Enhancing digital productivity and capability in higher education through authentic leader behaviors: A cross-cultural structural equation model

Abstract In higher education, the ability to navigate and function well in a diverse digital ecosystem is now essential to student, academic, and professional flourishing and productivity. Universities had to respond to a pandemic that catapulted face-to-face offerings into online and hybrid environments. More recently, a preference for working from home in addition to remote work and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence is straining the capacity of educational leaders to effectively support their workforce. In this international study, we survey 533 university employees (primarily academics) and provide evidence for the effect of authentic leadership on digital productivity through digital capability and digital preparedness to work and to teach. Through structural equation modelling, we identify opportunities to prioritise effective leadership development with nested digital capability to support universities to build more resilient and productive workers to achieve better educational outcomes. Critically, recognising and developing authentic leader behaviors should be embedded into higher education policy and strategy to improve productivity, including programs to develop academic capability to use digital technologies effectively in their teaching or other academic roles.