Abstract
The South African higher education (HE) sector has been criticised for an apparent lack of leadership, calling into question the leaders’ ability to manage change as a result of the recent mergers of HE institutions. The aim of this present research was to establish the frequency of exhibition of transformational leadership and its behaviours and its level in this sector, including the commonly manifesting themes and strategies that transformational leaders, as change agents, utilise to effect change in their organisations. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was administered to 190 HE leaders, followed by individual interviews. It was found that these leaders exhibit transformational leadership fairly often and that, contrary to criticism, they manage change fairly successfully.