This qualitative study examined what female principals in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two historically male-dominated cultures who are actively implementing reforms to provide women with more leadership opportunities, reported as typical elements of their daily work. The study also examined the challenges that these female principals reported in their efforts to improve the learning environment in their schools and what advice they would give to women entering the field of school leadership. The themes that emerged from the data were used to construct a grounded theory of the daily responsibilities of Saudi and Qatari female principals, the challenges that faced in fulfilling those responsibilities, and how they advised women entering principal positions to prepare to respond to those challenges.

Research has shown that effective support systems are key to an educational CEO for success and tenure in the position. This qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) of women educational CEOs from the United States and Canada allowed for the reexamination of interviews from 37 participants focused on the importance of support systems. Findings uncovered six different themes or areas of support/hindrances: three formal supports/hindrances, policy, school board, and staff, and three informal supports/hindrances, family, community, and mentors/other women educational CEOs.

In this article, we extend and complement previous studies on self-descriptions of superintendents’ administrative work by examining the influential role of a relatively new actor in charter schools: the charter school district superintendent. In particular, we examine the influence of a charter district superintendent’s leadership on organizational factors such as mission, principal decision-making and school board involvement through interviews with the principals and board members in the district to identify how a charter school district superintendent exhibits leadership within an emerging context in the public school landscape. We use a qualitative case study approach to examine one charter school district superintendent and the perceptions of charter principals and charter school board members concerning his role and responsibility as a leader in the charter district. Three major themes emerged from the data: the superintendent’s role in the mission of an autonomous district; superintendent as an instructional leader; and the superintendent as a policy entrepreneur. The superintendent’s mission of the charter school district to operate as an autonomous entity, paved the way for the influence of the charter superintendent to employ and articulate instructional leadership strategies in his district, and spurred the superintendent toward action as a policy entrepreneur, establishing an LEA for his charter school district. The findings demonstrate that the superintendent has a significant, dynamic effect on the organizational mission and goals of the charter school district as well as influence on building principals and board members as the leader of the district.

Indonesia has achieved equal parity in access to education, income, and career opportunities. Yet in many parts of the country, female academic leaders are still highly under-represented in top academic boards. This study examines how fourteen (14) Indonesian female higher education academic leaders (FALs) enact identity salience and agency in performing their duties, while experiencing social control schemas or ‘triple binds’—exigencies of gender roles, unequal power-plays due to social status and positions, and lack of organizational resources and capital in higher education—in Indonesia, one of the world’s emerging economies still consolidating democracy and building necessary social, fiscal, and physical infrastructures. Taken as a whole, the study found the ‘triple binds’ as aggregate constraints for female leadership progression, driving female academic leaders to resist and rise above this discursive struggle and confrontation through sense-making, assertiveness, depth of conviction, a take-charge attitude, and the use of other tactical strategies like networking with key gatekeepers to obtain the resources they need. The study presents a framework of the triple binds that university leaders can use to assess constraints to academic leadership.

Decline and downsizing often create organizational conditions that are tension-filled, problematic, disruptive, and prone to unethical behaviour. It is common for educational organizations to face discontinuity of services and reduction of personnel; therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between declining organizations and the ethical behaviour of educational leaders under these circumstances. In this article, we provide a general description of organizational decline, typical responses to such decline, and highlight the phenomenon of personnel downsizing, with particular attention to the Canadian education context. We offer descriptions of various in situ strategies from several Canadian educational superintendents to illustrate implications for how we might better understand personnel reductions in relation to ethics. We conclude with suggestions concerning ways we might upgrade downsizing with wise judgment and ethical decision-making.

According to many studies teachers’ reception has been associated with the smooth operation of the school, the professional development of the teaching staff and the provision of optimal teaching work. Despite its significance and its attention from scholars, though, its implementation at schools has been facing challenges and hardships. The present study focuses on the role played by principals and teachers’ associations upon the reception and acclimatization of all newly appointed teachers in their schools. The findings indicate that the favorable disposition and actions of both principals and the teachers’ association in terms of receiving/acclimatizing any newly appointed teachers should be further enhanced.

