Leadership Processes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Leadership Preparation and Training

Abstract

The roles of school leaders have transformed significantly over time, making necessary shifts to place student learning at the core of what principals do. School leadership preparation has also evolved to keep up with the changing responsibilities and challenges that principals encounter. Although effective school leaders are recognized for their character and exemplary practices that contribute to and build collaborative school communities, principals have multiple responsibilities and often experience challenges while leading their schools. The role of the school leader has changed over the course of history. In response to these role shifts, the standards and practices providing the structure for post-secondary preparation and training programs, state certification, and formal evaluation programs have also had to adjust to keep up with societal changes and responsibilities of school leaders. While principals perform their regular responsibilities, with accompanying challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a myriad of new challenges for school leaders around the globe. Although challenges are not new to the principalship, this study seeks to investigate the challenges K-12 school leaders experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, how their leadership preparation and training did or did not prepare them to manage these challenges, and investigate the solutions principals implemented to counter the challenges experienced.