This article explores the changing roles and personal characteristics of deans of faculties and heads of academic departments in Australian higher education institutions over a twenty-year period from 1977 to 1997. While deans and heads continued to be academics with superior qualifications and impressive research achievements, the gap between the research records of deans/heads and other academics narrowed between 1977 and 1997 but the gap between deans/heads and professors widened. Deans/heads in 1997 were somewhat less likely than in 1977 to have been professors or associate professors. Work patterns of deans/heads and other academics remained remarkably stable between 1977 and 1997, except that for both works hours per week increased. However, interest by both deans/heads and other academics in administration and committee work declined sharply between 1977 and 1997.