The paper aims to investigate the extent to which school leaders adopt transformational leadership behaviors at times of crisis. The emphasis on restructuring in the educational policy environment in recent decades has led to an increased interest in transformational leadership in education, resulting in a large number of studies. In order to investigate the adoption of transformational leadership behaviors/practices at times of crisis, qualitative research was conducted with 30 primary school teachers in Greece. The schools were selected based on the extent to which they had been affected by the financial crisis. Greece has faced major challenges in the last ten years, including the financial crisis and the influx of immigrants. These changes have had a profound effect on the Greek educational system. In this context, the paper examines the extent to which school leaders in Greece adopt transformational leadership practices in order to deal with the impact of the crisis on their school unit. The findings of the research are used to draw conclusions and implications regarding educational policy as well as future research on the topic.

It is regarded as considerable values those principles’ skills of managing diversities and teachers’ cultural intelligences which mean they understand and appreciate other cultures. These core values are remarkably vital to be culturally literate in the global world. The organizations and their administrators respecting the diversities of the employees can allocate more time competing their counterparts in the world instead of losing energy with unnecessary conflicts. The aim of the study is to examine the correlation between teachers’ cultural intelligence and Principal’s managing the diversities and their transformational leaderships according to the teachers’ point of views. The research has adopted a correlational model. The data of the research was gathered from 428 primary school teachers in Turkey/Malatya during 2020-2021 academic year. The Data was gathered through the “Cultural Intelligence”, “Diversity Management” and “Transformational Leadership” scales. The data was analyzed by arithmetic mean, correlation analysis and regression analysis. The results of the research suggest that the primary school teacher’s cultural intelligence, the principal’s management of diversity and their transformational leadership levels were “mostly high”. It was revealed that there was a moderate level positive significant correlation between teachers’ cultural intelligence levels and Principal’s skills of managing the diversities and their transformational leaderships. Moreover, teacher’s cultural intelligence levels and Principal’s skills of managing the diversities predict the transformational leaderships of Principles. Consequently, to increase the transformational leadership of Principals, it is recommended to enhance teachers’ socio-cultural awareness and to work on improving the skills of diversity management of principals.

This paper extends and complements previous research on unethical leader behavior by examining the social and cultural perspectives that inform the understanding of objectional conduct among secondary school leaders in Kenya. The study used a social constructivist theoretical framework, and qualitative case study, and semi-structured interviews with school boards of governors, principals, and heads of department and school bursars. The findings revealed that cultural beliefs underpinned by the ubuntu ethic informed the school leaders' perceptions of unethical leadership behavior in the Kenyan secondary school contexts. Four sub-themes highlight acts that contradict the ubuntu values of altruism, humanness, care, and solidarity. They include disregard for community interests, neglect of care for one's kin, disregard for harmony, and elders' respect. The study concluded that western universal perspectives and definitions could not solely be relied upon to describe unethical leadership behavior in schools in non-Euro western contexts. The study contributes to the literature on unethical and ethical leadership by proposing a potential benefit in recognizing and incorporating non-western perspectives in exploring and defining the unethical leadership construct.

A qualitative study examining female and male Saudi principals’ perceptions of instructional leadership was conducted using an electronic survey. While teacher supervision and supporting new instructional strategies were themes that emerged from the data from both genders, the female participants provided more detail on what they personally did in both areas and identified more altruistic personal virtues that they felt instructional leaders should model. Female Saudi principals also identified active problem-solving as part of their instructional leadership as compared to male Saudi principals who reported directing school improvement efforts through their leadership team. Theories of instructional leadership were developed for each gender from participant responses that indicate that female Saudi principals define and enact instructional leadership in more relational and interactive terms than their male counterparts.

This article aims to explore the views of primary school teachers regarding the educational leadership exercised by leader teachers at the human resource management level, and how this can affect their willingness to communicate and collaborate. The theoretical framework analyzes the dimensions of human resource management by a leader teacher, as a communication channel, team empowerer, and creator of a climate of trust. The research was carried out using quantitative method, with a closed digital questionnaire which was completed by 693 primary school teachers from whole Greece. Initially, the analysis was carried out through descriptive statistics and then selected questions were analyzed by statistical inference test. The findings show a shift towards the model of a transformational leader, despite the country’s education system remaining highly centralized. In addition, the findings show a correlation between democratic and cooperative staff management, with the axes of inspiration and responsibility on the teachers’ side. This article highlights whether the communication skills of a leader teacher affect the functioning of the school. The research was carried out during a pandemic and thus it was not possible to collect qualitative data using interviews with leader teachers so that we can have a comparative approach to the issue.

