Keeping experienced and competent teachers in schools is becoming an important challenge for school leadership. Hence, this research tested an innovative model which explored the direct and indirect relationship between principals’ instructional leadership, collective teacher efficacy, a shared vision, and a teacher’s intent to leave their profession. Data were collected from a survey of 1700 teachers from 130 Jewish and Arab elementary schools randomly selected from the database of the Israeli education system. To test the proposed multilevel model, we conducted multilevel structural equation modeling. The analysis confirmed that collective teacher efficacy and shared vision emerge as prominent mediators between principals’ instructional leadership and a teacher’s intent to leave. Regarding the differences between the two sectors (Arab and Jewish) that exist in the Israeli education system, collective teacher efficacy, as well as shared vision, played a mediating role between instructional leadership and a teacher’s intent to leave in the Jewish elementary schools, while in the Arab elementary schools, only collective teacher efficacy played a mediating role between instructional leadership and a teacher’s intent to leave. This study adds to the body of research directed at identifying administrative support and work-related factors that may decrease a teacher’s intent to leave and are amenable to leadership intervention.

Purpose: This study explored a theoretical model proposing direct and mediated effects for principals’ characteristics—principals’ information-processing mechanisms (PIPMs) and instructional leadership (IL)—with organizational learning mechanisms (OLMs), for schools’ OLMs with teachers’ characteristics—teachers’ affective commitment (TAC), collective teacher efficacy (CTE), and teachers’ job satisfaction (TJS)—and finally, for teachers’ characteristics with students’ achievements on national math and science tests. Design: Data were collected from a multisource survey of a random sample of 130 elementary school principals representing Israel’s full socioeconomic range, 1,700 teachers from those schools, as well as data on those schools retrieved from the Ministry of Education data set. Data were aggregated at the school level for structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Findings: Analysis from SEM confirmed that IL emerges as a prominent mediator between PIPMs and OLMs. OLMs emerged as a prominent mediator between IL and the three teachers’ characteristics. TAC and CTE were significantly directly related to students’ math and science achievements. Finally, OLMs promoted students’ math and science achievements only through CTE. Implications: The relationships found for both principal characteristics (PIPMs and IL) with OLMs in schools highlight principals’ potentially important role in promoting collective learning within schools through utilization of OLMs, which can predict critical teacher characteristics (TAC, CTE, TJS), which in turn can predict school effectiveness measures (i.e., students’ achievements).

Cognitive complexity (CC)—the ability to differentiate and integrate in a dynamic environment—has been shown to be essential to understanding complex and uncertain environments. However, educational leaders’ CC has not been examined. In the current exploratory research, we examine the effect of school middle leaders’ CC in relation to their Big 5 personality traits (neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience, extroversion, and agreeableness) on their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as well as the moderator effect of CC between the Big 5 personality traits and OCB. Participants in this study were 325 educational management and leadership MA students from five higher education institutions acting as middle leaders in their schools. Results showed that a high level of differentiating CC was linked to a high level of openness to experience, extroversion, conscientiousness, and OCB. Further, high levels of integrative CC were linked to conscientiousness, openness to experience, and OCB. Low integrative CC was linked to a high level of neuroticism. Regarding the moderation effect, only integration ability serves as a moderator between conscientiousness, openness to experience, and OCB. By integrating research from both educational and noneducational literature, this exploratory study contributes to our understanding of school leaders’ CC, suggesting future research avenues and implications.

Purpose Organizational learning (OL) has been conceptualized as a critical component in school change processes. Nevertheless, OL in the school context is still somewhat obscure and difficult to comprehend, thus it is rarely translated into operational structures and processes and later permanently sustained. The purpose of this study is to present the organizational learning mechanisms (OLMs) framework as an institutionalized arrangement for collecting, disseminating, analyzing, storing, retrieving and using information that is relevant to the performance of school systems. Design/methodology/approach First, the authors examine the previous research on OLMs as a conceptual framework for OL in schools; then the authors present the various validated measures of OLMs in schools; and finally, the authors suggest implications for principals, as well as future explorations of the issue. Findings While the literature on OL in schools acknowledges the mystification of the term and the difficulty in translating it into operative procedures in dynamic and complex contexts, OLMs, as an integration of structural and cultural frameworks, are conceptualized as scaffolding for the development of learning schools. Originality/value The OLMs’ (structural and cultural) framework of information processing may help schools develop and sustain learning communities aimed at fostering the continuous growth of students and faculty members alike.

The global Covid-19 outbreak has disrupted schooling worldwide. Remote and limited face-to-face school management during the pandemic brought to bear the numerous challenges facing schools and principals throughout the crisis, which, in turn, gave rise to changes in their leadership practices and roles. The professional literature needs conceptual and empirical frameworks concerning the challenges facing principals, their role perceptions, and their behaviors when coping with a health crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic. This paper draws on extant literature about school leadership during diverse crisis situations to advise principals facing the current pandemic. Eight guidelines for pandemic leadership are discussed, as well as practical and research implications.