Visionary Leadership Among Department Heads: A Quantitative Study on Academics’ Perceptions in Sabah, Malaysia

The purpose of this study was to examine academics’ perceptions of visionary leadership in Sabah, Malaysia. The sample comprised 56 academics from three private colleges in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, who responded to a structured questionnaire on Google Forms. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 29.0. Results showed that a low number of academics tend to perceive their department heads as visionary (only 55.3 to 69.0 percent). On the other hand, nonparametric tests revealed nonsignificant differences by way of gender, age, and job experience on visionary leadership. Additionally, Wilcoxon signed rank test based on a hypothesized value of 3.5 showed that all the items related to visionary leadership were significant at p < 0.001, having medians that were significantly different from the test value, and were likely to indicate strong disagreement. Lastly, in light of the findings, several recommendations were made on how PHEI leaders can incorporate visionary leadership in their daily administration.