Page 121 - Educational Leadership in a Changing World

6 Educational Leadership in Transition:

Reflections, Integrations, and Paths

Forward

Antonios Kafa
Open University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Anita Trnavčević
University of Primorska, Slovenia
© 2025 Antonios Kafa and Anita Trnavčević
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-504-7.6

The Time to Rethink Educational Leadership
Based on the collective chapters of this edited volume, we can con-
clude that the demands on educational leaders have never been greater.
Ansell and Boin (2019) mentioned that modern societies are increas-
ingly faced with ‘unknown unknowns.’ Yet, they argued on the im-
portant role of a leader during the outbreak of a challenging time. In
particular, they argued that when challenges emerge in societies, con-
stituents look to their leaders to protect them and deal with the crisis
to address any possible consequences (Ansell & Boin, 2019). Crises and
emergency situations, including covid-19, have reshaped school lead-
ers’ practices (Harris & Jones, 2022; Kafa, 2021). Specifically, Striepe
and Cunningham (2022) stated in a scoping review of empirical re-
search studies on school leadership during times of crisis, that crises
impacting school organizations are divided into natural and human
disasters. Natural disasters include fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and so
on, whereas human disasters include numerous school disasters, shoot-
ings, and deaths, among other things (Striepe & Cunningham, 2022).
In different contexts, not only disasters but also other challenges were
amplified during and after the covid-19 lockdown (Sia et al., 2023).
For example, communication with parents has been changing, expec-
tations of schools’ stakeholders have been changing, and pressures on
schools are increasing.
Therefore, demands on educational leaders have never been greater.
Based on the chapters of this edited volume’s challenges, contextual el-
ements, quality issues, professional well-being, and the importance of

Trnavčević, A., & Kafa, A. (Eds.). (2025). Educational leadership
in a changing world: Challenges, practices, contexts and insights.
University of Primorska Press.