This paper examines the ways that Australian school leaders made sense of and responded to situations of crisis and uncertainty that resulted from the COVID-19 global pandemic. The paper draws on a qualitative study of the subjective experiences of eight school leaders and uses a sensemaking theoretical approach applied to crisis leadership to…

Although it is generally known that distributed leadership is relevant for reinforcing teachers' capacity to change, how leadership roles are distributed among teachers largely depends on how principals perceive distributed leadership. Specifying principals' perceptions and how these are related to teachers' capacity to change leads to theories…

Kuwait is seeking to diversify its sources of income by modernizing the education system and providing its young people with the knowledge and skills needed for life in the 21st century. To this end, it is constantly trying to improve the whole educational system by introducing developmental projects and policies. Central to this process is the…

Indian universities have been facing difficulty getting world-class status as a very few Indian higher educational institutions have made it through the global rankings. We need to understand the unique challenges of the Indian higher education sector and what academic leaders of globally ranked institutions do to respond to those challenges. The…

Mid-level roles in education have been widely explored, primarily in schools, but little research has been conducted during the systemic reform that involves creating a mid-level role between end units and the system. The present study explores the sense-making of early childhood leaders (ECLs) at the initial stage of their new role as mid-level…

Muslim faith schools have been existent in the UK since the 1980s and their number has been rising ever since. These schools are established specifically to provide Muslim children with a learning environment based on Islamic values. However, fulfilling such a mission would not be an easy task in a globalised context characterised by secularism…

In the Australian early childhood sector the role of educational leader emerged as part of a very large process of policy reform that began in 2009. The position of educational leader was established to drive the quality improvement requirements of the reform, but many organizations did not establish these positions until several years after the…

The research reported in this article contributes new understanding of leadership in the context of change, by investigating how the views, values and professional practices of those in leadership roles were revealed, interplayed and changed during a period of turbulence in a school in England. The governors of the school proposed changing the…

The aim of this article is to examine how school principals perceive cultural diversity and management. To this end, qualitative research was carried out for one semester in four secondary schools in Andalusia (Spain). Through interviews and discussion groups, triangulated with other qualitative research techniques, we explored the mindset and…

What does it mean to be and to act like a school leader online? Although many school leaders might be comfortable navigating issues of identity in face-to-face environments, online environments may present new and unprecedented challenges. These challenges may range from concerns about privacy and surveillance to questions about how best to…

Principals' ability to lead their school towards its goals depends to a large extent on their leadership identity that influences the clarity of their mission, the way they see themselves as educational leaders and acceptance of their authority by their followers. Based on the concepts of leadership identity and role embeddedness, the present…

In an effort to enhance the quality of teachers and teaching, and to lead internal curriculum development in primary schools, the Hong Kong Education Bureau created a new curriculum leader post entitled primary school master/mistress (curriculum development) or PSMCD for short. The main purpose of the study was to examine the perceptions of these…

This article presents research undertaken with female headteachers in UK primary schools and explores several influential discourses in relation to female headteachers' identities. It considers themes inherent in women's narratives as they reflect upon their professional lives and discusses various identities inhabited by female leaders which…

This article examines the role of leadership in the development of academic talent in higher education from a social exchange and organizational support perspective. Drawing from a sample of academic staff at a large South African university, the study investigates the extent to which a quality leader-member exchange relationship versus a formal…

Sweden is among the countries with the highest per cent of women university Vice Chancellors in Europe. In "She Figures 2012" the average proportion of female Vice Chancellors in the 27 European Union countries is estimated to be 10 per cent. In Sweden the number is much higher: 43 per cent. Swedish higher education management has…