to institutional design.

A defining feature of the LDP was its mentorship component. Participants were invited to select mentors from a group of experienced departmental heads, creating flexible, non-evaluative mentoring relationships. Although not formally assessed, participant feedback suggested that mentorship significantly enhanced confidence, resilience, and role clarity, particularly for newer HoDs.

Equally important was the programme’s emphasis on peer learning. Participants valued the opportunity to share experiences openly, realising that many challenges were widely shared rather than isolated. This led to the introduction of the “Heads-Up / Talking Heads” concept — an ongoing forum for HoDs to engage, reflect, and collaborate beyond the formal programme.

The LDP deliberately favoured:

• co-creation over top-down instruction
• peer dialogue over rigid training modules
• real-time institutional reflection over abstract theory

While modest in scale, the pilot LDP generated several tangible outcomes and strategic propositions.

First, the competency survey directly informed the conceptual design of a future Leadership Academy, ensuring that leadership development initiatives address real, prioritised needs rather than assumed gaps.

Second, participants proposed the creation of a HoD Reference Manual to clarify roles, responsibilities, and institutional processes. This was complemented by recommendations for ongoing management training focused on strategic decision-making, resource management, and leadership practice.

Third, the challenge-mapping data provided actionable insight into bureaucratic bottlenecks, particularly within Human Capital Services and Finance. This enabled the institution to identify areas requiring immediate attention.

Finally, participants proposed the development of a digital support hub for HoDs — a centralised platform providing templates, timelines, escalation pathways, and peer advice to reduce administrative fragmentation.

Facilitating the LDP reinforced a critical insight: conscious leadership is not only personal, but systemic. Participants ranged from experienced HoDs fatigued by administrative overload to emerging leaders uncertain of their footing. Creating space for reflection, rather than rushing to solutions, allowed authentic leadership voices to emerge.

The mentorship component was particularly instructive. Many participants described academic leadership as a lonely role. The minimally structured mentoring relationships offered validation and reassurance, demonstrating that leadership strength often grows through shared experience rather than individual resilience alone.

Perhaps the most sobering realisation was that leadership development programmes frequently target individuals while treating institutional systems as neutral. This programme revealed that many leadership challenges are structural. To lead consciously, one must therefore interrogate institutional design, not only personal behaviour.

The pilot Leadership Development Programme represented a meaningful step toward rethinking academic leadership at a South African University of Technology. Grounded in data, dialogue, and co-creation, it demonstrated that leadership capacity can be cultivated through reflective, context-responsive design rather than prescriptive training models.

While the programme did not measure long-term impact, its most enduring contribution may be cultural. Participants did not reject leadership itself; they rejected isolation and administrative overload. By making leadership challenges visible, shared, and discussable, the LDP helped shift the institutional conversation from reactive survival toward collective responsibility for leadership development.

As the university moves toward establishing a Leadership Academy, the insights from this pilot provide a grounded and human foundation for systemic change.