School leaders work in increasingly complex systems. Alongside leading learning, they daily navigate the needs and expectations of educational departments, teachers, students, parents, society, and themselves. Leadership can therefore be a dynamic vocational calling, but studies show that principals' professional agency, career sustainability, and…

The concept of belonging is considered an essential need, and the impact of belonging has been studied by many. However, limited research has been conducted on the impact of belonging of those who work in schools, especially those who are the only individuals engaged in their role, known as Onlies. The purpose of this study was to gain an…

Collective responsibility means that teachers work in cooperation and collaboration, act, and solve problems together. When teachers act together, they can be more productive. Urban schools' principals prefer activity and project-based approaches in order to better integrate students into urban life, and for this, they work to ensure that teachers…

This article presents the details and findings of a mixed-methods study that explored Scottish primary sector headteachers' enactment of creativity through a Complexity Leadership Theory lens. Although policymakers emphasise the importance of headteachers and their impact on school improvement, there is a growing need for headteachers to enact and…

This is a qualitative study focused on investigating building leaders' evaluations and the role they may play in teacher retention and recruitment. This qualitative study included analysis of interviews of evaluators of building level leaders and the findings from those interviews relative to teacher retention. [The dissertation citations…

Conflict is certain to show up in any school, so how do you as the leader know how to respond or when to intervene? Disagreements, friction, and even outright hostility are a common and unavoidable result of people working together, and not all conflict is necessarily bad; it can also provide an opportunity to learn and grow. Whether the situation…

Women are underrepresented in the superintendency of public schools. They are also underrepresented in the research about superintendents. Researchers report that male superintendents have been studied in terms of demographic makeup, stresses, career paths, leadership traits, and other indicators of success. Only in recent years has there been a…

Strategic leadership is essential for any organization's modern leader. This research aims to study the strategic leadership of provincial administration executives, the operational effectiveness of the organization, the impact of strategic leadership learning on operational effectiveness, and guidelines to improve operational effectiveness. The…

Data- driven decision making DDDM in school settings is often guided and influenced by various sources of data that assist in improving students' outcomes. School principals as the main educational leaders, play a pivotal role in DDDM using the available school data. Semi-structured interviews with 24 school principals were conducted to…

The purpose of this paper is to understand the mediating roles of communication and organisational citizenship behaviour in the relationship between transformational leadership and teacher retention. Based on 537 valid responses, this study identified that transformational leadership directly affects teacher retention, while communication and…

Although research has documented the buffering potential of supportive work environments, school leaders, and colleagues, more research is needed to understand how school leadership structures can support teachers. Drawing upon 24 qualitative interviews that were collected at two time points during the COVID-19 pandemic, we analyzed teachers'…

This article explores how leadership in child welfare is practised in a context with co-existing institutional logic. The article is based on a qualitative design using document analyses and semi-structured interviews. The document analysis is based on seven documents and interviews with 20 child welfare managers (CWM). The data indicate that CWMs…

It has long been recognized that education plays a crucial role in the development of a nation and its people. Therefore, it is logical that there is much interest in increasing the quality of the education system. Schools are a significant representative of this system, and in recent years, there has been growing attention to the concept of the…

Since 2011, the New York City (NYC) Department of Education (DOE) has engaged in a campaign to increase the number of bilingual programs it offers. This case presents the experiences of a principal who was asked by her superintendent to open a new Dual Language program. Having been a principal for only 1 year, and with little expertise about…

Youth sport has been a context where positive youth development (PYD) can be promoted (FraserThomas et al., 2005). However, for youth sport to effectively foster PYD, all adult leaders need to understand and invest in the approach. The youth sport context is a large system that encompasses multiple stakeholders across the developmental lifespan of…