Professional Leadership Competencies for Malaysian Educational Middle Leaders

The quality of education is heavily influenced by the professionalism of teachers and the effectiveness of educational leadership. Previous studies have examined educational leadership, and most concentrate on the roles of principals and head teachers. There is a need to delve into a more comprehensive examination of leadership by middle leaders who served as the backbone of the educational system to improve the education quality in the country. Thus, this study aims to establish a consensus among experts regarding the construct of professional leadership competencies for middle leaders in matriculation colleges, employing the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM). An instrument comprising elements related to professional leadership competencies was administered to a panel of 30 experts from diverse fields. The study’s outcomes reveal the agreement among expert panels concerning the proposed constructs and elements of professional leadership competencies. All 13 elements met the condition of d ≤ 0.2, achieving expert agreement exceeding 75% with values ranging from 93% to 100%. The alpha-cut values also exceeded 0.5 (α-cut ≥ 0.5), ranging from 0.886 to 0.940. Through the defuzzification process facilitated by FDM, all elements were ranked according to the hierarchy established by the experts. This study introduced a novel construct related to professional leadership competencies, specifically to educational middle leaders.