Developing a guiding model of educational leadership in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: A grounded theory study

Year 2022, Volume: 9 Issue: 1, 362 - 387, 01.01.2022

Gürol Yokuş

https://doi.org/10.17275/per.22.20.9.1

Cited By: 15

Abstract

This research aims to explore educational leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of higher education students and to develop a guiding model of educational leadership for ‘new normal’ with the novel emerging components. This research is conducted using grounded theory method and social network analysis. The first study group includes 32 participants, second study group includes another 26 participants, and final group includes 12 participants. Participants in all groups are university students studying in a higher education institution in Turkey. Written documents, personal interviews and group discussion are used for data collection. Based on analysis, a guiding model is developed which illustrates the concept of educational leadership for the new normal, which is composed of “networking, enhancing educational practices, calmness & compassion, analytical & strategical thinking, and transparency”. Also, the social network analysis shows that “encouraging online communities, promoting social interaction, creating a safe and inclusive learning environment, providing learning resources, leading under pressure, emphasizing optimism, making data-driven decisions” are cornerstones in terms of educational leadership for the new normal. In addition to those substantially noted key concepts, some higher education students also seem to be in need of some other aspects of educational leadership such as inspiration for learning, open dialogue, risk planning and leveraging capacity of community. The participants also indicate that successful educational leadership is about understanding others’ perspectives, rather than sticking to leader’s perspective.

Keywords

leadership for new normal, social network analysis, educational leadership in times of crisis, grounded theory of educational leadership

