Author Information
Vafa Yunusova, ADA University, AzerbaijanSamira Hajiyeva, ADA University, Azerbaijan
Abstract
Academic advising can be a game-changer for student success, yet many students experience inconsistent advising, limited availability, and a lack of structured support from their advisors. This study aims to explore how academic advising and servant leadership are perceived and how academic advising can be re-envisioned through the lens of servant leadership to bridge the gaps for stronger student support. Through a convergent mixed‐method design, nine academic advisors were interviewed, and 162 undergraduate and graduate students selected via purposive sampling were surveyed. The findings indicate that advising is perceived as guiding students through their academic journey, including academic challenges, exchange programs, or even providing psychological support. Two types of advising, prescriptive and developmental models, were applied, and advisors unconsciously or consciously perform principles specific to servant leaders: listening, empathy, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community that had a positive influence on students’ academic success. A key takeaway is students thrive when advisors are engaged, accessible, and well-equipped to guide them—not just academically, but in career planning and personal development. Making academic advising more effective and meaningful for students necessitates the designing training programs enhancing leadership competencies, specifically servant leadership traits and establishing structured advising frameworks in Azerbaijani higher education institutions that directly enhances the quality of student support. Expanding longitudinal research will help to observe how servant leadership-based framework impacts students’ success in various higher education settings (i.e., across different cultural contexts) over time.
Paper Information
Conference: PCAH2025Stream: Other Humanities
This paper is part of the PCAH2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Yunusova V., & Hajiyeva S. (2025) Academic Advising as Servant Leadership to Bridge Gaps for Stronger Student Support ISSN: 2758-0970 The Paris Conference on Arts & Humanities 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 211-230) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0970.2025.18
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0970.2025.18
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