Much of the research effort on leadership in the public sector has been expended from the leaders' perspective and comparatively less attention has been given to examining tendency of followers to have a romantic view of leadership in so far as all responsibility for the performance is attributed to administrators. This study examines Romance of Leadership (ROL) among academics in the public sector higher education in Sri Lanka, and explains how the administrative structure laid down by legislation forms the basis of the Romance of Leadership among academics. A survey design was used to collect data and 88 academics in six Sri Lankan public universities were selected for the study. A structured questionnaire was used to measure the Romance of Leadership of respondents. Four ROL factors were suggested by exploratory factor analysis and they were established for further analysis based on the results of confirmatory factor analysis. The survey results showed that respondents have a fair level of Romance of Leadership and their Romance of Leadership is influenced by education and job position. The research suggests that organizational structure of universities, as laid down by relevant rules and regulations, is the basis which provides the access for academics to participate in decision making, and thus, determines the ROL of respondents. The research stresses that Romance of Leadership is not merely an internal aspect of the followers; instead, it is a construct which is determined by external forces such as organizational structure, job position, and other career related variables