Resilience, Reorientation, and Reinvention: School Leadership During the Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly across the globe, many schools struggled to react both quickly and adequately. Schools were one of the most important societal institutions to be affected by the pandemic. However, most school leaders have little to no training in crisis leadership, nor have they dealt with a crisis of this scale and this scope for this long. This article presents our findings from interviews of 43 school organizations around the globe about their responses during the early months of the pandemic. Primary themes from the interviews included an emphasis on vision and values; communication and family community engagement; staff care, instructional leadership, and organizational capacity-building; equity-oriented leadership practices; and recognition of potential future opportunities. These findings resonate with the larger research literature on crisis leadership and have important implications for school leaders’ future mindsets, behaviors, and support structures during crisis incidents.

Exploring the Interrelationship between COVID-19 Phobia, Work–Family Conflict, Family–Work Conflict, and Life Satisfaction among School Administrators for Advancing Sustainable Management

“…However, most COVID-19 studies on school leadership are theoretical or conceptual, trying to understand the effects of the pandemic. This research is a pioneering empirical study in terms of examining school leadership in the context of sustainable education management during the COVID-19 pandemic [38]. Given the potential of the COVID-19 waves and indeed the implications for education in the near future, it is important to develop recommendations for school leaders in these challenging times [30,39].…”

Outstanding Primary Leadership in Times of Turbulence

“…Recent research and articles on school leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic have referred to leadership as being in 'crisis' [2][3][4]. Some of this published research draws on the literature on crisis leadership [4,5] to understand the challenges faced by schools and the impact of the global crisis on school leadership [5]. The scale and scope of the challenges brought about by COVID-19 are unprecedented.…”

“…Even before the pandemic headteachers were dealing with underlying worrying concerns, including teacher recruitment and retention, mental health and wellbeing and supporting disadvantaged pupils against a backdrop of limited finances. The pandemic brought a shift in priorities for day-to-day decision making, some of which have been documented in research studies [5,9] that show the resilience and re-negotiation of leadership qualities and characteristics. They include the importance of trust [10] and the development of care [9] alongside the commitment to values and vision which are also prominent characteristics identified by earlier research into successful school leadership.…”

“…Empirical studies [11,12], have sought to understand characteristics of successful, effective and outstanding leadership in schools but as yet little work has been undertaken to examine the impact of times of crisis or turbulence on these characteristics. Research into how school leaders are responding to this pandemic is however evolving [3,5,9,13], as educational researchers seek to investigate the impact of a period of crisis on schools and school leadership. This article builds on our previous study of characteristics of outstanding leadership in primary education [12] to investigate how primary school leaders now perceive and identify with such characteristics in the light of this ongoing turbulence.…”

The Need of the Virtual Principal Amid the Pandemic

“…This communication and trust must also extend to the communities. When dealing with a crisis, the leader' s role is critical in communicating with both internal and external audiences (McLeod & Dulsky, 2021).…”