Purpose This study (a) examines the association between two school renewal instruments – High Integrity and Fidelity Implementation for School Renewal (HIFI) and School Renewal Principles and Practices (PP) – and school-level student achievement, and (b) assesses whether these instruments can serve as practical tools for guiding school improvement. Design/methodology/approach Survey data from 1,420 teachers across 83 elementary and middle schools were aggregated to the school level and combined with public school performance data from the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP). Multiple regression and lagged-achievement models were employed to examine the associations between school renewal measures and student achievement outcomes. Findings Both HIFI and PP were positively associated with school mathematics and English language arts proficiency rates and annual gains. Schools with stronger renewal practices were associated with higher proficiency rates and greater year-to-year growth. Implementation integrity showed relatively more consistent associations with school performance across models. Originality/value This study provides additional evidence on the associations of two school renewal instruments with school-level achievement and year-to-year changes in achievement. It provides valid measures for future research on leadership and school effectiveness.
Purpose This study examines whether school organizational resilience (OR) serves as an explanatory pathway in the association between middle leaders' transformational leadership (TL) and three dimensions of school organizational health in secondary schools: academic emphasis (AE), institutional integrity (II) and teacher morale (TM). Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 609 participants in 103 randomly selected Israeli secondary schools: 103 middle leaders and 506 teachers working in teams coordinated by these middle leaders. Teachers rated middle leaders' TL, while middle leaders and teachers reported OR and organizational health. After aggregation to the school level, structural equation modeling with bootstrapped indirect effects tested the hypothesized associations. Findings Middle leaders' TL was positively associated with a dual school OR construct reflected in principal and faculty resilience. OR, in turn, was positively associated with AE, II and TM. The indirect associations from TL to all three organizational health dimensions through OR were significant. However, the negative direct paths to II and TM should be interpreted cautiously as cross-sectional associations. Originality/value The study shifts attention from principal-centric accounts of school resilience by showing how middle leaders may be associated with school organizational health indirectly through OR. It positions OR as the explanatory pathway linking a distinct leadership locus, middle leadership, to core dimensions of school organizational health in a national context marked by recurring educational disruption.
Purpose Grounded in job demands-resources theory, this study examines how transformational leadership relates to teacher motivation at work through perceived school climate and investigates whether trust in the school principal moderates this pathway. Design/methodology/approach Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 755 senior secondary public school teachers in Delhi, India. A moderated mediation model was tested using Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 14), specifying transformational leadership as predictor, school climate as mediator, teacher motivation at work as outcome, and trust in school principals as moderator. Findings Transformational leadership was positively associated with school climate and directly with teacher motivation at work. School climate mediated the leadership-to-motivation relationship. Trust in school principals moderated the association between school climate and motivation; the indirect pathway from transformational leadership to teacher motivation via school climate was stronger at higher levels of trust, confirming moderated mediation. Practical implications Principals in resource-constrained public schools can sustain teacher motivation by strengthening school climate and cultivating relational trust as actionable levers when structural and financial incentives are limited. Originality/value The study extends job demands-resources theory to educational settings by specifying school climate as an organisational mechanism linking transformational leadership to teacher motivation and identifying trust in principal as a relational boundary condition. It provides context-specific evidence from a large, resource-constrained public school system in a non-Western setting, tested using an integrated, moderated-mediation approach.
PurposeThis systematic review aims to identify key research themes in educational leadership and management (EDLM) in Hong Kong between 2015 and 2025 and compare them with those reported in Szeto et al.’s (2015) review of the 1995–2014 literature. It delineates emerging trends and shifting research and practice priorities. It also seeks to contribute to the global scholarship on EDLM and offer contextually grounded insights with international relevance. Design/methodology/approachThe review examines 64 empirical and conceptual articles collected from eight EDLM journals and three academic databases (Scopus, ERIC and Web of Science), using the theme checklist developed by Szeto et al. (2015). FindingsFour key themes, comprising 10 sub-themes, were identified. Leadership development and Leadership for learning remain as core research themes, while hybrid and complex reform context and collaborative school culture have emerged as new areas of focus. This review interprets the pragmatic characteristics and effective practices of school leadership in Hong Kong. It also shows the research trends in Hong Kong's EDLM broadly align with global scholarship, while revealing persistent research gaps, particularly in analyses of political and wider societal contexts. Originality/valueHong Kong was a leading contributor to international EDLM scholarship in the 2000s and has increasingly been recognized in recent years as a reference point for leadership practice internationally. The review updates the knowledge base of school leadership research in Hong Kong and supports cross-context learning within the global EDLM community.
