Ineffective academic deans in public universities in Ghana: A case approach

This paper sought to find out the reasons why in the view of faculty members and officers, some academic Deans in public universities are ineffective leaders. Faculty members and officers of some faculties and schools in University of Cape Coast were requested to first say why in their view; some Deans in University of Cape Coast turn out to be ineffective leaders. Second, they were also requested to give their views on the consequences of leadership failure. Using a qualitative design, the investigators sampled eight (8) faculty members and four (4) faculty officers purposively from four Faculties in University of Cape Coast. Interviewees were asked to consider their own Deans first. A thematic narrative analysis was used to analyse data from the interviews and reported. The results showed that Deans fail due to poor posture, poor interpersonal skill, unclear vision and direction and communication failure. The paper has shown that the consequences of a Dean’s failure affect individual members within the faculty, and create disaffection thus, affecting organisational output. It was therefore recommended that the University Council and Management should consider reviewing the current policy of voting deans into office if it even calls for amendments in the 2016 Statute of the University.