As an educationist over the years, I have experienced principals’ outburst and their tendency to make a scene out of seemly minor issues that could have been addressed with little modesty. This behaviour has led to an uproar amongst parents, teachers and learners about the school principals’ insensitiveness which is attributed to lack of emotional intelligence (EI) competency. The study is underpinned by the transformational leadership theory which aims at pioneering change of attitude in school leadership so that different educational actors could be influenced to achieve the school and overall educational objectives. This qualitative study generated data from five (5) conveniently selected secondary school principals, five (5) parents and five (5) teachers using semi-structured interviews. Using thematic analysis method, the study revealed that principals with EI are able to enhance school performance and satisfy parents. Thus, the study revealed that EI is useful in establishing and maintaining good relationships with different school stakeholders. It is fundamental in managing conflicts in schools and facilitates constructive management of any stressful situations. The study further revealed that principals could acquire this skill through self-enrichment and induction initiatives by the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET). It is recommended that before principals are appointed, they should be subjected to multiple aptitude tests to evaluate their knowledge and competencies. Furthermore MoET through its experts should continually induct principals on EI aspects.

Teacher Leadership Teams (TLTs) are cross-functional teams, and thus knowledge integration is central to their teaming. Importantly, the existing literature maintains that cross-functional teams apply the traverse or transcend approach differently to integrate divergent knowledge, but few studies have directly focused on it within the context of TLTs. Studies on leadership teams in schools have highlighted political and/or cultural perspectives and mainly stressed team/organizational conditions that might influence the TLT process of using two knowledge integration approaches. Therefore, our research analyzed how one TLT employed two knowledge integration approaches in consideration of team/organizational conditions. More specifically, we conducted qualitative research using the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as an analytic lens. We identified that the TLT used traverse, transcend, and mixed approaches, and that its context influenced the team’s hybrid use by determining when the team utilized each approach. We believe that our findings contribute to revealing TLTs’ actual knowledge integration process by empirically examining one TLT’s use of knowledge integration approaches. Our findings also contribute to developing a more comprehensive framework to understand TLT knowledge integration by addressing existing research from political and cultural perspectives and suggesting further areas of focus (i.e., functional conditions) for future research.

The highlighted local and international perspectives of school-based management (SBM) offer logical findings on its efficacy at the grassroots level. Despite some hindering factors, its impact along leadership and governance, curriculum and learning, accountability and continuous improvement, and resource management are commendable. After methodical scrutiny of data, this paper concludes that the improvements in schools triggered by SBM are responsiveness to the needs and challenges of schools; contextualization of curriculum; improvement of physical facilities and linkages; and stakeholders’ awareness and involvement to school’s programs, projects and activities (PPAs). Principals likewise implemented SBM in their respective schools by holding SBM planning with its stakeholders. In fact, the different programs and projects implemented in schools include SBM crafting and planning; implementation, monitoring, and documentation of student learning activities; and clean-up drive and transparency board installation. Researchers, therefore, recommend that responsiveness of SBM to the needs and challenges of schools; contextualization of curriculum; improvement of physical facilities and linkages; and stakeholders’ awareness and involvement to school PPA be extensively maximized. Eventually, sound partnerships between schools and external stakeholders be cultivated.

This study aims to identify the dominant leadership styles of chairs from the perspective of faculty members in different college departments in higher education in the UAE. Furthermore, the study aims to identify the teachers' perceptions of leadership styles that affect their job satisfaction. The study used quantitative means with faculty members in different higher educational settings in the UAE. The survey used a five-point Likert scale. The leadership styles have values (completely agree =5, agree = 4, neutral =3, disagree=2, completely disagree=1). The job satisfaction questions have values (completely satisfied =5, satisfied = 4, fairly satisfied =3, dissatisfied =2, completely dissatisfied=1). The chosen subjects were faculty members from different colleges. Those subjects are 135 university teachers who are divided into four age groups. The data revealed no dominant leadership styles in the colleagues from faculty members' perspectives; however, the statistics lean towards the laissez-faire leadership style. It also reveals correlations between the three leadership styles and job satisfaction. The democratic leadership style has the greatest impact and most significant environment and incentives among the three independent variables.

