Today institutions of higher learning all around the globe are undergoing rapid transformation as they compete to survive in the ever changing global demands as a result of globalisation and internationalization. In such a scenario, there is a critical demand for heads of schools and faculties in higher education to establish a strong academic reputation and become sense makers of their organizations. The roles of deans as academic leaders encompass areas such as research, academia and administration. Realizing deans as pillars of academic scholarship, this study investigated the academic and scholarly leadership profiles of deans in Malaysian public universities. The study involved 348 randomly selected deans and senior academic administrative staff from nine public universities. Data was collected via questionnaire and semi structured interviews. The findings indicated that a majority of the respondents agreed that deans should have a good academic standing and research profile possessing at least a PhD. to act as a role model for the faculty staff. Besides that respondents indicated that research and publication should be one of the most important criteria in the selection of a dean. Results indicated that on the average, deans in Malaysia conducted at least one research project and wrote approximately 1.67 papers per year. Deans also highlighted that as academic leaders they had insufficient time to pursue their academic scholarship due to increased administrative duties; hence, they found it difficult to balance their leadership and scholarship responsibilities. More importantly this study indicated that deans as academic leaders left much to be desired.