Middle leadership is an area of increasing interest in higher education with little research to date exploring middle leading from the perspective of function or discipline leadership roles within Departments. This article uses a case study of twelve middle leaders within a university faculty in Australia to examine the broader contexts of middle…

Limited research exists on middle level professionals working in higher education, and those who work in student affairs in community college settings specifically warrant inquiry. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the experiences of middle level student affairs professionals leading adaptive situations at their community…

As a result of shifting market forces affecting institutions of higher education, implementation of enhanced resource management practices has become a strategic imperative for many colleges and universities. An increasing number of universities have adopted decentralized budgeting practices to enhance stewardship of resources and foster…

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…

This qualitative study examines how Black women mid-level leaders navigate the superwoman schema. The findings extend Woods-Giscombe's (2010) work by exploring the schema's impact on Black women working in mid-level leadership administrative positions at HWIs. A descriptive phenomenological study was employed to understand and describe the lived…

Despite the increasing number of women in STEM professions and higher education, they are underrepresented in middle management leadership roles. In these roles, they face challenges balancing multiple demands, especially in male-dominated cultures. This research used a life history approach to investigate the role identities of three female…

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.…

The study draws on mixed methods research with further education middle managers across England in order to explore whether there are gendered differences in management. There remain debates about whether there are gender differences in management or leadership. The study adds to this debate with results that reveal that women and men are…

The purpose of this phenomenological, qualitative study was to explore how curriculum specialists in middle leadership positions perceive their use of democratic leadership to build teachers' leadership capacity across high schools within one Midwestern public school district. The key democratic leadership practices that guided this study include…

Middle leaders were required to navigate the complexities of educational disruption and respond to internal and external demands throughout the pandemic. This shifting educational context necessitated a sensemaking process to better understand and act on the issues which gave rise to ambiguities in their school environment. This study investigated…

The research on Early Childhood Education and Care leadership has mainly focused on the kindergarten manager's perspectives. However, to fully understand leadership in ECEC settings, the middle-management level of pedagogical leaders must be included. The distributed framework is applied to investigate how the pedagogical leaders at the…

This study explored characteristics that principals, senior leadership team members, and middle leaders perceive as supporting the effective functioning of senior leadership teams (SLTs) in high-performing Catholic composite and secondary schools (CCSS) in Western Australia. Composite schools include both primary and secondary students. The…

Purpose: The challenges faced by universities in China have presented opportunities to enhance the leadership of educational leaders in universities. Little has been written about the leadership styles of mid-level educational leaders in Chinese higher education (HE). The objective of this study is to provide an authentic understanding of 1) the…

Research on how to support school-based teacher learning has largely focused on the role of leaders at the top of the school organisation. It has paid little attention to middle leaders, who directly initiate and are deeply involved in teachers' learning processes. Linking leadership constructs with organisational learning, we examined how middle…

This study explores the link between principals' leadership practices and learning achievements from a distributed leadership perspective, using semi-structured interviews with TVET supervisors, middle leaders, and teachers. A detailed discussion on how school principals actually practised distributed leadership (DL) and how these practices…