Guest editorial: Organizing schools for the future: innovative conceptualizations of schools as organizations

[...]of these incomparable challenges, schools were contending with profound changes in their day-to-day practices, including suspension of classroom teaching, transformation in learning and teaching modalities and the provision of health and social services to students and their families (Huang et al., 2020;Reimers and Schleicher, 2020). [...]this global crisis has led to students' higher dropout rates, parents' increased responsibilities in the education process (Azorin, 2020;Striepe and Cunningham, 2022) and school principals' enhanced concentration on strengthening the school's community and its individual members (Schechter et al., 2022;Thornton, 2021). Yet, we suggest the articles converge on three central themes including the nature of leadership response to organizational change and crisis, organizational interdependency and boundary spanning and relationality matters to inform leaders' weathering of crisis and challenge. The authors argue that school leaders, in real time, can simultaneously employ school and district structures and supports for crisis leadership, resulting in increased individual and collective sensemaking and the provision of needed resources, in turn, buffering school organization members from threats. [...]they conclude that adapting, rather acting in rational, but outdated ways, increases the potential for leaders to better respond to persistent uncertainty and singular crises like Covid-19. Arguing that relationality is central to leadership and organizational effort, the authors propose a holistic and dynamic sense of community framework with the potential to offer insight into the conditions and actions that facilitate or hinder the organizational learning

Resilient Leaders: Resilient Determinants When Entering Principalship

The study examines factors that boost principals' sense of resilience in their first year, as well as those that undermine it. 61 interviews were conducted with 21 school principals from five different districts throughout their first year in the role. Analysis revealed five categories of resilience-undermining factors. (1) Work overload that creates a sense of stress;(2) Difficulties in dealing with key players;(3) Lack of administrative knowledge;(4) Acceptance or rejection by the staff;and (5) Coping with the Covid-19 crisis. The analysis also revealed five categories of resilience-boosting factors: (1) Growth resulting from biographical events;(2) Short-term successes;(3) Supportive environment;(4) Drawing strength from the student environment;and (5) Acceptance by the staff. This study proposes ways of coping with the challenges of principalship through the prism of the resilience determinants of principals when entering their role. AD -, Ramat Gan, Israel ;, Ramat Gan, Israel

Crisis leadership: Leading schools in a global pandemic

The global Covid-19 outbreak has disrupted schooling worldwide. Remote and limited face-to-face school management during the pandemic brought to bear the numerous challenges facing schools and principals throughout the crisis, which, in turn, gave rise to changes in their leadership practices and roles. The professional literature needs conceptual and empirical frameworks concerning the challenges facing principals, their role perceptions, and their behaviors when coping with a health crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic. This paper draws on extant literature about school leadership during diverse crisis situations to advise principals facing the current pandemic. Eight guidelines for pandemic leadership are discussed, as well as practical and research implications.