Introduction

Leadership styles in higher education

Leadership styles of academics are key drivers of positive change, resilience and innovation in higher education institutions. Academics’ communication and decision making styles, their approach to mentoring of trainees and their pedagogical styles within and beyond the classroom contribute to their leadership styles. Effective leaders in higher education institutions often use a combination of styles but may not necessarily articulate their leadership qualities through the lens of specific frameworks. Leadership styles have been researched and reported in the academic literature, but some maintain a more popular media trend, with limited publications that explore the facets of those frameworks. A recent meta analysis (Kasalak et al., 2022) found that effective leadership in the academy is linked to positive benefits such as increased job satisfaction, work performance, retention, and trust among academic staff . Hence, we feel it is important to interrogate and articulate the facets of leadership frameworks employed by academic leaders in higher education institutions globally.

The Gentle Academic

The Gentle Academic is a concept that has received increasing attention in social media channels over the last ten years, with only one known published scholarly publication that references this concept (Rao, 2021). As such, the definition of the Gentle Academic is still evolving. More broadly, Gentle Leadership is defined as encompassing characteristics of compassion, humility, and empathy (Meridian University 2023). This leadership style incorporates elements of servant leadership and relational leadership characteristics (D Hunter Associates, n.d.). Gentle teaching is not a new concept, indeed gentle pedagogy was proposed by Michalowski (1970). Combining these concepts, the Gentle Academic can be defined as one that adopts characteristics of authenticity, kindness, reflection, vulnerability, and honesty to guide their leadership in education, research, and academic community.

The concept of the Gentle Academic can be traced back to a social media post in October 2014. This was reposted and is largely attributed to Tumblr user @gaspss-s (2014). However, an article in the Indian Society of Landscape Architects journal special issue Landscape Education by Rao (2021) attributes the original poster to be @candybanshee (2014), who proposed “towards a gentle academic”, a list of 11 principles of the Gentle Academic This list has been shared across social media, re-emerging in 2015 across Tumblr and WordPress posts (@herfirstfeeblemovements, 2015; Roberts, 2015) and in 2019 on X (formerly Twitter) (Prescott, 2019).

Despite thousands of reposts across these platforms, the Gentle Academic concept did not attract academic attention until Grove and Allen (2025) started developing their textbook The gentle academic: Reimagining the contemporary university culture with principles of community, leadership, and care. They adapted the principles, with the book taking an in-depth analysis of each principle. The editors of this book authored the chapter related to Principle 9. The editors presented these principles to the Scholarship of Leading interest group of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSoTL) at the 2023 annual meeting. Committed to pursuing scholarly work on the relationships between leading, teaching and learning, this interest group’s mission is to create opportunities for dialogue, to promote scholarly research on the topic, and to provide support to ISSoTL members interested in and engaged in leadership (ISSoTL,2023). The editors, who were also the co-chairs of the interest group, invited participants to describe how they have demonstrated the principles of the Gentle Academic in their academic leadership. These examples inspired the creation of this book, with members of the interest group contributing case studies presented here.

The objective of this book is to

1. Compile case studies exploring facets of the Gentle Academic concept so as to provide concrete examples of the Gentle Academic in action across contexts and career stages to further a range of diverse individual and collective goals.
2. Encourage leadership within higher education more broadly articulate their leadership style using an emerging concept that should move beyond an idea on social media channels to an academic framework as proposed by Grove and Allen (2025).
3. Spark ideas and build further connections across the higher education sector to grow the scholarly literature related to the Gentle Academic concept.
4. Provide an avenue to support educators in reflecting on their leadership activities through the lens of the emerging Gentle Academic concept.

Leadership principles

This book adopts the following 11 principles adapted from the original description of the Gentle Academic concept:

1. Be upfront and honest about the things you do not know.
2. Value others’ knowledge base, especially those that differ from your own.
3. Be transparent about your skill mastery.
4. Respect the gaps in knowledge of others.
5. Be generous with others; be kind.
6. Be generous with yourself.
7. Be a role model that discourages a culture of overwork.
8. Include underrepresented voices and perspectives that have historically been left out of the academy.
9. Support the progress of other scholars.
10. Acknowledge that not everything is neutral or apolitical.
11. Value collaboration over competition and build belonging.

We present 14 case studies and one anonymous poem received from academics working at higher education institutions in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States of America, who are members of the Scholarship of Leading interest group of ISSoTL. Whilst some principles include two or three case studies, they all present their scenario and include a reflection and advice to the reader. The intention is to provide insight on how the principles have been applied in a higher education setting, so as to allow the reader to reflect on their own practices and how they can adopt these principles to be a more Gentle Academic.

This book would not be possible without the contributions from our case study authors. Thank you for your vulnerability in sharing your experiences with the world, true to the definition of a Gentle Academic.

References

@candybanshee. (2014). Towards a gentle academic. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://www.tumblr.com/candybanshee/101302866694/towards-a-gentle-academic

@gaspss-s. (2014). Towards a gentle academic. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from http://gaspss-s.tumblr.com/post/101302866694/towards-a-gentle-academic

@herfirstfeeblemovements. (2015). Towards a gentle academic. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from http://herfirstfeeblemovements.tumblr.com/post/101302866694/towards-a-gentle-academic

D Hunter Associates. (n.d.). Biography – James C. Hunter. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from http://www.jameshunter.com/biography

Grove, C., & Allen, K-A. (2025). The gentle academic: Reimagining the contemporary university culture with principles of community, leadership, and care. Springer Nature.

International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSoTL). (2023). Scholarship of Leading interest group annual meeting. Retrieved December 17, 2025, from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u1lJ_xqSADjOYrf5o11EgvI7ph6kHRjW/view 

Kasalak, G., Güneri, B., Ehtiyar, V.R., Apaydin, Ç., & Türker, G.Ö. (2022). The relation between leadership styles in higher education institutions and academic staff’s job satisfaction: A meta-analysis study. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1038824. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1038824

Meridian University. (2023). Gentle leadership: Learning compassion, humility, and empathy. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://meridianuniversity.edu/content/gentle-leadership-learning-compassion-humility-and-empathy

Michalowski, R. (1977). A gentle pedagogy: Teaching critical criminology in the south. Crime and Social Justice, 7, 69–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29766009

Prescott, J. (2019). Towards a gentle academic. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://x.com/Joprescott8/status/1165552282315964416?lang=en

Rao, A. (2021). The foundations of academic morality. Landscape Education, 67. https://www.iflaapr.com/news/la-67-landscape-education

Roberts, A. (2015). Towards a gentle academic. Retrieved 16 March 2023 from: https://aemlai.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/towards-a-gentle-academic/