Examining Correlation between Selected Demographic Variables and Leadership Effectiveness in Universities

Demographic variables are important factors affecting the styles and roles of leadership in all organizational context. There is dearth of evidence to proof this in the context of higher education that how different demographic variables affect leadership roles and styles of working. This study was designed to test four demographic variables such as age, qualification, gender and experience in relation to leadership effectiveness of university teaching department and section heads. Data were collected from 200 respondents from three public sector universities of Malakand division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data through personal visits and online google forms. Five hypotheses were formulated based on literature review. The data were analyzed using Pearson’s r correlation coefficient to ascertain the relationship between the four variables and leadership effectiveness. One hypothesis was rejected and four were accepted. Age was found to have negative correlation with leadership effectiveness whereas, gender, qualification and experience were found to have positive correlation. Based on the results, it was suggested that the results of this study may be tested in other contexts to collect further evidence and to have better understanding of the complex relationships between the variables.