Women’s Leadership in Higher Education: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

This study explores women’s leadership in higher education through a synthesis of research on leadership trends, organizational challenges, and institutional op-portunities influencing progression into senior academic and administrative roles. A PRISMA-based systematic review was conducted using peer-reviewed studies identified through academic databases, with search terms related to aca-demic leadership and higher education management. After screening and apply-ing inclusion criteria, the selected studies were analyzed using thematic synthe-sis. The findings indicate increasing scholarly attention to women’s leadership in higher education, alongside persistent management-related challenges, including constrained leadership pipelines, promotion systems focused on academic output, centralized governance structures, workload imbalance, and limited leadership development opportunities. The review also identifies institutional practices that support leadership progression, such as mentorship, succession planning, leader-ship training programs, and transparent evaluation systems. This study contrib-utes to the higher education management literature by integrating leadership trends, organizational challenges, and leadership development practices within a single analytical perspective.