Systems thinking can be explained as the ability to see the whole beyond its parts and to see the parts in the context of the whole. As a holistic management approach, systems thinking enables managers to cope with increasing complexity and change. Given the inherent complexity of school organizations within dynamic educational environments,…

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…

This qualitative study explores school principals' perceptions and enactments of shared sense-making processes during a generally-outlined pedagogical reform, i.e. "a broad-policy reform allowing educators to exercise their discretion in meeting its pedagogical goals," aiming to inquire what makes such processes critical to schools'…

Systems thinking involves attempts to understand and improve complex systems, examines systems holistically, and focuses on the way that a system's constituent parts interrelate. This essay provides examples of how systems thinking can enable principals to demonstrate instructional leadership and nurture learning-focused schools in the current era…

Purpose: Today's educational complexities require principals to adopt a more systemic perspective toward school management. Although research has emphasized the benefits associated with the holistic perspective of systems thinking, research in the educational field has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of…

Purpose: It has been suggested that coherency between primary stakeholders involved in an educational reform is a key determinant of its success. The "Meaningful Learning Reform" is defined as an open reform, serving as a bottom-up solution to promote school autonomy. This reform allows school leaders to exercise considerable discretion…

Principal preparation programs are criticized for failing to produce school leaders who can successfully face the growing complexity of today's educational leadership. Inasmuch as the literature highlighted systems thinking as beneficial for complex situations, this study aimed to explore how preservice principals, enrolled in a systems thinking…

Purpose: This conceptual paper explores a novel model explaining teachers' perceptions of their effective leader through the lens of implicit leadership theory (ILT), using the concepts of school principals' sense-making and cognitive complexity (CC). Design/methodology/approach: The sense-making framework and CC theory were used to explain ILT,…

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…

School principals' decisions are made within the complex organizations called schools. This study explored how systems thinking is reflected in principals' perceptions about their decision-making processes. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups, principals' descriptions of their own effective decision-making reflected…

Systems thinking (ST) is a holistic leadership approach that puts the study of wholes before that of parts. It focuses attention on how organization members act together in networks of interactions. This is done by researching organization members' mental models, which are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even mental pictures or…

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),…

This study explores the experiences of high school middle leaders implementing a generally outlined reform, which required educators to exercise judgment regarding how to meet the reform's goals. Exploring 65 middle leaders' perceptions regarding the implementation of the Meaningful Learning Reform in Israel revealed that they experienced two main…

The phase of entering the role of assistant principals and the coping strategies assistant principals use upon entering their role have barely been studied. Most studies that dealt with assistant principals focused mainly on the role of the assistant principals and their readiness to advance to the position of school principal, while the study…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test an innovative model for exploring the direct and indirect relationships between principals' cognitive complexity (CC), schools' absorptive capacity (ACAP), a teacher's affective commitment and a teacher's intent to leave. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from a survey of 1,664 teachers…