The current case study examines secondary school principals’ social justice leadership (SJL) based on teachers’ perceptions. In the study, a qualitative research approach with a phenomenological design was used to explore the teachers’ perceptions regarding their principals’ SJL at Turkish secondary schools. The data were reached through semi-structured interviews. 11 participant teachers were determined as participants of the study with the maximum sampling method. The collected data were analyzed with content analysis, and three themes were reached: limited social justice, inclusive perspectives, and holistic leaders. Based on the results, teachers think that principals have a limited SJL and inclusion enactment. The participant teachers think that SJL should have a holistic perspective, including parents and teachers while ensuring social justice at school.

We know that school principals are critical to school success and must have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and dispositions to lead effectively. However, research shows that identifying these potentially effective leaders is difficult. Furthermore, little is known about the motivations and experiences of aspiring school leaders. This study, conducted at a university in the Southeast United States, aims to understand better the lived experiences and motivations of aspiring public and private school leaders enrolled in graduate principal preparatory programs. Through phenomenological document data analysis of 38 written narratives from 19 participants, the authors revealed several common experiences contributing to participants’ leadership identity development: early life leadership experiences, exposure to models of leadership, and leadership opportunities in their professional lives. Findings also support existing literature on the altruistic motivations of school leaders. Finally, the authors discuss implications centered primarily on growing the principal pipeline, suggesting a focus on youth/student leadership opportunities and teacher/staff leadership experiences.

This study delves into the role of leadership in addressing disparities in higher education arising from the post-COVID-19 era, as experienced by Vietnamese lecturers. Drawing on qualitative data obtained through semi-structured interviews with 15 university lecturers across diverse regions and institutions in Vietnam, the research aimed to capture the essence of effective leadership behaviors during this unprecedented crisis. The study is underpinned by the Transformational Leadership Theory and Sociocultural Theory. Findings underscore the significance of visionary and inspirational leadership, emphasizing a clear direction amidst adversities. The importance of empathetic and supportive leadership, active faculty engagement, flexibility, commitment to capacity-building, and transparent communication emerged as paramount. Viewed through the theoretical frameworks, the results elucidate how leadership strategies resonated with both universal leadership principles and culturally specific Vietnamese values. The implications drawn highlight the need for adaptive and culturally attuned leadership in crisis scenarios, especially in academic settings. Though the study offers a profound understanding of leadership in a post-pandemic Vietnamese educational context, it also recommends expanded, diverse, and cross-cultural investigations to provide a more holistic perspective in future research endeavors.

Some secondary school principals are complaining about teachers’ reluctance to participate in any activities beyond classroom teaching. To understand this phenomenon, the study attempts to explore the inhibiting factors that hinder teachers in selected secondary schools in the Maseru district from supporting and engaging in teacher leadership (TL) activities. This qualitative inquiry is underpinned by the critical theory (CT), which among others aims at revealing the core factors that contributed to teachers’ lack of enthusiasm in performing various TL related activities. Also, to suggest strategies that could pioneer a change in teachers’ attitudes towards participation in school leadership beyond teaching. The study generated data from ten (10) purposively selected secondary school teachers. Using the thematic analysis method, despite participating teachers being able to conceptualise TL, they cited that, factors including; unmanageable teaching loads, inadequate induction, and use of top-down leadership approaches inhibited TL initiatives. To mitigate the abovementioned factors, participants suggested the creation of a supportive school environment, teacher training and recognition.

Research has shown that school leaders’ engagement in teacher induction is vital for establishing supportive school structures and conditions that are conducive to successful socialization and long-term sustenance of newly qualified teachers (NQTs). In Malta, the problem of teacher recruitment and a growing attrition rate is becoming very acute. This article describes findings from an exploratory qualitative study that examined the perceptions of five heads of schools regarding their engagement in the induction and mentoring programs that have been designed to support NQTs in Malta. The findings describe the ways through which the heads of school support NQTs and their advice for new heads of schools working with NQTs. The article offers a discussion of research results in relation to the extant literature and concludes with implications for practice and further research.