Purpose: Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach that emphasizes improving teaching and learning. This study explores how school middle leaders -- teachers holding leadership positions in schools, who are responsible for a particular area or discipline of the school's curriculum -- fulfill their instructional leadership role.…

The study examines the impact of middle leaders' cognitive complexity (CC) on team performance and conflict management, focusing on their positive perception of diversity. This study is quantitative; the Person's R test was used. The proposed model was examined using (ML-SEM) equation modeling in the M-Plus program. To determine whether the model…

The purpose of the study is to examine the ethical dilemmas among mid-level school leaders in the social-ecological context through role-play simulations. We examined simulations involving role-played ethical scenarios and group debriefings among 30 mid-level school leaders from different Israeli high schools and districts during the MA course in…

Purpose: Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach that places great emphasis on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. This study explored the enabling factors of instructional leadership in subject coordinators. Design/methodology/approach: The participants in this qualitative study were 24 subject coordinators in…

Purpose: The present study aimed to investigate whether the sub-dimensions of transformational leadership are differently influenced by middle-leaders' personality traits from the Big Five typology, namely, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, and neuroticism, and whether the sub-dimensions of transformational…

Much research is concerned with the contribution of middle-level management in the education system. Yet, little research has been devoted to investigating supervisors' considerations in outlining job definitions of middle-level managers, and how these elements shape diverse middle-level managers' leadership models. This study draws on role theory…

Purpose: The study's main goal is to investigate different leadership styles that characterize middle-level leaders, the intermediate leadership tier of role holders in school, as they practice leadership scenarios through active participation in a professional learning process of role-play simulation, using a social-ecological approach.…

This qualitative study examines the professional career-development experiences of 16 teachers holding administrative roles. The study focused on the quality and foci of the informants' experiences over time. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, to elicit the informants' life-story narratives. Qualitative content analysis was applied…

Whereas school principals' instructional leadership has received research attention, assistant principals' instructional leadership role has been relatively neglected. The current research explored those instructional leadership responsibilities that assistant principals do not perform. Data collection included interviews with a diverse sample of…

The study examined the effect of teachers' formal, nonformal and informal learning experiences on their promotion to middle leadership roles in schools during their first ten years of work. Analyses were based on data from two cohorts of Israeli teachers who completed their pre-service programs in the years 2005-2006 (N = 4208). They were followed…

The purpose of this article is to explore the development of the knowledge base on middle leadership in schools. Since the seminal reviews conducted by Bennett a contemporary scan only of the scholarly literature on middle leaders/leadership in schools has not been undertaken. Consequently, this article looks at outputs relating to this topic by…

Purpose: Relying on information processing and attribution theories, which relate to the formation of leadership perceptions and attributes, the current study seeks to examine the relationship between demographic variables and principals' systems thinking (PST) in an integrated model. The present study purpose was threefold: first, the study seeks…

This study aims to explore the frequency and extent of principals' use of systems thinking activities in Israel; to examine whether principals' gender and seniority predict their systems thinking activities; and to determine how systems thinking activities are related to school outcomes. Results indicated that principals' seniority predicted their…

This study adopts a structural perspective to explore micro-politics in senior management teams and identify the principals' inner circle. Based on data from an Israeli random sample of state primary teachers, profiles of trust in principal are identified and used to break down the subgroups of teachers serving in various roles in senior…

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…