Perceptions of the critical functions of the deanship in selected schools and colleges of social work

Professional school deans, as middle managers in the academic setting of colleges and universities, play an important role as leaders, managers and educators. Their statuses and roles have changed and evolved along the same time line as have institutions and professional programs. The expectations for this position are influenced by faculty and administrators, as well as institutional circumstances. Consequently, the perceptions of these significant others, as well as the perception of deans, regarding competencies will determine the effective execution of the dean's leadership role. The purposes of this study were (1) to identify competencies which are important for the dean's leadership effectiveness as perceived by deans of schools/colleges of social work; (2) to measure significance of identified competencies as perceived by deans, their faculties, and their immediate superordinates; and (3) to determine if sex, age, and years of experience as dean influenced the dean's perceptions of critical competencies. The Delphi Technique was used to determine the most important competencies by a panel of Social Work deans. This was followed by a survey distributed to the remaining deans, a sample of their faculty, and their superordinates to determine if there were significant differences among the three populations on the relative importance of the competencies. In addition, the influence of sex, age, and years of experience as dean was examined. Statistical procedures included descriptive statistics summarizing data, the one way ANOVA analyzing the variability of the scores about the means of the three groups, and Tukey's Studentized Range, a posteriori contrast test, to test which group means were significantly different from each other. Twelve competencies were identified by the panel of ten deans. Three of the four top ranked competencies by deans were also ranked in the top four by both faculty and administrators. Further, age, sex, and number of years as dean did not appear to influence the dean's responses as far as perceptions of critical competencies. The hypothesis was rejected because of significant differences between deans and faculty members on three competencies, a significant difference between deans and administrators on one competency, and significant differences between faculty members and administrators on six competencies.