Perception of scientific leadership in the Bachelor of Physical Culture

Abstract

Research at universities is one of their core functions and requires scientific leaders to guide the work of research groups through science, technology, and innovation projects. Scientific leadership has been studied by various researchers who have identified its essential qualities, including the personal charisma perceived by researchers through interpersonal communication. The objective of this article is to understand the individual perceptions of scientific leaders held by researchers within the faculty of the Manuel Fajardo University of Physical Culture and Sports Sciences, using a qualitative methodology. A survey was administered to a purposive sample of 10 professors with research experience, who were asked to select those they considered to be the scientific leaders at the institution. The results showed that the perception of scientific leadership among the sampled subjects is heavily influenced by charisma, a subjective criterion related to affectivity (empathy), rather than by rational elements associated with high research performance. In other words, the influence of personal charisma proved to be a decisive element in the proposals, which confirms the existing theoretical references on scientific leadership, even though it is still required to be continued in order to achieve the necessary scientific certainty given the fact of being just an exploratory study