<b>Rethinking Leadership Under Constraint: A Behavioural–Structural–Relational Model of Sequenced Transformation in Higher Education</b>

Universities in emerging-economy systems face persistent financial austerity, bureaucratic rigidity, and political oversight, yet global leadership theories offer limited insight into how institutional transformation unfolds under such constraints. This study examines how the Vice-Chancellor's leadership at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Ghana, generated institutional change within a resource-limited STEM environment. Using a concurrent mixed-methods design (survey n = 223; interviews n = 17), the study integrates the 4P Framework, Transformational Leadership Theory, and Stakeholder Theory to conceptualise strategic leadership as a behavioural–structural–relational system. Quantitative results show consistently high stakeholder perceptions across all 4P domains, with moderate-to-strong inter-domain associations consistent with systemic rather than segmented leadership influence. Qualitative findings reveal that visible infrastructural improvements, procedural streamlining, and relational accessibility collectively strengthened stakeholder trust. Synthesised through mixed-methods integration, the evidence is consistent with adaptive sequencing as an interpretive account of the observed transformation pattern: early symbolic and structurally visible reforms — particularly in infrastructure, digitisation, and institutional reputation — appear to have generated legitimacy that subsequently enabled deeper academic and cultural change. This interpretation rests primarily on qualitative participant accounts and cannot be confirmed from cross-sectional data alone. The study offers preliminary evidence from one institutional case suggesting that legitimacy, symbolic visibility, and relational trust may function as strategic resources partially substituting for material capacity in constrained systems. This is consistent with but does not confirm revisions to prevailing assumptions requiring resource abundance or managerial autonomy for effective university transformation. The Adaptive Sequencing Leadership Model foregrounds temporal sequencing, multi-dimensional alignment, and legitimacy-building as core drivers of institutional transformation in higher education, with three formal propositions set out for future controlled testing.