Purpose The assistant principalship represents a critical entry point into the school leadership pipeline, yet limited research examines how candidates are selected into this role. This study investigates how PK-12 principals and human resource (HR) administrators determine organizational fit during first-time assistant principal (AP) hiring. Drawing on person–environment fit theory, this study introduces the Principal Selection Framework (PSF), conceptualizing AP selection as a staged process through which organizational fit is constructed for access to leadership roles. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative study was conducted with 25 participants (15 principals; 10 HR administrators) across multiple districts in North Carolina. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to examine how hiring authorities evaluate candidates across application, interview and selection stages. Data were analyzed through iterative coding and theoretically informed thematic analysis. Findings Selection decisions were structured around three interrelated dimensions of fit: (1) leadership experience beyond the classroom as evidence of role readiness, (2) dispositional orientations reflecting commitment to intensive and unpredictable work and (3) judgments of team complementarity and cultural alignment. Together, these dimensions demonstrate how organizational fit is constructed through interacting assessments of person–job and person–group fit across hiring stages. Originality/value This study advances scholarship by examining first-time AP selection as a mechanism through which leadership pipelines are actively constructed. By introducing the PSF, it extends person–environment fit theory into educational leadership and demonstrates how organizational fit is negotiated through role-based, relational and contextual evaluations during leadership hiring. The framework provides a conceptual tool for understanding how organizational fit is constructed during leadership hiring and how selection processes shape leadership access, expectations and pipeline development from the outset.
Purpose This study explores how Lebanese public school principals enact leadership during war amid overlapping crises. It examines how their moral, relational, adaptive, community-engaged leadership practices sustain education under protracted instability and institutional fragility. Design/methodology/approach Using an interpretive phenomenological design, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals across five Lebanese governates severely affected by war. Thematic analysis was applied to identify patterns of leadership sensemaking, moral practices and community engagement during crisis. Findings Five themes emerged that focused on (1) leading amid permanent crisis, (2) Leading through community, (3) Bureaucratic Constraints and informal agency, (4) Leadership as service and sacrifice and (5) Hope and rebuilding. Research limitations/implications The study provides insight into leadership sensemaking during war; future research should extend this work through multi-stakeholder and cross-regional analyses. Practical implications Findings highlight the need for professional development on leadership during crisis especially for principals in Lebanon. Social implications Leadership in crisis emerges as an act of moral resistance and human solidarity redefining educational leadership as a collective practice of survival and hope. Originality/value This study extends crisis leadership literature introducing new understandings of moral agency, communal trust and hope under conditions of war.
Purpose This study examines how school leaders exercised leadership in conflict-affected and ethnically marginalized regions of Uganda. It focuses on how leaders navigated extreme insecurity, displacement and community mistrust during wartime.Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a qualitative research design, using in-depth interviews with school leaders including headteachers, directors of studies and acting school heads/administrators from conflict-affected regions of Uganda, including Karamoja, West Nile and refugee-hosting districts. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis.Findings The findings show that school leaders assumed expanded and unconventional roles, including safeguarding students and staff, improvising learning arrangements during displacement, negotiating trust and authority in marginalized communities and mobilizing community resources to sustain education. Leadership practices were highly contextual, relational and embedded in local social structures, reflecting a continual balancing of safety, learning and survival in conditions of extreme uncertainty.Practical implications The findings emphasize the need for leadership development models that incorporate conflict sensitivity, cultural competence and community collaboration, moving beyond managerial frameworks. In crisis-prone regions, leadership must be prepared for improvisation, grassroots engagement and relational trust-building to ensure educational continuity.Originality/value The study provides a rare empirical insight into school leadership in wartime Uganda, particularly within minority communities. It challenges conventional leadership paradigms by documenting grassroots-driven, adaptive strategies and extending theoretical models to underexplored emergency and displacement contexts.
