Intellectual Leadership: Driving Innovation in Higher Education - Essay Sample

Introduction

Intellectual leadership is the ability to create powerful ideologies by an individual. Such ideologies have the potential of spurring, social, technological, scientific, and institutional revolutions (Oleksiyenko & Ruan, 2019). In higher education levels, such a skill involves all stakeholders thriving to capitalize on their autonomies in driving various innovation-based investigations and publishing of scholarly and influential documentations. At this level of education, most of the research conducted is evidence-based and hence requires intellectual integrity in the synthesis of various items relating to such research topic and coming up with peer reviewed and reliable sources of information. A favorable environmental condition help in shaping intellectual leadership and enhances the production of more profound and high-quality academic resources that are essential for scientific research and critical analysis of various theories and pertains to the various fields of study (Oleksiyenko, 2018). Therefore, this article aims at analyzing intellectual leadership in higher education in ensuring empirical analysis of academic contents, providing solutions to problems, and helping in reshaping the skewed morals in contemporary society.

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Leadership in the higher education sector is crucial in ensuring f achievement of the institutional target goals in various fields. Intellectual leaders in this discipline are exemplary in their leadership, embrace problem-solving rather than react to change, they are inspirational of over their researchers and other stakeholders, and they influence others to find opportunities in problems. Additionally, intellectual leaderships embrace technological advancements and innovations because they develop power alongside their subjects, have a persuasive influence over people through inspiring change, and stress on scientific research that contributes to scholarly publications. Institutions of higher learning need to develop and adopt the best intellectualism in the leadership that enhances their relevance and enabling them to gain a competitive advantage over other rival institutions. This forms a basis of development of neoliberalism, which is an important parameter in the universities in ensuring that proper curriculum gets adhered to by all the stakeholders to boost the demand of the institution by eternal parties (Pederzini, 2018).

Inter-racial integration in the education system where all racial aspects are accommodated enhances effective interactions among the students and other learning stakeholders that boost e academic performances in the higher learning institutions. It is essential because the majority of these institutions hosts various students from across the entire racial divide, and hence creating a harmonized environment for interaction is a credit to the intellectual leadership development process. Antonio (2001) asserts that "the present study seeks to broaden our empirical knowledge in this area by examining the role of interracial interaction in the development of leadership skills and cultural knowledge and understanding among college students." Cross-cultural knowledge is important in the development of intellectual leadership skills among the involved parties as it enhances the acquisition of wider and broader scope of realistic and implementable skills that assists the students in boosting the scientific research capabilities and production of high-quality findings. Therefore, interracial integration plays a critical role in intellectualism enhancement in higher education levels.

Socialization frameworks in higher leaning institutions registered a significant positive trend in the past research findings. The slight and gradual increase is highly attributed to the inert-racial integration, which instills the students with important virtues. Antonio (2001) further opined that the number of students enrolled in higher learning institutions such as colleges had embraced intellectual leadership practices through their unconditioned decisions to live in the racially understanding environments, commitment to cleaned up environments, and through living in a considerate and accommodative environment. Among the accelerating factors that catalyze the urge of adoption and practicing intellectual leadership skills in the institutions of higher learning include effective and efficient analytical skills, critical thinking skills, writing skills, specific and general knowledge. The main parties of interest in this meta-analysis are the whites, Chicanos, and the Africans (Antonio, 2001). Research findings indicate that integration among these groups in a higher education sector enhances appropriate retention capabilities, cognitive development, and satisfaction among the students hence posing a beneficial advantage. Hence, it is making it important for the betterment of scientific purposes and researches.

Intellectual leadership styles in the higher learning sector can impact the achievement of targets in a decision-making process, depending on its suitability. Autocratic, paternalistic, laissez-faire, democratic are some of the most prevalent leadership styles found in most higher learning institutions. However, the application of any one of the four leadership styles in an institution depends on the sources of power available to a leader, and the suitability of that leadership style to the situation at hand. Intellectualism in higher education levels enhances quality leadership styles whereby the supervisor is the sole decision-maker, has a direct supervisory role upon scientific researchers, the leader is the only source of power in the institution or department, and there is minimal tendency to supervise. Consequently, the style has the impact of influencing a rise in productivity; the decision-making process is quick because of the absence of consultation, increased product quality, and has the potential to mitigate inefficiencies in the production process (Deanna and Maldonado, 2015). However, it has the downsides of causing fear and mistrust in the research sector, great staff demoralization, which could lead to high turnover, an increase in staff absenteeism, and reduction in creativity and innovation among staff.

