Educational leadership for academic development: reflections and evidence from research Pedagogia oggi Received: April 13, 2025 Accepted: June 6, 2025 Published: June 30, 2025 Corresponding Author:

Abstract

Institutional cultures can either support or hinder teaching quality and innovation. Often, teaching innovations can remain isolated efforts amidst broader resistance to change, thus preventing the promotion and development of innovative teaching practices. This article addresses the issue of the importance of leadership focused on the creation of a quality culture and its development. The centrality of these coordinating figures (head of departments, teaching delegates, programme coordinators, etc.) underlines the growing need to develop educational leadership skills to promote effective actions involving teachers in higher education contexts.

The paper draws on research considering the intersection of leadership studies and faculty development studies, arguing for a conceptualisation of the ‘educational leadership’ construct in academia (Bolander Laksov, 2021) and providing perspectives on leadership strategies that enable the development of cultures of excellence for educational quality.

Becoming an educational leader implies a change and an awareness that requires new tools and perspectives. In particular, the actual separation of administrative tasks, formal power and informal leadership represents a current challenge (Goldman & Wesner, 2012) that will be problematised in this paper, indicating some possible answers.