Purpose This study tested a theoretical model where principal innovative work behaviour served as the independent variable, principal-perceived collective teacher innovativeness as the dependent variable, principal work engagement as the mediator, and individual uncertainty avoidance orientations as the moderator.Design/methodology/approach The study sample comprised 368 principals working in public schools across T & uuml;rkiye. The measurement model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis, while hypotheses were tested via Hayes' PROCESS macro for SPSS.Findings Principal innovative work behaviour was positively related to principal-perceived collective teacher innovativeness, both directly and indirectly through principal work engagement. The indirect relationship was moderated by individual uncertainty avoidance orientations, being stronger at its lower levels.Originality/value This study integrates the Job Demands-Resources, Conservation of Resources, and contingency theories, illustrating how principals' innovative behaviour and engagement are associated with principal-perceived collective teacher innovativeness within conditions of individual uncertainty avoidance orientations.
Purpose This paper examines how Ukrainian school principals exercised leadership during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war focusing on the dynamic interplay of adaptive, transactional, and transformational approaches. The aim is to highlight how different leadership styles emerged across distinct phases of the crisis - Emergency, Stabilization and Recovery and Transformation - and how these enabled schools to maintain continuity while advancing long-term reform & laquo;New Ukrainian School & raquo; (NUS). Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a qualitative and quantitative secondary analysis of multiple data sources, encompassing government policy documents and nationwide monitoring data, which included survey findings from two annual waves (2023 and 2024) and seven focus group interviews with 47 principals. Data were thematically distributed according to leadership practices and mapped onto three temporal phases of the war: Emergency, Stabilization and Recovery and Transformation. Findings Results show that Ukrainian principals changed their leadership styles dynamically to shifting conditions. Adaptive leadership dominated the emergency phase through improvisation and rapid problem-solving. Transactional leadership gained prominence during the stabilization phase, marked by standardized routines, compliance mechanisms, and institutional order. Transformational leadership re-emerged in the recovery phase, as principals and policymakers sustained reform, invested in professional learning, and articulated a future-oriented vision despite ongoing conflict. Practical implications The findings provide actionable lessons for policymakers, international agencies, and school leaders operating in crisis-affected contexts. They demonstrate that leadership in emergencies cannot rely on a single leadership style but must integrate adaptive flexibility, transactional stability and transformational vision. Originality/value This research makes a dual contribution. Empirically, it analyzes how Ukrainian school leaders balanced immediate survival with systemic reform under extreme wartime conditions. Theoretically, it advances crisis leadership scholarship by illustrating the simultaneous and overlapping operation of adaptive, transactional and transformational leadership styles. The study highlights the need for an integrated framework that reflects the fluid and context-dependent nature of educational leadership in protracted crises.
Purpose This article analyzes the impact of insurgent control on school principalship during protracted armed conflict. It examines the dynamic forms of leadership enacted by a public school principal in a guerrilla-controlled area.Design/methodology/approach Situated in a public school in rural eastern Colombia, this case study draws on semi-structured interviews (n = 75) with administrators, teachers, parents, students and school allies, alongside document analysis of school archives (n = 76).Findings In a context of shifting levels of coercion and threat, school leadership becomes a collective and adaptive practice oriented toward protection. Across different war temporalities, tense calm, armed strike and combat, the principal navigates competing demands from the state and armed groups while prioritizing the protection of the school. Protection, enacted through boundary-setting, collaboration and strategic compliance becomes a guiding principle of her leadership.Originality/value Previous research on armed conflict and school leadership tends to treat violence either as discrete events or as a uniform background. This article extends that work by examining how school leadership practices adapt to the unpredictable, shifting and unstable dynamics of conflict. By highlighting these adaptive strategies, the study offers a more nuanced understanding of school leadership in high-risk environments, showing how principals respond to complex power arrangements while sustaining the school's educational mission.
Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the sensemaking of K-12 school leaders and how identity and student demographics factor into their discipline decisions. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative exploratory study engaged six middle school leaders across rural, suburban and urban districts. Interviews were analyzed to determine whether school administrators consider academic performance and/or race when making discipline decisions. Findings The emergent themes from this study included the sensemaking of academic beliefs, power and agency and the purpose of discipline. Findings illuminate that school leaders across contexts believe that the purpose of school discipline is to teach expected student behavior. The findings show differences in the application of discipline that are influenced by the race and gender of the leader. These findings suggest that the agency school leaders believe they have to support student outcomes is directly influenced by their own relationship to identity marginality. Practical implications How school leaders engage in sensemaking to make discipline decisions directly impacts outcomes for students. With a focus on creating more equitable learning conditions and opportunities, consideration of how school leaders negotiate their own identities and agency greatly influences their discipline sensemaking. Principal sensemaking determines whether discipline decisions reinforce or disrupt harmful schooling practices. Originality/value Studies on K-12 school leader discipline sensemaking are limited. By deepening the understanding of leader sensemaking, the field moves closer to dismantling practices that disproportionately harm student academic progress and identifying supportive strategies, especially for those from historically marginalized backgrounds.
PurposeThis research explores the experiences and leadership strategies of school principals navigating the war in Palestine. It aims to understand how these principals are leading their school communities amidst armed conflict.Design/methodology/approachEmploying a qualitative approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 13 school principals in Gaza and its surrounding regions and analysed using thematic analysis.FindingsOur findings reveal that school principals in Palestine faced prolonged school closures, heavy damage to school infrastructure, severe staff shortages and shortage of resources, all while working to safeguard students and staff amid ongoing security threats. They demonstrated adaptive leadership by adjusting decisions to rapidly changing conditions, implementing alternative modes of education and placing a strong emphasis on the well-being of both students and staff. Principals provided targeted psychological support and introduced flexible arrangements to help sustain morale within their school communities. In addition, leveraging community networks and partnerships with non-government organisations, local authorities and parents emerged as a vital strategy in maintaining school operations and overcoming daily challenges.Originality/valueThis research provides important insights into how educational leaders in Palestine sustain education under extreme adversity, offering valuable implications for leadership practices in crisis contexts.
PurposeThis study examines how Nigerian school leaders sustain education amid armed insurgency, communal violence, and separatist unrest. While adaptive leadership theory highlights flexibility and resilience, it offers limited empirical insight into leadership practices in active conflict zones, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study explores how school leaders balance immediate safety concerns with educational continuity under sustained conditions of risk and uncertainty.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative design was employed. Data were generated through hypothetical crisis scenarios, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions with school leaders in conflict-affected regions. Scenarios reflected real challenges, including armed incursions and severe resource shortages. Data were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed thematically using Braun and Clarke's six-phase framework, supported by NVivo 14.FindingsFour interrelated dimensions of wartime school leadership emerged: adaptability under uncertainty, provision of psychosocial support, mobilisation of community participation, and organisational flexibility for continuity. Leaders improvised schedules, relocated classes, and established temporary learning environments. Decentralised decision-making and community partnerships enabled rapid responses. Resilience emerged as both a creative survival strategy and an indicator of systemic fragility due to limited institutional support.Research limitations/implicationsThe study draws on a small sample of ten participants and two focus groups, limiting generalisability. Future research could expand to additional regions and comparative contexts.Practical implicationsFindings highlight the need for leadership training in crisis decision-making, trauma-informed practice, and community mobilisation, alongside policies that institutionalise resilience.Originality/valueThe study provides empirical insight into leadership during ongoing conflict, extending adaptive leadership theory by emphasising its relational and moral dimensions in fragile contexts.
Purpose To investigate the 21st-century skills used by educational leaders who established temporary formal educational settings in evacuation centers for evacuated kibbutz communities in Israel after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, and to examine how these skills were applied during the ensuing war to sustain educational continuity for evacuees.Design/methodology/approach This qualitative-phenomenological study employed a theory-driven conceptual approach. Open interviews were conducted with 40 national, regional and local educational leaders who organized and implemented education in evacuation centers. The interviews examined their roles, experiences and challenges. Previous research on 21st-century skills informed the analysis, and the OECD Learning Compass 2030 was applied as a conceptual lens in the discussion.Findings Content analysis revealed five key sets of 21st-century skills: critical thinking, teamwork and collaboration, flexibility, endurance and perseverance and creativity and innovation. These sets coalesced into two overarching themes, stability and adaptability, which together formed a pattern of adaptive stability in which leaders created routines and anchors while adjusting structures and practices to evolving circumstances. The three skills of critical thinking, collaborative teamwork and flexibility were associated with both themes but served different functions in each, operating as bridging skills sustaining this dynamic pattern.Originality/value Conducted in an under-researched wartime setting, the study shows how interdependent skills operate as an integrated mechanism enabling adaptive stability and offers a concise way to connect the OECD Learning Compass to wartime educational leadership and to training for interdisciplinary teams in emergencies.