Women leadership has gained momentum in the past years and opened doors to African American women to engage in academic research and has enhanced fair competition between them and their male counterparts hence allowing them to publish the research findings and contribute immensely to the academic industry (Deanna and Maldonado, 2015). Most of the higher learning institutions in the united states of America offers lucrative privileges to the women leaders to showcase their intellectual leadership skills that are not only beneficial to their experiences but also the learning institutions and the entire academic sector (Hnat et al., 2015). The enhancement and empowerment of women to join the research industry is one of the best ways of mitigating various societal challenges because women form the strong part of society and have a better understanding of issues that are faced by contemporary society than their male counterparts. Intellectualism in the education sector, especially regarding to the girl child is an important factor the societies can use in taming various social challenges that mostly affect the women and the entire girl child in the society since good education systems enlightens this group hence result in the breeding of effective and reliable leaders with the capabilities of taming a myriad of social problems in the society.

However, some various challenges and issues face intellectual leadership in higher education levels hence compelling application of stringent skills as mitigation approaches and salvaging strategies. Researchers and other university or tertiary education level staff face acute challenges that make them vulnerable to various academic hazards and exposes them to unethical academic malpractices. University educators, through their service charters and the ethical working practices, thrive to offer the best skills in ensuring that the students acquire the best they could apply in the society to address the compelling societal issues. "Offering a quality higher education experience fit for the needs of both the individual student and society might be accepted broadly as a concerted goal of university educators" (Drew, 2010). Through these practices, the majority of the university staff educators sacrifice most of their resources in ensuring that the best for such groups are offered hence, in turn, exposing themselves to other risks that make them the vulnerable targets. Therefore, intellectual educators in higher education face some inevitable challenges that need to be addressed.

Educators in a higher learning institution adhere to set rules and regulations that confine them to partaking scientific researches and academic issues only. Most of the case studies done on the implications of innovation on higher education studies show that most of the qualitative and quantitative findings are obtained by the tutors adhering to intellectual leadership and morals. The ethical considerations and practice in scientific studies is important for researches in acknowledging the works of others and contributing to their findings (Deanna and Maldonado, 2015). Therefore this approach reduces the cases of plagiarism witnessed in the unethical scientific research fields. Higher institutions practicing intellectualism develops a holistic and accommodative scientific research culture that yields the results with possibilities of solving the challenges facing the current societies. Consequently, ethical behavior in a higher learning institution gives the conscience of gauging the magnitude and implication of items. A well-developed institutional culture reinforces the efforts of academic scientist to explore various fields in ensuring innovation and invention of various scientific aspects gets achieved. Subsequently, a frail intellectual leadership culture encourages unethical behaviors within the institution of higher learning.

The intellectuals in a higher learning institution and other scientific research centers are carefully and entirely engaged in following various innovation proceedings with the aim of improving their research skills and adoption of effective decision-making skills that are essential for research in the higher education levels. Furthermore, there are high chances that such proceedings impacts positively in the research sector and the implementation of various scientific theories in the real-life situation for solving various challenges. It is justified by the recently conducted research where the effective decision-making skills have proved to play a critical role in the attainment of the desired results in the institutions of higher learning through the use of intellectual leadership skills (Deanna and Maldonado, 2015). The university and college will have supposed that the institution of higher education's image in the sector will improve through the use of modern skills and application of such intellectual skills in improving the academic results and innovations. Through such applications, the universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning tend to invest much in modern facilities in order to improve their findings.

Intellectual leadership, furthermore, is essential in an activity coordination strategy that requires periodic and regular scientific research schedules. However, higher education management should ensure that such schedules are not affecting the time for the implementation of the project. Therefore, the implementation team has to organize every task through the f...