References

• Amey, M. (2006). Leadership in higher education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 38 (6), 55-58.
• Antonakis, J., Day, V. D., & Schyns, B. (2012). Leadership and individual differences: At the cusp of a renaissance. The Leadership Quarterly, 23 (4), 643-650.
• Ariratana, W., Sirisookslip, S., & Ngang, T. K. (2015). Development of leadership soft skills among educational administrators. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 186, 331-336.
• Balwant, T. P. (2016). Transformational instructor‐leadership in higher education teaching: A meta‐analytic review and research agenda. Journal of Leadership Studies, 9 (4), 20-42.
• Bass, M. B. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: The Free Press.
• Beachum, F., & Dentith, M. A. (2004). Teacher leaders creating cultures of school renewal and transformation. The Educational Forum, 68 (3), 276-286.
• Bolden, R., Petrov, G., & Gosling, J. (2009). Distributed leadership in higher education: Rhetoric and reality. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 37 (2), 257-277.
• Brooks, S. J., & Normore, H. A. (2010). Educational leadership and globalization: Literacy for a glocal perspective. Educational Policy, 24(1), 52-82.
• Bryant, A. (2017). Grounded theory and grounded theorizing: Pragmatism in research practice. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Bryman, A. (2007). Effective leadership in higher education: A literature review. Studies in Higher Education, 32(6), 693-710.
• Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2007). Business research methods. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Bush, T., & Glover, D. (2014). School leadership models: What do we know?, School Leadership and Management, 34 (5), 553–571.
• Caine, G., & Caine, N. R. (2000). The Learning community as a foundation for developing teacher leaders. NASSP Bulletin, 84 (616), 7-14.
• Candiff, A. K. (2016). Pushed by pain or pulled by vision: A study on perceptions, socially responsible leadership development, and short-term, faculty-led international service learning. (Unpublished PhD dissertation). Capella University, Capella.
• Cogaltay, N., & Karadag, E. (2016). The effect of educational leadership on organizational variables: A meta-Analysis study in the sample of Turkey. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 16 (2), 603-646.
• Dolan, L. S., Raich, M., Garti, A., & Landau, A. (2020). The COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity for introspection: A multi-level reflection on values, needs, trust and leadership in the future. The European Business Review. 1-17
• Dugan, P. John, and Komives, R. Susan (2007). Developing Leadership Capacity in College Students: Findings from a National Study. A report from Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership: College Park, MD: National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs.
• Dugan, P. J., & Komives, R. S. (2010). Influences on college students' capacities for socially responsible leadership. Journal of College Student Development, 51(5), 525-549.
• Evans, N. (2020). Leading with empathy: Supporting faculty through COVID‐19 and beyond. The Department Chair, 31 (1), 25–26.
• Fernandez, A. A., & Shaw, G. P. (2020). Academic leadership in a time of crisis: The coronavirus and COVID‐19. Journal of Leadership Studies, 14 (1), 39-45.
• Forester, J., & McKibbon, G. (2020). Beyond blame: leadership, collaboration and compassion in the time of COVID-19. Socio-Ecological Practice Research, 1-12.
• Fullan, M., Quinn, J., Drummy, M., & Gardner, M. (2020). Education reimagined: The future of learning. A collaborative position paper between New Pedagogies for Deep Learning and Microsoft Education, 1-34.
• Fuller, S., Vaporciyan, A., Dearani, A. J., Stulak, M. J., & Romano, C. J. (2020). COVID-19 disruption in cardiothoracic surgical training: An opportunity to enhance education. The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 1-11.
• Gaddis, B., Connelly, S., & Mumford, D. M. (2004). Failure feedback as an affective event: Influences of leader affect on subordinate attitudes and performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 663−686.
• Gardner, L. W., Fischer, D., & Hunt, J. G. (2009). Emotional labor and leadership: A threat to authenticity?, The Leadership Quarterly, 20 (3), 466-482.
• Goldring, E., & Berends, M. (2008). Leading with data: Pathways to improve your school. USA: Corwin Press.
• Gomes, R., & Knowles, A. P. (1999). Marketing department leadership: An analysis of a team transformation. Journal of Marketing Education, 21, 164–174.
• Gorton, A. R., & Schneider, T. G. (1991). Schools-based leadership: Challenges and opportunities. Iowa: Wim C. Brown Company Publisher.
• Greenfield, D. W. (1995). Towards a theory of school administration: the centrality of leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 31 (1), 61–85.
• Gunter, H. (2004). Labels and labeling in the field of educational leadership. Discourse - Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 25 (1), 21-41.
• Halverson, R. R. (2007). How leaders use artifacts to structure professional community in schools. Professional learning communities: Divergence, depth and dilemmas, 11 (37), 93-105.
• Harper, R. S. (2020). COVID-19 and the racial equity implications of reopening college and university campuses. American Journal of Education, 127, 1-10.
• Harris, A. (2020). COVID-19–School leadership in crisis?. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. doi:10.1108/JPCC-06-2020-0045
• Harris, R. P., Moran, T. R., & Moran, V. S. (2004). Managing cultural differences: Global leadership strategies for the 21st century. Oxford: Elsevier.