Purpose This study investigated how primary school principals in Cyprus perceived, prioritised and sustained educational change in a highly centralised education system. Leadership is conceptualised as constrained agency, emphasising how principals mediate external mandates through professional judgement and adaptive collaboration within systemic limits. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative design was used, employing semi-structured interviews with 63 primary school principals (90% response rate; 19% of schools nationally). A codebook-based thematic analysis with restrained quantitisation enhanced transparency and cross-case comparability. Findings Principals viewed change as necessary and context-responsive, prioritising ICT integration, student support, pedagogical redesign, reformed assessment practices and enhanced collaborative culture. They encountered barriers such as teacher resistance, insufficient professional development, resource shortages and bureaucratic rigidity. To address these constraints, principals mobilised teachers' expertise, established participatory structures, piloted initiatives and embedded ongoing professional learning and feedback routines. Sustainability was linked to cultivating foresight, collective responsibility and normalised improvement practices within constrained discretion. Originality/value Situated within international debates on leadership mediation in low-autonomy systems, this study advances constrained agency as a generative lens that specifies how principals convert centralised mandates into embedded school improvement. While grounded in a highly centralised context, the mechanisms identified, policy mediation, collaboration structures, trust-enabled collective agency, and routinised professional learning, offer transferable insights for decentralised and semi-decentralised systems where leaders face different but comparable constraints, such as accountability pressures, reform overload or resource scarcity. The findings clarify boundary conditions under which leaders strengthen school capacity for sustained change amid governance limitations.
Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between ambidextrous leadership, which integrates empowering and directive leadership, and teacher burnout in the Chinese context, as well as to reveal the mediating roles of teacher autonomy and teacher self-efficacy from the resource perspective of the job demand-resources (JD-R) model. Design/methodology/approach A total of 814 Chinese teachers participated in this research. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and the bias-corrected percentile Bootstrap method. Findings Ambidextrous leadership, teacher autonomy and teacher self-efficacy were negatively correlated with teacher burnout. Teacher autonomy and teacher self-efficacy served not only as independent mediators between ambidextrous leadership and teacher burnout but also played a chain-mediating role. Research limitations/implications School leaders should empower teachers with the autonomy to perform their tasks within a transparent and equitable accountability framework, provide high-quality professional development programs to enhance teachers' pedagogical knowledge and skills and foster a culture of trust and empowerment within schools. Originality/value This study is the first to explore the mechanism through which ambidextrous leadership influences teacher burnout, thereby deepening the understanding of their relationship and enriching the literature on ambidextrous leadership within educational settings.
Purpose This study examines the leadership of school principals in Israel during the "Swords of Iron" war (2023-2025), in light of the growing need for models to guide bereaved school communities through ongoing national trauma. Using a resilient leadership framework, it analyzes the complex dynamics between functional-managerial responsibility and moral-emotional leadership amid collective trauma.Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 30 principals from Israel's State, State-Religious and Arab sectors. Data were analyzed thematically and inductively to identify action patterns, ethical dilemmas and meaning-making processes within educational leadership during a prolonged and complex national crisis.Findings The findings reveal a dynamic "Chronic Resilience" model comprising three dimensions: dual navigation between the "sacred" (mourning and memory) and the "profane" (pedagogical continuity) while constructing "emotional scaffolding" within the professional space; acting as "wounded healers" who leverage personal vulnerability as a strategic resource to build trust and shared destiny; and collective renewal shaping a "New Normal" based on shared agency. It was found that renewal in State-Religious education relied on faith, while in State education, it focused on broad and deep social, civic, and community solidarity.Originality/value The original contribution lies in conceptualizing "Chronic Resilience" as an adaptive leadership model for prolonged national trauma. The study proposes practices such as "emotional pauses" and trauma-sensitive communication that allow institutions to thrive in adversity and transform into sites of healing, meaning, hope, growth, and long-term moral and community renewal.
