The COVID-19 pandemic sent education into a tailspin. It disrupted traditional modes of learning and wreaked havoc on education stakeholders' wellbeing. Amid this chaos, education middle leaders had to find innovative strategies to ensure that high-quality learning continued. Unfortunately, while there is a growing body of literature on senior leadership and managing crises, less is known about the lived experiences of middle leaders while leading during a crisis. Using a narrative research approach, this chapter aimed to contribute to this conversation by telling the story of a midlevel higher education leader in the Caribbean who ‘led from the middle' to ensure that student learning continued during the COVID-19 pandemic. Emphasis was placed on her leadership experiences while navigating the vagaries of the pandemic and the idiosyncrasies of middle leadership. The results revealed the importance of leading with care, leveraging relationships, and having the support of senior leadership to empower middle leaders and provide them with a sense of agency during times of crisis.
TopIntroduction
The COVID-19 pandemic shook the very fabric of higher education (Gurukkal, 2020; Harris & Jones, 2020; Rashid & Yadav, 2020). Higher education leaders all over the world had to realign and reposition the way they viewed and delivered education as the coronavirus supernova uprooted traditional modalities of learning (Kalloo et al., 2020; Leacock & Warrican, 2020; Marshall et al., 2020; Rashid & Yadav, 2020; Thornton, 2020;). As the pandemic became more widespread, and health protocols began to take prominence, millions of tertiary level students across the world were unable to access in-person learning. Emergency remote learning became ubiquitous and somewhat of a panacea for education stakeholders.
The health calamities experienced during the pandemic exacerbated many of the challenges that academic leaders faced. In addition to concerns about health and psychological wellbeing, education leaders also had to tackle issues of inequity, learning loss, and online instructional quality. As such, how educational leaders lead during the pandemic will be used to determine the extent of their success as leaders and, to a large extent, the success of the institution in managing the crisis. There is consensus in the literature that crises disrupt traditional educational practices and threaten individual and institutional reputations (Bagwell, 2020; Fortunato et al., 2018; Gigliotti, 2020; Leacock & Warrican, 2020; Marshall et al., 2020; Thornton, 2020; Wilmot & Thompson, 2021). A crisis can be identified by four characteristics: a threat to a system, time pressure, an ill-structured situation, and the lack of adequate resources for response (Sutherland, 2017, as cited in Longmuir, 2021, p. 2).
Due to the far-reaching educational implications that can stem from a crisis, the leadership response by educational leaders has important ramifications for all stakeholders (e.g., administrative staff, students, and faculty) involved. The leadership of post-secondary institutions becomes even more significant when faced with a crisis. Therefore, crisis leadership in education requires education leaders to be adaptive, flexible, and transformative when they lead during times of uncertainty.
As Fortunato et al. (2018) note:
When crises do arise, it is also expected that leaders demonstrate the competencies necessary to manage multiple dimensions simultaneously, including the ability to analyze the situation, mobilize appropriate resources, respond in an appropriate and timely manner, and communicate any decisions and their rationale to all relevant internal and external stakeholder groups (p. 1).
However, being an academic leader during a crisis may be even more complex and nuanced than Fortunato explains. The ability to be adaptive, flexible, and transformative may be contingent on the leadership position that the individual holds at the institution. Senior education leaders, for example, have more flexibility and autonomy to make critical decisions within a short space of time (Harris & Jones, 2020; Nobile, 2018; Zhou & Deneen, 2020). Contrastingly, for middle leaders, the process may be a bit more bureaucratic and nuanced. Because of their limited autonomy, decisions made by middle leaders that are deemed to be critical, must go through the relevant communication channels before they are approved.