Open Journal of Leadership 2013. Vol.2, No.3, 68-72 Published Online September 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojl) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojl.2013.23009 Copyright © 2013 SciRes. 68 Perceptions of Student Leadership in the University Context—The Case of the Students’ Union in the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) * María Pilar Cáceres Reche, Inmaculada Aznar Díaz, Francisco Raso Sánchez Department of Didactic and School Organization, University of Granada, Granada, Spain Email: caceres@ugr.es, iaznar@ugr.es, fraso@ugr.es Received June 24 th , 2013; revised July 29 th , 2013; accepted August 5 th , 2013 Copyright © 2013 María Pilar Cáceres Reche et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The current work presents a descriptive study which focuses on analyzing the self-perceptions of student representatives in order to determine their characteristics and leadership profile, based on their situation and context (Sheffield University’s Student Union, UK). A non-experimental research method was ap- plied, based on the use of questionnaires and semistructured interviews. Some of the results confirm the conditioning exerted by the organizational culture of each institution, as well as the importance of the vo- cational component with respect to the development and dynamization of the groups. Keywords: Perceptions; Student Leadership; University Micropolitics Introduction Traditionally, student representation has been a rather neg- lected topic in our university culture, except during elections, when there is a risk that the ideology of academic power will change. For this reason, we need other ways to attend to and promote this university establishment. One of these is the de- termination of the characteristics that define their leadership among their peers, or their perceptions about their purpose with respect to university life (Cáceres, 2007). Other university mo- dels, like the one in this British university, feature a macro stu- dent syndicate, a “Students’ Union”, which manages to iden- tify and attend to the needs of the students. They achieve this with great efficiency and enthusiasm, reflecting an excellent culture of student participation. Students become involved in an organizational structure which is accessible and attracts their interest and motivation. It is one of the oldest and most power- ful student organizations in the United Kingdom. The present study aims to determine the characteristics and inner workings of this macro student syndicate through the perceptions of its own student staff (staff officers), taking it as a model due to its close relationship with the student population, both nationally and internationally. Numerous research studies have focused on traditional lea- dership in the managerial positions of educational organizations (Argyris, 1976; Bass, 1981; Ball, 1989; Sáenz & Lorenzo, 1993; Bass & Avolio, 1994; Sáenz & Fernández Nares, 1994; Bolman & Deal, 1995; Lorenzo Delgado, 2011; Barnett & McCormick, 2012; Neumerski, 2013 among others). However, very few stu- dies focus on student leadership (Lorenzo Delgado et al., 2007; Cáceres Reche, Lorenzo Delgado, & Sola Martínez, 2009; Vas- siliki, 2011 among others). In this study, we focus on student leadership in a British context, and the different roles that these political representatives carry out within the university. Research Problem Student leadership takes on different nuances according to the historical, sociocultural and economic context of each coun- try, despite current global trends towards the homogenization of lifestyles, opinions, university systems (European Higher Edu- cation Area), etc. Hence, our interest has been to extrapolate this research to an Anglo-Saxon university context. This research began with sev- eral pilot studies in the University of Granada, during the 2005 academic year. Our research focused on the analysis of the perceptions that Student Union leaders have about themselves regarding four areas: why they have been chosen by their peers attributes, what they were chosen for expectations, how they perform their functions thoughts on the practice and how they value their own functions as leaders, based on their daily ex- perience satisfactions, limitations, etc. The main aim of this research was to study the perceptions that the student representatives had about their own functions regarding different areas of university leadership in a British environment: identifying leaders (age, sex, etc.); attributes re- lated to election, expectations and practice of leadership (tech- niques used, etc.); and assessment. Methodology In this study, we used a descriptive and mixed methodology, based on a non-experimental survey method. We applied a quantitative instrument, the questionnaire, as well as a qualita- tive instrument, the semistructured interview. This allows a sig- nificant and contextualized interpretation of the data acquired. * Research focused on student’s leadership in British university context.