• Harvey, S., Royal, M., & Stout, D. (2003). Instructor's transformational leadership: University student attitudes and ratings. Psychological Reports, 92 (2), 395–402.
• Irvine, A., Lupart, J., Loreman, T., & McGhie-Richmond, D. (2010). Educational leadership to create authentic inclusive schools: The experiences of principals in a Canadian rural school district. Exceptionality Education International, 20 (2), 70-88.
• Izvercian, M., Potra, S., & Ivascu, L. (2016). Job satisfaction variables: A grounded theory approach. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 221, 86-94.
• Jameel, S. A., & Ahmad, A. (2019, April). Leadership and performance of academic staff in developing countries. Paper presented at the annual meeting of Proceedings of the 33rd International Business Information Management Association Conference, Granada, 6101-6106.
• James, C., Connolly, M., & Hawkins, M. (2019). Reconceptualising and redefining educational leadership practice. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1-18. doi: 10.1080/13603124.2019.1591520.
• Joseph, E. E., & Winston, B. (2005). A correlation of servant leadership, leader trust, and organizational trust. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 26(1), 6-22.
• Juntrasook, A. (2014). You do not have to be the boss to be a leader: Contested meanings of leadership in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 33(1), 19-31.
• Knaub, V. A., Henderson, C., & Fisher, Q. K. (2018). Finding the leaders: An examination of social network analysis and leadership identification in STEM education change. International Journal of STEM Education, 5(1), 26.
• Leithwood, A. K., & Riehl, C. (2005). What do we know already about educational leadership. In W. Firestone & C. Riehl (eds)., A new agenda for research in educational leadership. New York: Teachers College Press.
• Lesinger, Y. F., Dagli, G., Gazi, A. Z., Yusoff, B. S., & Altınay, F. (2016). Investigating the relationship between organizational culture, educational leadership and trust in schools. International Journal of Educational Sciences, 15(1-2), 178-185.
• Lorenzi, P. (2004). Managing for the common good: Prosocial leadership. Organizational dynamics, 33(3), 282-291.
• Maak, T. (2007). Responsible leadership, stakeholder engagement, and the emergence of social capital. Journal of Business Ethics, 74(4), 329-343.
• Middlehurst, R., Goreham, H., & Woodfield, S. (2009). Why research leadership in higher education?: Exploring contributions from the UK’s leadership foundation for higher education. Leadership, 5(3), 311–329.
• Mintrop, R., & Zumpe, E. (2019). Solving real-life problems of practice and education leaders’ school improvement mind-set. American Journal of Education, 125(3), 295-344.
• Murphy, P. M. (2020). COVID-19 and emergency elearning: Consequences of the securitization of higher education for post-pandemic pedagogy. Contemporary Security Policy, 41(3), 1-14.
• Murry, W. J., & Stauffacher, B. K. (2001). Department chair effectiveness: What skills and behaviors do deans, chairs, and faculty in research universities perceive as important?. Arkansas Educational Research and Policy Studies Journal, 1(1), 62-75.
• Özgan, H., & Öztuzcu, R. (2016). Öğretmenlerin sosyal sorumluluk temelli liderliğe ilişkin algılarının incelenmesi. Qualitative Studies, 11(3), 1-12.
• Player, D., Hambrick, H. D., & Robinson, W. (2014). District Readiness to Support School Turnaround: A Users’ Guide to Inform the Work of State Education Agencies and Districts. San Francisco, CA: Center on School Turnaround.
• Sahlberg, P., & Hasak, J. (2017). Small data for big change. Education, 98(1), 7.
• Sellami, A. L., Sawalhi, R., Romanowski, H. M., & Amatullah, T. (2019). Definitions of educational leadership–arab educators’ perspectives. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1-20. doi: 10.1080/13603124.2019.1690701.
• Sharp, C., Nelson, J., Lucas, M., Julius, J., McCrone, T., & Sims, D. (2020). Schools’ Responses to Covid-19: The Challenges Facing Schools and Pupils in September 2020. Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research.
• Smylie, A. M., Murphy, J., & Seashore, L. K. (2016). Caring school leadership: A multidisciplinary, cross-occupational model. American Journal of Education, 123(1), 1-35.
• Spendlove, M. (2007). Competencies for effective leadership in higher education. International Journal of Educational Management, 21(5), 407-417.
• Supovitz, A. J., & Christman, J. B. (2005). Small learning communities that actually learn: Lessons for school leaders. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(9), 649-651.
• Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. CA: Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications.
• Sy, T., Cote, S., & Saavedra, R. (2005). The contagious leader: Impact of the leader's mood on the mood of group members, group affective tone, and group processes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 295−305.
• Tran, H., Hardie, S., & Cunningham, M. W. K. (2020). Leading with empathy and humanity: Why talent-centred education leadership is especially critical amidst the pandemic crisis. International Studies in Educational Administration, 48(1), 39-45.
• Trocchia, J. P., & Andrus, M. D. (2003). Perceived characteristics and abilities of an effective marketing department head. Journal of Marketing Education, 25(1), 5-15.
• Unesco. (2020). COVID-19 and Higher Education: Today and Tomorrow Report. April 9.
• Vogel, L. R. (2012). Leading with hearts and minds: Ethical orientations of educational leadership doctoral students. Values and Ethics in Educational Administration, 10(1), 1-12.
• Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wing, N. S. (2013). Equipping the aspiring principal for the principalship in Hong Kong. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 41(3), 272-288.