Remote Leadership: A (Re)qualification of School Leaders in Portugal

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about new challenges to schools' organization leaderships and to school leaders. This study, of qualitative nature, aims at understanding the impact occurred in the area of school management, in pandemic times, from the leaders' perspective, in Portugal. The investigation question is what prevailed during the remote school management of the leader's team amidst the COVID-19 pandemic time? The sample is a video, with 2 min and 47 s, done by the Leader of a Cluster of Schools, in the North of Portugal, within the context of activities related to affection, promoted by the group of Schools' Libraries, entitled "Month of Affections”, when COVID-19 lockdown was mandatory. The content analysis was done using the webQDA® software. All ethical rules were accounted for. The main results are (i) adaptation and remote management;(ii) challenges to leadership and (iii) vision for the future. It was concluded that, due to the mandatory social distance, the Leader chose for an active and creative virtual presence (re)qualifying his leadership. The concept of this remote leadership kept the organizational balance, leading his co-workers to achieve the defined objectives. The remote leadership will have to be a dialogical field in the Public Policies of the Ministry of Education and Science in Portugal. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.